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Twitter is currently testing a feature you might dislike
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Twitter has been testing a downvote feature with select users since last summer. Now, the app is expanding the feature globally.
Last July, Twitter announced that some iOS users would see options to upvote and downvote replies to certain tweets.
Unlike the like button (or a frequently-requested dislike button), the vote options are private and exist purely to help Twitter better understand which replies are relevant to a conversation. Twitter also reassured users at the time that their votes won’t affect the order in which replies appear under tweets.
The test has seemingly been a success, and Twitter is now expanding the feature to make downvoting available to more iOS, Android and desktop users globally.
Twitter‘s Safety Account (@TwitterSafety) released a thread explaining more about the downvote experiment and what the app has learnt about the feature so far.
We’ve been testing how we can surface the most relevant replies within Tweets with the use of downvoting on replies. As we’re expanding the experiment to a global audience, we want to share a little about what we have learned thus far!👇https://t.co/wM0CpwRgo6
According to the social media site, the majority of users who hit the orange downvote arrow did so because they found the reply they were reacting to offensive or irrelevant to the tweet it sat under.
Twitter also revealed that downvoting became the most popular way for users to flag content they didn’t want to see. This isn’t all that surprising considering the downvote button sits right under the tweet, while other options, such as report, mute, block and ‘Not interested in this Tweet’, are two clicks away under the option menu and often require users to answer further questions about the tweet.
Lastly, Twitter revealed that people who have tested the feature agreed it had improved the quality of their conversations on the app, so we aren’t surprised the app is expanding the experiment further by bringing the feature to more users.
Of course, Twitter isn’t the first app to implement downvotes, with sites like Reddit and YouTube also having rolled out the feature in the past.
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Hannah joined Trusted Reviews as a staff writer in 2019 after graduating with a degree in English from Royal Holloway, University of London. She’s also worked and studied in the US, holding positions …
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Founded in 2003, Trusted Reviews exists to give our readers thorough, unbiased and independent advice on what to buy.
Today, we have millions of users a month from around the world, and assess more than 1,000 products a year.
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
