What’s the one feature Twitter users have always wanted? The correct feature! Twitter has assured several times that the feature will not exist. But now the social media portal is at least testing a form of correction: deleting your own mentions on Twitter.
Mentions on Twitter: from annoying to annoying
Should this function actually come, many Twitter users would be pleased. Because it is certainly one of the most annoying features on the platform. As soon as someone mentions you in a tweet via the @ handle, you are suddenly part of a conversation.
That in itself would even work. But because users on Twitter often simply reply to a tweet via the Reply function, your name mention on Twitter appears in every single re-tweet. Accordingly, you will be notified with every new tweet.
As long as it’s relevant to you, that’s still okay too. But we all know annoying, never-ending reply tweets in which we are involved without our will. Sometimes they are also harassing threads in which users mentioned via the reply function are simply attacked.
Twitter tests unmention function
So far, there has been little that can be done about this. It is possible to ask the person who created the original tweet to manually remove the mention on Twitter. It is also possible to mute other users. But that only works until no new user re-tweets an older tweet (with your name mentioned).
If a tweet from Dominic Camozzi, Twitter’s privacy designer, is to be believed, Twitter is currently testing a solution, a feature called “Unmention”.
Strictly speaking, unmention would not be a correction function. But you could at least correct an aspect in a tweet, and remove your own mention on Twitter, just as you can do via “untagging” on Instagram or Facebook.
Twitter confirmed to Mashable that such an unmention function is currently in the idea phase. In the process, users:inside should even have several options, as Camozzi shows.
If other users you do not follow mention you in a tweet, you should not only be informed about it. With an “unmention” you generally revoke the person’s permission to mention you in the future.
Apparently, Twitter is also thinking about giving users the option of turning off mentions for a certain period of time (one day, three days or seven days).
This would actually give you some peace of mind from mentions on Twitter.
Is the feature really coming?
But so far, Twitter is still collecting feedback on the feature. It is still unclear whether the “unmention” will come, and in what form.
However, the first reactions on Twitter already indicate that many users would be very happy about it.
