Twitter's Privacy Feature Plans Include Option to Hide Your Old Tweets

Twitter is planning new privacy-related features that provide users with greater control over follower lists and who can see their posts and likes, reports Bloomberg.

Twitter Feature
The plans are said to include an option to archive old tweets so that other users can't see them after a set period of time designated by the account holder (such as 30, 60, or 90 days, or a whole year), as well as the ability to edit follower lists.

According to Bloomberg, the plans are an effort to make people more comfortable interacting and sharing on Twitter, and are related to what Twitter executives call "social privacy," or how users manage their identities and reputations on the social network.

Internal research at the company reportedly found that many Twitter users don't understand the privacy basics, like whether their account is private or public, which causes them to engage less on the social network because they don't know what other people will be able to see about them.

To counter this, Twitter will start prompting users to review whether their accounts are public or private beginning in September. Its privacy team are also working on other potential changes including the ability to remove followers (as opposed to blocking them), hide liked tweets, and remove oneself from a public conversation.

Twitter has no timeline for some of the changes, while some features, like the archive option, are still in the "concept phase," but Twitter plans to let people remove followers starting this month, and to let users remove themselves from conversations by the end of the year.

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Top Rated Comments

macduke Avatar
42 months ago
You can try to hide your Tweets, but once you post something on the internet, it’s there forever.
Score: 17 Votes (Like | Disagree)
WWPD Avatar
42 months ago
If you have Tweets you want to hide...maybe you should stay off Twitter.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jimbobb24 Avatar
42 months ago
Good. Dragging up random past tweets of people from years ago to try and shame or cancel them is one of the ugliest features of modern journalism and culture.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
T Coma Avatar
42 months ago
Perfect for important people who like to issue grand statements on important issues, but also like to flip flop.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Marco Klobas Avatar
42 months ago
I have 0 likes not because I don't want to express appreciation/gratitude to others' tweets. Simply because I don't want the whole world know (potentially) what I like through my Twitter profile.

I'm fine if someone find my like directly through the specific liked tweet. Not through a public list containing everything I liked so far.

I get that it's against the social "logic". Still, we are not all the same: some prefer to expose themself continuously, expressing their opinion or feelings (often making more noise than anything else). Others prefer to keep a lower profile.

Social networks should offer this kind of "privacy" options, too IMO. It's a small, simple thing: just a setting, nothing difficult to implement.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jamisonbaines Avatar
42 months ago
Surpised there isnt more positive sentiment towards this. My Twitter account is more than a decade old, I would enable this feature.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)