Twitter wants you to judge how bad a tweet is as the platform tests the downvote button globally

Twitter has been testing its downvote button feature since last year, but it was initially just for selected iOS users. Now, Twitter has announced that the platform is “expanding this test” to web and Android users as well.

“We learned a lot about the types of replies you don’t find relevant and we’re expanding this test—more of you on web and soon iOS and Android will have the option to use reply downvoting,” wrote Twitter.

Twitter also added that the downvote feature doesn’t include letting users know how many downvotes a tweet has. According to them, downvotes aren’t public, but they’ll help inform the platform of “the content people want to see”.

Previously, YouTube’s dislike feature also includes the number of dislikes. However, YouTube announced last year that the platform is “getting rid of dislikes” to “protect the mental health of creators“. The removal of the number of dislikes became a slight controversy, as people argued that dislikes are “a great way to signal quality or lack thereof”—but the number of likes, which are still kept in, could just as well determine the quality of a video.

Twitter’s downvote feature will work like how YouTube’s like and dislike button works. Users can still see the number of likes a tweet gets, but they will not be able to view how many dislikes it has—presumably because of the feedback given to Twitter during the early testing period.

If you’re wondering what kind of tweet would need downvotes, Twitter showed an example. Let’s say someone asks for a recommendation for a restaurant in New York City—users would be able to downvote the replies that are unhelpful and negative. Usually, those kinds of replies would be followed by more replies of other users telling those negative Twitter users off. With the downvote button, users can simply press downvote instead of picking a fight online.

Twitter Safety has stated that the experiment with downvoting has been “a positive experience” and that people who had tested it said that it “improves the quality of conversations on the platform”. They are also “excited to see how others think of it as it becomes available” to the rest of the world. The feature hasn’t yet been available to me, but let me know in the comments if it’s available to you.

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Related reading

• Twitter lets selected iOS users downvote replies to tweets
• Miss seeing YouTube dislikes? There’s a browser extension to bring it back