Twitter Wants to Let People 'Unmention' Themselves to Avoid 'Unwanted Attention'

Social media giant Twitter is reportedly exploring new ways to prevent the “unwanted attention” that users may receive when mentioned in a tweet by another user. Their answer seems to be an “unmention” feature to let them drop out of a thread.

Engadget reports that Twitter is currently looking into new ways to prevent “unwanted attention” that can result in harassment on its platform. The company is reportedly working on tools that would allow users to prevent people from mentioning them in tweets without the block or mute button, whether this feature ever goes live is debatable as it is still currently just in testing phases.

Twitter product designer Dominic Camozzi described the features as “early concepts,” that would give Twitter users the ability to “unmention yourself” and control who can tag them in future tweets. Similar to untagging yourself on Facebook, unmentioning would unlink your Twitter handle from a tweet and prevent you from being tagged in future replies.

The feature could allow you to block specific users from mentioning you in the future without the need to block their accounts outright. Another potential iteration would let you block any new mentions for a set number of days.

The concept is similar to another that allows users to limit replies to their tweets. Twitter is hoping that the ability to “unmention” could address some of the toxic behavior on Twitter’s platform that it claims has previously led to large-scale harassment.

Camozzi stated that one version of the feature would notify users when they start to get “a lot” of mentions, they can then access their setting and change who can mention them or pause mentions altogether in order to “quickly address situations that have suddenly escalated.”