Twitter Makes the Downvote Feature Available to More Users As Testing Continues

Recently, Twitter announced that it will be broadening the scope of the test of the downvote feature. If you have recently observed the addition of a downvote button to tweet replies, you may be one of the users they’ve chosen to help test the new feature. This test has proven to be very interesting, and it seems Twitter got the idea for the feature from Reddit, and they seem to give an acknowledging nod to Reddit by having the downvote button turn orange when you tap it. The downvote feature will be available to both iOS and Android users.

This downvote feature on Twitter was first launched way back in July of 2022, and it was only available on iOS. Interestingly, many users seem to use this new feature like a dislike button. After observing the behavior of users, it was found that most Twitter users use the downvote feature to flag content that they don’t want on their timelines. After all, tapping on the downvote button on any reply signifies a dislike or a desire to not see such content on your screen or even the platform. 

This feature was designed to help Twitter understand what its users like and dislike, but many view it as a way to control how people reply to tweets. This doesn’t seem to be the case considering that downvotes cannot be seen by the public. Also, the downvote feature is limited to only replies, not general tweets, and this reduces the impact on its users. But this has only served to quell the concerns of the users a little bit, as the majority of people still think it’s an attempt at censorship since Twitter could still use the information gathered from the test to influence the general ranking algorithm of the platform, and this could have a big impact on general tweets. 

What are your thoughts on this new feature? Isn’t it surprising that someone is actually introducing a downvote feature? Tell us what you think in the comments below.