While the wait for an Edit Button continues, and quickly on the heels of the death of “Fleets,” Twitter has announced that iOS users may find themselves beta-testing a new feature that will include down voting tweets on the social media service. The thumbs down button will only appear on replies, not primary tweets, and is apparently being considered as a means of bringing the best replies up and the sending the worst down ala Reddit. This new test for Twitter is so similar to Reddit in fact, the official Reddit account replied to the news with the Megan “Interesting” meme from Drake & Josh.
Explaining the purpose of the new feature and the potential beta-testers, Twitter wrote: “Some of you on iOS may see different options to up or down vote on replies. We’re testing this to understand the types of replies you find relevant in a convo, so we can work on ways to show more of them. Your downvotes aren’t public, while your upvotes will be shown as likes.” It’s unclear as of this writing who will and won’t receive the beta on iOS or if it will be open to everyone that uses the app.
Users were quick to decry this decision by Twitter to implement down votes, with one user writing: “This is a terrible idea, from a perspective of social psychology. Just don’t, really, don’t open that door.”
Some of you on iOS may see different options to up or down vote on replies. We’re testing this to understand the types of replies you find relevant in a convo, so we can work on ways to show more of them.
Your downvotes aren’t public, while your upvotes will be shown as likes. pic.twitter.com/hrBfrKQdcY
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) July 21, 2021
Another added: “The site doesn’t need this. Stop trying to be other social media sites. Twitter is frequented because of it’s own features.”
One user summed up the negative feelings by saying: “Adding tools people can use to harass/abuse people ain’t it. Y’all need to take a step back and reevaluate a lot of things it seems.”
As expected many of the replies had to do with the continued interest for an Edit button on the platform. A previous survey released by Twitter seemingly alluded to interest at the company for an Edit button but perhaps not in the way users might think, rather than a traditional Edit button on a tweet they asked users if they had interest in an Undo Send feature.
