Twitter for iOS now lets you change who can reply to your old tweets

Twitter
Twitter (Image credit: iMore)

What you need to know

  • Users can now change who can reply to a tweet even after it was sent.
  • The move is part of Twitter's efforts to make people feel safer on its social network.

Twitter has rolled out a new feature that allows users to change who can and cannot reply to tweets even after they have been sent. The move comes after it first allowed users to change the same setting at the point of tweeting last year — today's move means people can now change the setting retrospectively.

Twitter announced the change via its @TwitterSafety account, showing a screenshot of how the feature will work.

Twitter has been steadily improving the way it handles abuse and this latest move is an example of a feature that is squarely aimed at protecting people who might otherwise receive unwanted replies to tweets. Users can also mark their accounts as private, but this move gives them more granular control over what people can and cannot reply to — although everyone will still be able to see the tweet's content, unlike on private accounts.

After years of coming under fire for its lack of action in regard to abuse, it's good to see Twitter taking steps in the right direction. It still has some way to go, of course, but positive motion is better than no motion at all.

Twitter remains one of the best iPhone apps for staying connected with people, even if the app itself isn't the best Twitter app you can find in the App Store.

Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.