Twitter is still working on a feature that will give you a way to blast tweets that can only be seen by the friends you choose. In July of last year, the social network revealed that it is considering allowing you to designate “trusted friends” so that some tweets are only visible to them. Now, developer and reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi has uncovered evidence that the feature is currently in development and that Twitter now calls it “Flock”.
It might be called differently if it has a wider release – the company said On the edge that “Flock” is just a placeholder name. Based on the explanation Paluzzi found, your current iteration will allow you to add up to 150 users to your list, and they will be the only ones who will be able to see and respond to tweets you send to the group. Any tweet you send to your Flock will come with a notice letting your audience know that they can see you because you added them to the group. However, you can edit the group at any time, and Twitter says it won’t notify anyone you remove.
When the company first revealed that it is considering adding a trusted friends feature, it also introduced another concept that would allow you to take on different personalities on the same account. It is unclear whether this version of the feature is no longer in development. Twitter is also testing a feature called Communities, which offers a dedicated space for groups of like-minded people. Flock, however, was designed with your real friends in mind, similar to Instagram’s Close Friends for Stories. In its statement sent to the On the edgeTwitter said it is “always working on new ways to help people engage in healthy conversations and [it’s] currently exploring ways to allow people to share more privately.”
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