On Twitter, there's sometimes a "this tweet is unavailable" notice in place of a tweet. It's grayed out and different from regular tweets, which gives the impression it's been erased, though why it's unavailable isn't immediately clear.
That's something Twitter plans to change very soon. The company confirms that it will begin offering users more context on unavailable tweets, rather than simply saying they're unavailable.
Unavailable Tweets
As TechCrunch notes, the feature should help avoid confusion when a user is trying to read or access a tweet only to discover it's missing for reasons that aren't clear. There are several reasons why tweets are sometimes unavailable: they might contain a keyword the user has muted, be protected, or have been deleted by the original author.
Twitter didn't make clear what the new contextual help would is going to look like, but confirmed it would be an evolution of the company's existing notices, such as when it labels tweets that have been removed for violating its rules. Twitter says the change is rolling out "in a few weeks."
Profile Picture Icons
Aside from that change, Twitter is also experimenting with using profile picture icons to provide more information about replies in Twitter threads. For example, the social network plans to put a small microphone symbol next to a profile to indicate that they, the original author, are replying to their own tweet. Meanwhile, people tagged in the original tweet are labeled with an "@" symbol.
As The Verge notes, not only could these changes help make conversations much easier to follow, it could also help prevent a popular Twitter scam — in which users with the same name and profile picture as popular accounts reply to their tweets with links to dubious Bitcoin links — from happening. Twitter's proposed new icons might go a long way toward helping users tell the original author's replies apart from scam accounts. It's no secret that Twitter has an enormous bot problem, and while this likely won't solve everything, it's at least a start and a step in the right direction.
Twitter failed to give an exact date on the rollout of these new changes, but it's currently testing them with select users on the platform. As always, make sure to check back with Tech Times as we learn more.
Thoughts on Twitter's new changes to combat confusion and spam replies? If you have anything to share, feel free to sound them off in the comments section below!
