Twitter pulls the plug on feature that warned users before heated discussions – Times of India

Earlier this month, Twitter announced that it will roll out a feature that will warn users if the discussion was likely to heat up or get intense. The move was announced as a part of the company’s ‘conversational health’ initiative. The new feature was released for iOS and Android platforms for testing, but now a report by Mashable suggests that the company has pulled the plug on the feature.
According to the report, the new feature wasn’t a hit among the users and as this was a limited experience so only few randomised accounts were eligible to get the prompts.
“Ever want to know the vibe of a conversation before you join in? We’re testing prompts on Android and iOS that give you a heads up if the convo you’re about to enter could get heated or intense. This is a work in progress as we learn how to better support healthy conversation.” wrote Twitter when the feature was first introduced.
This isn’t the first case where the company clawed back after releasing a new feature. Previously discontinued features on the platform include the controversial health features, quote-tweet prompts, ability to limit replies and others. Meanwhile, the platform’s Stories like feature, Fleets was suspended altogether.
The micro-blogging platform also recently rolled out a new feature that allows you to remove followers without blocking them. The action is also dubbed as ‘soft block. To silently remove a follower or to soft block someone, you have to go to your profile and click on followers. After that click on the three dots next to the follower you want to remove and select ‘remove this follower’.
Soft block is quite different from block because the users can still access your tweets and profile. The users will be allowed to direct message you as well but they won’t be able to see your updates in their feeds. The users will also be allowed to follow you again. Till now, to remove a follower, you only had the option to block.