Twitter Now Allows Users To Subscribe To Replies Of A Tweet

Recently, Twitter has been focusing on developing conversations on the company’s platform to make them easier to follow, join in and block (in some certain cases). In the latest test of Twitter which was announced in a tweet, the company said that users now can subscribe to replies of a tweet that is particularly interesting and they’d like to follow as well as see the progress of the conversation. The company designs this feature to complement the current notifications feature which may have been turned on for the “must-follow” accounts.

Several users have already allowed Twitter to give them a notification every time there is an account which they’d like to follow posts a new tweet. After this new test, you now can directly visit that new tweet as well as turn on the feature to get reply notifications.

If you turn on the new option, you will find a bell icon for notification in the screen’s top-right corner while you are reading tweets in the mobile app version of Twitter.

There will be three options when you click that bell icon, including subscribing to the “top” replies, subscribing to the tweet’s all responses or turning off its reply notifications.

According to Twitter, included in “top” replies will be the ones from the tweet’s author or any mentioned accounts or accounts you follow.

These “interesting” replies are in the same set which has been previously tested with icons rather than labels based on text and with highlighting in different ways, such as through using labels like “Author” or “Original Tweeter.” For instance, in one test, the icon of a microphone is put beside a tweet from the original post to help users spot the tweet’s replies more easily.

The broader aim of the new test and the previous ones is personalizing the experience users have when they participate in conversations on Twitter by showing what followed accounts are saying while making it easier to track conversations by observing when the original post, as well as the mentioned accounts, have joined in.

In this newest test, if users want, Twitter allows them to actually subscribe to those kinds of replies or all the responses of a tweet, which is a further step taken by the company.

The new test appears when the company is trying to find a solution to the overwhelming problem affecting conversation health in many ways. Twitter is also endeavoring to create as well as enforce stricter rules about online harassment and abuse.

Moreover, last month, the company officially introduced a feature called “Hide Replies” in Canada which would let original poster put an icon behind the replies that they think we're not valuable, therefore they were not displayed prominently during the conversation. It is still unclear how the latest reply notifications feature would work alongside “Hide Replies.” However, supposedly, users would still receive alerts when their followed accounts responded, even when the original poster chose to hide their replies.

According to Twitter, the new experiment is now on Android or iOS.