Twitter has been an invaluable resource for Malaysians to get the latest news on what’s happening right now and interact with them, fast.
Since the beginning of the year, Twitter has gone through updates and has received new features, all while staying true to what the platform has always been.
Here are the 10 biggest changes Twitter has had in the first half of 2021:
1. Do More In Spaces
Spaces are Twitter’s version of Clubhouse, an audio-centric social space where users can host talks. Think of it like Twitch but with audio only.
Since January 2022, Spaces has been made more user-friendly with a host of discovery, browsing, and interactive features.
It also has gained the ability to be recorded. A host of a “Space” can record a session, and stream it up to 30-days after the Spaces ends. Just like Twitch. Other users may make 30-second slips of a Spaces sessions instead.
2. Automated Accounts Labels
In February 2022, Twitter celebrated bots, by letting people who run automated accounts to self-identify their accounts. This feature was introduced to encourage bot transparency and support good bots which is a part of what makes Twitter what it is today.
3. Pin Direct Messages (DM)
To make DMs more useful, Twitter rolled out the ability for people to pin DM conversations to the top of their direct message inbox and expanded search capabilities to include keywords in addition to usernames.
4. Privacy Made Easy
To make its privacy policy easier to understand, Twitter updated it to be less lawyer speak and more readable to more people in May. You can check it out for yourself here.
Twitter also launched the Twitter Data Dash Game, a game that you can play on the web that teaches users about privacy. You can try it for yourself, here.
5. Improved Reporting Flow
Like any platform on the internet, Twitter is not free from bad actors. They received millions of reports of just people being mean on the platform. To make victims feel heard and supported Twitter decided in June, to make it easier for users to report harmful or abusive tweets.
6. Reply Prompts In More Languages
After seeing that people changed or deleted potentially harmful replies over 30% of the time when prompted in English and 47% of the time in Portuguese (BR), Twitter, in February, rolled out reply prompts to everyone with their device settings in English globally, Portuguese in Brazil, Spanish in Mexico, Turkish globally, and Arabic in Saudi Arabia.
7. Sensitive Media Labels
Starting in February, Twitter users on Web, Android, and (some) iOS devices, can add one-time warnings to photos and videos they tweet.
8. Quit A Conversation
Understanding that a lot of people on Twitter often get stuck in conversations and threats that they do not want to be a part of, Twitter introduced a new control to let users remove themselves from tweets, threads, or conversations quietly and discreetly.
9. Make Photos More Accessible
In April, Twitter introduced ALT badges, a way for Twitter users to describe the image that they are posting to help improve accessibility.
10. Closed Captions
A boon for those of us who like to scroll our Twitter feed in silence, The ability to toggle closed captions when viewing video tweets was introduced in June.
11. Bonus New Feature – It Chirps Now!
Speaking of sounds, here’s a bonus new Twitter feature. While on the Twitter app, pull down the Twitter feed to refresh it, you should hear two chirps, once when you pulled it down and another when you let it go.
