Twitter is slowly rolling out the ability to downvote tweet replies by allowing a select number of accounts to try out the new feature.
Twitter originally shared the news of a downvote feature back in July of 2021. Only specific accounts will see the change as the platform continues to test it and gain insights into its effectiveness.
According to Twitter, downvoting is to help understand the platform which comments people find most relevant, so they stand out more. In other words, more relevant replies would be near the top by downvoting replies that users do not feel are as relevant.
See the orange downvote arrow? (Twitter)
Twitter says that downvotes aren’t public and that early tests suggest that “downvoting is the most frequently used way for people to flag content they don’t want to see.”
We’ve been testing how we can surface the most relevant replies within Tweets with the use of downvoting on replies. As we’re expanding the experiment to a global audience, we want to share a little about what we have learned thus far!
👇 https://t.co/wM0CpwRgo6— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) February 3, 2022
According to their research, Twitter suggests that users who have tested the new feature agree that it has improved the quality of conversations on the platform.
In 2021, Twitter said that downvotes would only be visible to the account user and that votes wouldn’t change the order of replies. Curiously, you can’t downvote any of the tweet replies from Twitter itself.
Reddit’s Twitter account had some fun with the news when it was initially announced last year.
— Reddit (@Reddit) July 21, 2021
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