Twitter Briefly Tests New Unfollow Suggestions Feature

• Earlier this week Twitter tested a new feature that suggests users that you should unfollow.
• The test ran only for a few days and showed recommended unfollow suggestions in a pop-up menu.
• The microblogging platform revealed that the company is trying to identify means of offering clean user timelines.

With government organizations, media, and even its own users being critical of the abundance of fake news, bots and spam Twitter is actively trying to offer a better user experience. The company recently removed hundreds of accounts that were linked to political propaganda and has removed millions of users from the platform.

Some Twitter users reported that they spotted a new feature which showed a list of Twitter accounts to unfollow. The feature was tested earlier this week by the microblogging platform, and it may become a part of the service in the near future. Accounts that have a suspicious activity or too much spam are flagged and are marked as unfollow suggestions. Users can choose to accept or ignore the suggestions from Twitter and effectively clean up their timelines.

Twitter is now suggesting accounts to UNFOLLOW!

h/t @medavep who got told to unfollow me! pic.twitter.com/PNaY7aQ9i0

— Matt Navarra (I quit X. Follow me on Threads) (@MattNavarra) August 29, 2018

The microblogging platform revealed in a statement “We know that people want a relevant Twitter timeline. One way to do this is by unfollowing people they don’t engage with regularly. We ran an incredibly limited test to surface accounts that people were not engaging with to check if they’d like to unfollow them.”

The average monthly user count has dropped by 1 million after the platform began actively acting against bots, fake accounts, hate speech and spam. The company also took action against third-party apps that took advantage of the Twitter API to steal user data, and they have been permanently banned from the platform. However, the social media platform revealed that user activity has been increasing due to a cleaner user experience.

If the new feature goes live, it will definitely contribute towards having a much cleaner user experience. With the US mid-term elections coming up later this year, the social media platform will have to be extra vigilant if it wants to avoid any controversies about political influence campaigns and fake news.

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