An analysis of more than 100 million tweets published in the early months of the pandemic reveals the sources of misinformation and disinformation that have since plagued society and driven mistrust in the COVID-19 vaccines. Misguided medical professionals, conspiracy theorists, and fact-checking the wrong people were all cited as contributing factors.
Twitter has revealed yet another test, this one that makes it very easy to tell when you've done something that has jeopardized your account. Those who are part of this test may see a new banner above their account's feed if they've had their account locked or suspended, as well as what the penalty means and how the user can proceed in light of it.
A popular Twitter account will debut on Netflix in September as a new animated series for adult viewers. Called Chicago Party Aunt, the series will revolve around the character Diane Dunbrowski voiced by Lauren Ash. Though we don't yet have a trailer for the upcoming show, Netflix has revealed a still image of the animation.
Twitter is now testing upvote and downvote buttons on tweets, though they're only visible to users who access the platform through the company's iOS app at this time. The idea of upvote and downvote buttons are nothing new -- they're a core aspect of Reddit, for example, and many people have asked for them on platforms like Facebook. They're also a potential problem for social media sites.
Twitter is axing Fleets, its attempt to copy the success of Instagram Stories, despite only launching the feature to all users at the end of 2020. Fleets - vanishing text, photos, and videos, which would automatically delete after 24 hours - had been rolled out to all Twitter users in November last year, but struggled to gain traction.
If you're getting unwanted replies to an already-published tweet, you now have the opportunity to restrict who can join the conversation. Though Twitter has offered the option to limit who is allowed to reply to tweets for around a year, a new update to the feature allows users to apply the same restrictions to tweets after they've been published.
There are innumerable online services and apps these days that it is almost impossible to keep track of all the usernames and passwords for them. Thankfully, some of those services allow you to sign up and log into their network using a Google account or, sometimes, a Facebook account. Two years ago, Apple launched its own take on that convenience with "Sign in with Apple," and Twitter might be adopting the technology to help make it easier for both old and new users to jump on board with their iPhones and iPad.
Twitter has been very transparent about some of the concepts it is considering behind closed doors, the latest batch of which revolve around the issue of privacy. Though none of these concepts are features (yet), they do reveal the kind of perspective Twitter is taking when it approaches this topic, including the best ways it can accommodate the varying needs of its users.
Twitter was designed around the idea of something like a public bulletin board where people can post short snippets the length of a normal SMS. It has definitely grown out of that shell quite a while back and has given birth to use cases and concerns that some users might have developed that went beyond the platform's core functionality. It seems that Twitter is experimenting with a few features that give users a bit more control over their posts and replies to their posts but at the expense of a bit more mental overhead for those same users.
Twitter has revealed some concepts its team has developed behind closed doors, ones that aren't yet part of the app but that may be implemented in the future. Among other things, the concepts would allow users to tailor their tweets to only certain followers, making it possible to limit who sees tweets that you don't want to make visible to everyone.
This week the folks at the development office at Twitter opened the gates to Instagram. If you're using an iOS device, you can now share Tweets from your Twitter app directly to Instagram Stories. This should curb the use of screenshots of Tweets in Instagram stories, as the developers at Twitter suggest. They said "pls stop posting screenshots of Tweets on IG Stories," so they were nice about it!
There is no stopping Twitter's push to finally monetize its social network, even if it remains to be seen how successful these attempts will really be. It kicked things off earlier this month with the launch of the much-rumored Twitter Blue subscription that offers features, both wanted and unwanted, for a price. Twitter is now accepting applications for its more exclusive Super Follows and Ticketed Spaces, but the fine print may actually discourage some creators and publishers from fully jumping aboard.