Saudi Press

Saudi Arabia and the world
Thursday, Oct 02, 2025

‘Trusted Friends’ and ‘hateful’ language filter: Twitter’s concept features to allow users to choose who & what they want to hear

‘Trusted Friends’ and ‘hateful’ language filter: Twitter’s concept features to allow users to choose who & what they want to hear

Proposed features that would enable Twitter users to limit their audience to only “trusted friends” and choose phrases to be blacklisted have prompted accusations of encouraging “echo chambers” against the social media platform.

In a series of tweets on Thursday, designer Andrew Courter noted that Twitter is “exploring a bunch of ways to control who can see your Tweets.” He shared three such early design concept features to solicit public discussion and feedback, but pointed out that the company is “not building these yet.”

With the ‘Trusted Friends’ feature, comparable to Instagram’s ‘Close Friends’ functionality for its stories, users can “control who can see” their tweets – potentially toggling privacy settings to tailor their audience according to what they put out.

Reasoning that it “could be simpler to talk to who you want, when you want” instead of “juggling alt accounts,” Courter tweeted that “perhaps (users) could also see trusted friends’ tweets first” in their timelines – as opposed to the current algorithm-determined and chronologically-ordered ‘Home’.


According to TechCrunch, it would build on already existing controls that let original posters pick who is able to ‘reply’ to their tweets – those mentioned in the tweet, people they follow, or the default option, ‘everyone’. However, that feature left the actual tweet visible and shareable by anyone.

The second proposed change, under the working name ‘Facets’, would allow people to categorize tweets according to context by “embracing an obvious truth: we’re different people in different contexts” with respect to friends, family, work, and public lives.

According to Courter, this concept lets people tweet “from distinct personas within 1 account,” while enabling other individuals to “follow the whole account” or just the ‘facets’ they find interesting. For instance, a personal persona could relate to hobbies, while a professional persona is work-related.

Meanwhile, the third feature would allow users to filter out phrases deemed to be “hateful, hurtful and violent” or considered “profanity” that they would “prefer not to see” in replies to their tweets. They can also choose “automatic actions” like “moving violating replies to the bottom of the conversation” and “muting accounts that violate twice” despite the prompts.


Followers would then see these phrases “highlighted” in their replies and a prompt nudges them to “learn why” or they can just “ignore the guidance,” according to Courter. Likening it to a “spellcheck” against “sounding like a jerk,” he noted that it could help “set boundaries” for conversations.

The proposals drew a mixed reaction from the platform’s users, with several people raising concerns that the prospect of tweeters picking and choosing their audiences and the replies they would prefer to receive increased the likelihood of “echo chambers” and “virtue signalling.”



“Twitter is a public forum. It’s what makes it different. Close the communities enough, and it gets turned into a Facebook clone. One Facebook style social network is definitely enough,” one person tweeted.

When some users pointed out that the features would “block accounts,” Courter responded that “blocks are underused” and claimed there is a “need to normalize blocking and teach how it works.”

In response to Courter’s contention that the reply filters would “help people be their best selves,” a number of people agreed that it would “set a model for empathetic phrasing,” but others said it sounded like “another attempt to pressure users into ‘acceptable’ speech.”

Other users said the concept of tying different personas to one account had been explored previously by Google with their defunct ‘Circles+’ with one person saying it would lead to individual privacy concerns that are not present with the current workaround of using alternate accounts.


Newsletter

Related Articles

Saudi Press
0:00
0:00
Close
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
UK, Canada, and Australia Officially Recognise Palestine in Historic Shift
New Eye Drops Show Promise in Replacing Reading Glasses for Presbyopia
Dubai Property Boom Shows Strain as Flippers Get Buyer’s Remorse
Top AI Researchers Are Heading Back to China as U.S. Struggles to Keep Pace
JWST Data Brings TRAPPIST-1e Closer to Earth-Like Habitability
UAE-US Stargate Project Poised to Make Abu Dhabi a Global AI Powerhouse
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Kuwait opens bidding for construction of three cities to ease housing crunch.
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
Turkish authorities seize leading broadcaster amid fraud and tax investigation
Qatari prime minister says Netanyahu ‘killed any hope’ for Israeli hostages
Apple Introduces Ultra-Thin iPhone Air, Enhanced 17 Series and New Health-Focused Wearables
Big Oil Slashes Jobs and Investments Amid Prolonged Low Crude Prices
Social Media Access Curtailed in Turkey After CHP Calls for Rallies Following Police Blockade of Istanbul Headquarters
Did the Houthis disrupt the internet in the Middle East? Submarine cables cut in the Red Sea
Gold Could Reach Nearly $5,000 if Fed Independence Is Undermined, Goldman Sachs Warns
Uruguay, Colombia and Paraguay Secure Places at 2026 World Cup
Trump Administration Advances Plans to Rebrand Pentagon as Department of War Instead of the Fake Term Department of Defense
Tether Expands into Gold Sector with Profit-Driven Diversification
Trump’s New War – and the ‘Drug Tyrant’ Fearing Invasion: ‘1,200 Missiles Aimed at Us’
At the Parade in China: Laser Weapons, 'Eagle Strike,' and a Missile Capable of 'Striking Anywhere in the World'
Information Warfare in the Age of AI: How Language Models Become Targets and Tools
Israeli Airstrike in Yemen Kills Houthi Prime Minister
After the Shock of Defeat, Iranians Yearn for Change
YouTube Altered Content by Artificial Intelligence – Without Permission
Iran Faces Escalating Water Crisis as Protests Spread
More Than Half a Million Evacuated as Typhoon Kajiki Heads for Vietnam
HSBC Switzerland Ends Relationships with Over 1,000 Clients from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Qatar, and Egypt
Sharia Law Made Legally Binding in Austria Despite Warnings Over 'Incompatible' Values
Dogfights in the Skies: Airbus on Track to Overtake Boeing and Claim Aviation Supremacy
Tim Cook Promises an AI Revolution at Apple: "One of the Most Significant Technologies of Our Generation"
Are AI Data Centres the Infrastructure of the Future or the Next Crisis?
Miles Worth Billions: How Airlines Generate Huge Profits
Zelenskyy Returns to White House Flanked by European Allies as Trump Pressures Land-Swap Deal with Putin
Beijing is moving into gold and other assets, diversifying away from the dollar
Cristiano Ronaldo Makes Surprise Stop at New Hong Kong Museum
Zelenskyy to Visit Washington after Trump–Putin Summit Yields No Agreement
×