‘Downvoting’ could be coming to your Twitter soon. What it would mean for your feed
Twitter is gradually rolling out a “downvoting” button for select users across the world, the app announced on Feb. 3.
But what does clicking the down arrow really mean for users of the platform?
First off, downvotes, or essentially dislikes, will not be able to be seen publicly. For instance, a Twitter user will not be able to see how many people have downvoted their tweets.
Instead, it’s about allowing Twitter users to choose what content they want to see. If a user downvotes a particular kind of tweet, the platform will take note of it and hide similar content.
“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,” Twitter Support said back in July 2021 when it was testing downvoting.
Platform users are split on the idea of allowing users to hide the content they see, with some saying the feature will allow a greater narrowing of opinions.
“Strengthening the walls of Echo Chambers,” one user commented.
Zach Bowders, a data analyst, told The Washington Post that the new feature concerned him.
“It rubbed me the wrong way in a lot of ways,” Bowders told the news outlet. “We’re continuing to narrow the perspective of the world that we see. We’re really just creating a false narrative.”
However, others say the new button can help hide offensive tweets or online harassment.
“Downvotes can help sink replies that aren’t helpful or are offensive,” Eric Abent wrote for Slash Gear. “There’s less of a chance of people dogpiling a reply just because they’ve seen that it’s heavily downvoted already.”
Twitter says that so far in the experiment, most users shared that they downvoted a tweet “because the reply was perceived as offensive, or because they perceived it as not relevant, or both.”
“People who have tested downvoting agree it improves the quality of conversations on Twitter,” Twitter Support said. “We’re excited to see how others think of it as it becomes available to more of you.”
Twitter says more users on desktop, and soon iOS and Android, will have access to the function as the testing rollout continues.
This story was originally published February 4, 2022 at 6:33 PM with the headline "‘Downvoting’ could be coming to your Twitter soon. What it would mean for your feed."
