Twitter Is Adding an "Unmentioning" Feature

Twitter is working on an "Unmentioning" feature that'll allow people to remove themselves from conversations they no longer want to be a part of, the social media platform revealed this week. This new feature was revealed by the Twitter Safety account, and as such, is intended to be a tool that'll allow a user to protect their peace while using Twitter. The feature which was teased last year is currently in the experimental phase, and while it's not widely available just yet, it is available on the web browser version of the social site.

The reveal of Unmentioning came from the Twitter Safety tweet below which included a brief demonstration showing how this feature works. Whenever someone mentions you in a tweet, you can select the "More" option marked by the three dots in the top-right corner of the tweet in question where you're typically able to block or report someone or take other actions. With this new feature at play, you'll now see a "Leave this conversation" option.

How do you say “Don’t @ me,” without saying “Don’t @ me”?

We’re experimenting with Unmentioning—a way to help you protect your peace and remove yourself from conversations—available on Web for some of you now. pic.twitter.com/rlo6lqp34H

— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) April 7, 2022

Selecting that won't remove your Twitter handle from the tweet, but it will remove the hyperlink from it that allows people to quickly visit your profile. Better than that, however, is that you'll receive no more notifications for that particular tweet.

This sort of feature is one that people have asked for more than once over the years for a number of reasons. Sometimes tweets get much more traction than expected with those who were mentioned early on in the tweet's life then subjected to all sorts of notifications about conversations they're no longer concerned with. Other social media platforms like Facebook, for example, already have the option for users to remove themselves from tags within comments to avoid this kind of problem.

When this feature was presented to the public last year, it originally went with the "unmention" term even in the menu options users would look through. That was viewed as too confusing, Twitter acknowledged, so it's now been changed to the more concise "Leave this conversation" option mentioned previously and shown above.

This new feature also follows the announcement from Twitter that it's working on an option to edit tweets. It's unclear how, exactly, that one will be implemented given that it could contribute to misinformation or other tricky situations. This Unmentioning feature appears to be going over a bit better than the edit option based on the responses so far, but it remains to be seen how or when either of these will be released in full.