While the long-awaited edit button has been the topic of much conversation over the last few days, Twitter has sneakily added an ‘unmention’ feature for a small group of web users. An unmention feature has been hinted at before in the past, with nothing ever coming of it. Until now.
The official announcement came via a tweet from Twitter itself.
Don’t let the trolls get to you
How do you say “Don’t @ me,” without saying “Don’t @ me”?
We’re experimenting with Unmentioning—a way to help you protect your peace and remove yourself from conversations—available on Web for some of you now. pic.twitter.com/rlo6lqp34H
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) April 7, 2022
Using the new feature is about as easy as you’d expect. All one needs to do is choose the ‘Leave this conversation’ button in the tweet’s options. Doing so will help avoid notifications from conversations you never wanted any part in.
At present, unmentioning yourself doesn’t remove any text – it just stops sending the notifications to you.
With some people already having the unmention button, there’s no way of knowing when Twitter intends on making the update a universal feature for all its users, if at all. When the feature was last hinted at, the year was still 2021. Twitter likes to take its time with tests. Sometimes it scraps its tests entirely.
Let’s hope that isn’t the case here.
This isn’t the first time Twitter has updated features in an attempt to keep arguments at a minimum. The most notable of these features is its Anti-Harassment Safety Mode which automatically blocks users for a week when using harmful language towards you. This newest update seems to be more on the calmer side of things, allowing users to deal with unwanted arguments directly.
The great news is now you have more time to look at silly cat pictures since you’re spending less time dealing with trolls.