Twitter illustration. - Omar Marques / SOPA Images / Sipa / SIPA

Twitter announced on Tuesday the appearance of a new feature allowing its users to avoid the use of insults and other expressions beyond their thought. The device set up in the form of a “restricted test” concerns only the iOS version of the application, said the company on its own Twitter account.

When things get heated, you may say things you don't mean. To let you rethink a reply, we're running a limited experiment on iOS with a prompt that gives you the option to revise your reply before it's published if it uses language that could be harmful.

- Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) May 5, 2020

He will suggest to internet users to turn their tongue seven times in their mouth before validating the publication of a message "using potentially hurtful vocabulary". If such words are detected, the tool will display a window giving the possibility of "correcting the publication before it is put online". Twitter believes that "when the debate escalates, we may have to say things we do not think" and it may therefore be wise to "rephrase an answer".

A similar function on Instagram

A Twitter spokesperson told Bloomberg that the corrections were not mandatory. The 166 million daily users of the platform will therefore be able to send a message despite being told that it can be insulting. Once sent, the tone of the posts can not be softened either because the functionality is not a tool for revising tweets.

By launching this test, Twitter offers its users a function that Instagram followers are familiar with. A similar tool is indeed already available on the social network bought by Facebook in 2012.

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  • Application
  • Social media
  • Insult
  • Twitter
  • High-Tech