Twitter has announced it is introducing a new feature that will allow users to remove themselves from conversations they don’t want to be a part of. As part of the announcement, the company says it is an initial test that is available on the web version of the platform.
Though Twitter refers to this as “unmentioning,” many of its users who have once being spoken ill of on the platform would see this as a good initiative.
If perhaps you find that you’re a part of the Beta testers you can select the three-dot menu next to the reply feature. This will initiate a prompt with the option to “get you out of this conversation”. However, you will be notified that exiting the conversation will untag you in the replies, though your username will still appear.
Note that when a person unmention him or herself in a conversation, the Twitter handle will turn gray alerting other users that the so-called account is no longer a part of the conversation and can’t be tagged back into the thread. Unmentioning will also turn off notifications, so you won’t be able to see the hateful or other unwanted comments or replies people send. “Unmentioning—a way to help you protect your peace and remove yourself from conversations—available on Web for some of you now,” Twitter says.
The company is yet to state the time the feature will be available on mobile.
Twitter believes that this feature will be incredibly useful during these politically tense times, since it will allow users to effortlessly dismiss a conversation and avoid being disturbed by a particularly nosy or aggressive follower.
Unmention was first teased in June last year, by the company’s privacy designer Dominic Camozzi. Back then, Camozzi expressed the project as a “concept” that would allow you to untag your username during a thread, preventing you from being mentioned again in that conversation and preventing additional notifications.