Twitter Tests Latest DM Control Options to Combat Message Spam

Twitter’s moving to the subsequent stage of testing for its latest DM restriction tools, which is able to give users more control over who exactly is capable of message them within the app, in a bid to combat DM spam.

As you possibly can see on this screenshot, shared by @swak_12 (via T(w)itter Each day News), Twitter’s currently working on a brand new DM options screen, which might enable users to decide on who can send them a message within the app.

These controls, presumably, would only be made available to Twitter Blue subscribers, which might align with one other element of the identical experiment, in broader restrictions on who can send DMs to non-followers within the app.

As you possibly can see on this screen, Twitter’s also trying to implement a brand new restriction that will stop non-paying users from sending messages to individuals who don’t follow them, which could have implications for customer support and outreach, should you’re not paying for a verified account.

Though ‘verified’ is a little bit of a loose term on this context. Twitter’s current version of ‘verified’ essentially only implies that a user that’s paying $8 per 30 days, with no real verification or ID checking process built into the Twitter Blue onboarding process. Twitter says that ‘payment verification’ is a legitimate type of confirming ID, as only real humans will give you the chance to pay $8 per 30 days, however it’s not exactly verifying anything, as such, it merely confirms that an account is transferring money to Twitter every month, through whatever process.

But that’s obviously an aside – the actual focus with this update is countering DM spam, by making it way more cost prohibitive for spammers to send out billions of DMs per day to random recipients, by restricting that capability to only paying users.

And with subscribers also capable of select who can DM them, that would limit this much more, which could possibly be an efficient method to stop DM spammers just about entirely for people who have really had enough of their junk.

But it surely would even be a big change to Twitter’s messaging process. And with an increasing number of interactions migrating to DMs, as users move away from public posting, that would have a much bigger effect than you would possibly think, and will see more of a lot of these interactions shift to other apps, versus helping Twitter improve its own messaging options.

I mean, Twitter would have less spam, little question, however it could also see legit messaging volume also decline significantly, which is one other element that Twitter can have to look at.

We don’t know exactly how, nor even when this can function as yet, because Twitter hasn’t officially announced the project. But it surely does look like, very soon, your Twitter DM options will change.