Twitter is currently testing a new feature that labels people in a chain of tweets. The labels identify the person writing the original tweet, as well as people mentioned in the conversation.
TechCrunch reports that these features have made their way into Twitter, the app’s experimental version where experimental features show up first and get tested. For now, there appear to be three distinct labels – Author, Mentioned, and Following. While the first label is self explanatory, the second one identifies those mentioned by the author of the first tweet in the chain. The last one, Following, will identify people who you follow on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/Twitter/status/1113865009724104704
The idea here is likely to make conversations easier to track. According to Android Police, the Author label was initially called Original Tweeter; a reference to forums where the person who started the conversation is often referred to as Original Poster or Topic Starter. The labels may also be a way to help differentiate users from trolls or parody accounts who use identical usernames and profile images.
If you’re used to the relatively clean nature of Twitter’s UI, then the addition of such labels may feel a little cluttered and could take some getting used to. That said, it’s yet to roll out to the official platform, and there’s no indication as to when that will happen.
(Source: TechCrunch, Android Police)
