Despite the heavy news of Jack Dorsey’s resignation, Twitter does have something new, in the form of an improved reply downvotes option, which could be made available to more users soon. Reverse engineering expert Jane Manchun Wong first spotted this introductory screen in the back-end code of the app.
Based on Jane’s Tweet, you can see that the new introductory screen also outlines how reply downvotes work, nifty. Do note that reply downvotes were not designed to be a dislike option, but more a measure that indicates the value of each Tweet reply; and what it does or doesn’t add to the overall user experience.
Downvote Reply?
That heading is totally non-canon to what reply downvotes really represent. Going back, Twitter has been testing reply downvotes over the last few months , with the help of a small pool of select users. Testing has sparked various questions over how it could be applied and what impact it would make for Tweet engagement.
Twitter, back in July, explains to SMT:
“We’re hoping to better understand what people believe are relevant replies, and how that matches up to what Twitter suggests as most the relevant replies under a Tweet.”
Twitter points out that the critical element here is that up and downvotes are not public, nor will they be made to be. Moreover, Twitter says that these votes will not, in any way or form, impact the ranking on individual replies, at least not in the immediate term. So, why bother to include this then?
The answer is simple, simple enough that you might facepalm if it was pitched to you for the very first time and without prior contextualization – reply up and downvotes could eventually make reply threads more engaging. Especially in the case of viral Tweets, have you noticed how, at times, there are certain replies within the thread that either are people complaining about their accounts being hacked or penalized, or are just outright scam Tweets? Or maybe even just totally random plugins asking you to ‘help’ a cause or movement?
Replies such as these can potentially make reply threads less engaging. If Twitter could better highlight the most responsive Tweets within threads, then that could encourage more conversation and engagement around each topic. Ideally, it can get more users to Tweet more often by focusing on the best discussion prompts and downranking the rest.
At the same time, the option can also cause more confusion as some users might mistake it as an act of showing disapproval, which now adds more to Twitter’s plate in that it must also find a way to clearly communicate what up and downvotes represent.
The Wrap
With its recent innovative momentum, we can’t really determine if any of Twitter’s new stuff is purely linear. Maybe they want to really achieve a sense of duality with their new reply downvotes, gleaning more audience insight into the various elements that people respond to negatively on the platform.
In the end, the up and downvote options could be a useful research tool that would help guide the future direction and would-be feed and algorithm-based initiatives of Twitter. At the very least, it looks to provide the platform with more credible preference data, leading to the conclusion that market insights play a critical role for any platform’s future development.
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