Twitter 'Unmention' Feature Now Being Explored to Help Users Control 'Unwanted Attention'

Urian B., Tech Times 15 June 2021, 02:06 am

Twitter "unmention" feature is now being explored in order to help users control the "unwanted attention" they might be getting. Could this feature help Twitter improve their users' privacy and help them avoid getting tagged or mentioned for things they might not want?

Twitter 'Unmention' Helps Users Get Rid of 'Unwanted Attention'

According to the story by Engadget, Twitter is now exploring a brand new way to help prevent types of "unwanted attention" its users might be receiving that quite often results in harassment. The company is now working on tools that if launched, could help users prevent people from mentioning them without having to block or mute them.

Twitter product designer Dominic Camozzi described this feature as in its "early concepts." The new feature would help give Twitter users the sheer ability to unmention themselves and even gain control of who can tag them within the future tweets.

Similar to Facebook Untag Feature

This feature is quite similar to untagging yourself on Facebook. Unmentioning would essentially unlink the users from a tweet while helping prevent the user from being tagged in any of the future replies, according to the mock-ups that were shared by Camozzi.

The feature could also help users block users from mentioning them some time in the future without any need to block their accounts directly. Another potential iteration would allow users to block any new mentions for a specific amount of days.

Feature to Help Limit Replies

The concept is quite similar to one that would allow users to limit replies directly to their tweet. Just like that feature, the ability is to help "unmention" users and could help them address some of the potentially more toxic behaviors that could often lead to large scale harassment on Twitter.

An example of this is in one version that was previewed by Camozzi, the app could potentially notify users when they start to get a number of mentions. Starting from there, users could easily hop directly into their settings and directly change who is allowed to mention them or even pause them altogether to help "quickly address" the whole situations that could have suddenly escalated.

Twitter to Fight Large-Scale Harassment

The feature gives its users additional tools to help them deal with situations when viral tweets would result in large-scale harassment. Quite unlike limiting replies, which has to be done before sending a tweet, the "unmention" feature can be used even after the fact.

The tools might have ot been able to prevent people from saying nasty things altogether but it could still shield users from getting to wade through a whole mass of toxic replies or even manually block or maybe even mute hundreds of accounts. Camozzi also did not technically note if these particular features could make their way directly to its users. However, Twitter is still looking for additional feedback on the "unmention" ideas.

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Written by Urian B.