Twitter Tries Upvote And Downvote Features For IOS Users

New features on Twitter sometimes bring pros and cons for its users. (doc. twitter)

JAKARTA - It seems that 2021 will be the busiest year for Twitter. The reason is that the social media company is diligently adding new features on its platform. Now, twitter is testing a new system for upvoting and downvoting replies.

According to Twitter, which was launched from Mashable, Friday, July 23, the purpose of this new feature is to help identify the type of content that only users want to see.

"Some of you on iOS may see different options to upvote or downvote replies. We're testing this to understand what types of replies you think are relevant in a conversation, so we can figure out how to show more replies," Twitter said.

On the one hand, Twitter emphasizes that this feature does not represent a new way to compare people, "This is not a dislike button. In this research experiment, the thumbs down icon was a disapproval sign telling us that you think the reply is irrelevant to the conversation. We want to better understand the types of replies you make and are irrelevant in a (conversation)," Twitter said.

It looks like upvotes and downvotes on Twitter will work a lot like the ones on Reddit. The idea is that users can upvote tweets they like or approve, and downvote tweets that users don't like or oppose.

Twitter first teased the idea of a downvote system in November 2020, but at the time the company insisted it was exploring new features frequently and often those features were never rolled out to a wider user base.

Apparently, Twitter upvotes are one step closer to launching. Twitter explained to Mashable how many users saw the test, and whether the test was limited to certain countries.

"The voting feature is not public and does not affect the reply rating. In the experimental group, the Like button was removed for Upvotes, and in this case Upvotes are counted as Likes," explained a Twitter spokesperson.

When asked if Twitter intends to expand testing to include Android users, the spokesperson declined to talk about future plans, "For now, we're only testing this on iOS," said a Twitter spokesperson.

Upvote and Downvote Features Get Strong Criticism

Quoted from MakeusOf, Twitter's proposal to add upvote and downvote buttons, received a lot of negative criticism. It didn't take long for the user to pepper the reply to the company's announcement tweet on his official Twitter account.

The main concern seems to be that users believe this new feature will only allow hateful users to harass others anonymously.

In addition, users also took the opportunity to suggest other features they think should be added on Twitter, such as a tweet gallery for artists or photographers, an edit tweet button - a request that was rejected by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.

But the best part of all of this is probably the Reddit response. The forum site simply responded to Twitter with a meme, with the caption "Interesting."