Twitter is considering letting users tweet to ‘trusted friends’ only

Another upcoming feature could help you easily separate your personal and professional lives on Twitter.

What you need to know

• Twitter has previewed a feature that will let you limit your tweets to “trusted friends.”
• It will work similarly to Instagram’s “close friends” feature, which was released in 2018.
• Twitter is also exploring ways to enable users to take on different ‘facets’ from a single account.

Twitter has revealed that it is working on a few features that will give users more control over who can view their tweets.

With “Trusted Friends,” users could choose to tweet to a group of close friends. You will no longer have to toggle your tweets from public to protected or juggle between alternative accounts. Going by its description, the feature appears similar to the “close friends” option that Instagram offers.

Another approach that Twitter is currently exploring is to let users tweet from distinct personas within a single account. The ‘Facets’ feature will make it possible for users to separate their professional and personal identities easily. Users may even be able to make one or more persona public or private. Twitter will also give you the option to follow just the facets that you’re interested in instead of following the whole account.

Currently, the only way to separate your professional and personal lives on Twitter is to have two different accounts.

The final concept aims to help “people set boundaries in the conversations they own.” It will allow you to choose phrases that you’d prefer not to see. These phrases will be highlighted when someone uses them in a reply, but they can still choose to ignore the guidance. Thanks to the ‘Automatic actions’ option, however, you can choose how to handle replies that ignore your reply preferences, such as moving them to the bottom of the conversation.

A similar feature, which was tweeted by Twitter privacy designer Dominic Camozzi last month, will let users “unmention” themselves to avoid unwanted attention.

Sadly, none of these features are in active development right now. But the “official sneak peek” does suggest that they will eventually make their way to the best Android phones.