Twitter exec teases possible major changes coming in 2020
Twitter is due for a major shakeup.
So appears to be the thinking of the company's vice president of design and research, Dantley Davis, who on Monday announced a series of changes that could come to the platform as early as next year. Well, maybe.
Davis laid out his ideas on, of course, Twitter — prefacing them all with the disclaimer that they are merely "features that [he's] looking forward to in 2020." Still, they represent a possible sweeping change to how users interact with the platform.
The proposed new features are: "Remove me from this conversation," "Don’t allow RT of this tweet," "Don’t allow people to @mention me without my permission," "Remove this @mention from this conversation," and "Tweet this only to: hashtag, interest, or these friends."
Tweet may have been deleted
It's not immediately clear how some of these would work. Would, for example, the ability to remove an @ mention from a thread or tweet suggest that editing tweets is possible? Or would it simply break the link to the @'d account?
We reached out to Twitter for clarification on both the mechanics of the features, and the timeline of their implementation, but the company didn't really want to get into specifics.
"The features mentioned are ideas we're exploring – explorations and experimentation have always been part of our process," wrote Twitter spokesperson Lindsay McCallum over email. "We'll have more to share should we decide to move forward with any of them."
Notably, Davis did take a moment to tell everyone to slow their roll. He reiterated that these are just "ideas" that he's "excited to explore."
Tweet may have been deleted
This testing of the waters by Davis follows on the company's stated goal to improve "conversational health." It suggests that Twitter believes it can constantly iterate its way to positivity. Which, idk, maybe?
SEE ALSO:Twitter's new ad policy prompts politicians to call out Facebook"Our goal is continue to improve the public conversation on Twitter," continued Davis, "and getting feedback from the community on our ideas is helpful as we prioritize our work."
Hopefully the Twitter users providing "feedback" to Davis in his replies do so politely and constructively, or come 2020 the vice president may be retroactively removing himself from the conversation.
