Twitter to indent replies, ask you to double-check a heated reply
Twitter was initially envisioned as a simple way for people to broadcast short bursts of information or sentiments, using text messages even, with very little back and forth between followers. That was only true for the beginning and Twitter exploded into a social network giant that often involved "tweetstorms" and almost epic-length threads of discussion. Of course, that's great for Twitter so instead of curbing that habit, it is testing new features that could at least make users' lives a bit easier.
Twitter discussions can easily get out of hand and, despite the limits imposed by 280 characters, people are still able to flood tweets with comments. That sometimes makes it even harder to see who said what in response to which tweet, especially in the heat of the moment.
To make sure replies are properly seen and understood, Twitter is rolling out a new threaded view on iOS and the Web. It will clearly show which reply was meant for which other reply so you will have fewer chances of replying go to the wrong one by mistake.
Your conversations are the 💙 of Twitter, so we're testing ways to make them easier to read and follow.
Some of you on iOS and web will see a new layout for replies with lines and indentations that make it clearer who is talking to whom and to fit more of the convo in one view. pic.twitter.com/sB2y09fG9t
— Support (@Support) May 5, 2020
Of course, the heat of the moment could also make you say things without giving a second thought and the speed at which we can send out messages only makes it worse. Twitter is now testing a feature that will ask you whether you want to revise your text, just in case you need to pause and take a deep breath. Twitter will do this by scanning your reply to see if it contains potentially harmful language.
This experiment is currently available only on iOS but it's something that Twitter should consider for all its platforms, especially considering the times. Unfortunately, there's still no sign that Twitter will be allowing users to edit their ill-informed or ill-thought tweets any time soon.