Story by
Ivan Mehta
Ivan covers Big Tech, India, policy, AI, security, platforms, and apps for TNW. That's one heck of a mixed bag. He likes to say "Bleh." Ivan covers Big Tech, India, policy, AI, security, platforms, and apps for TNW. That's one heck of a mixed bag. He likes to say "Bleh."
We’ve seen plenty of instances when a social media handle of a company has tweeted something that seems like a response from a personal account. It’s human to err, and forget to switch accounts when tweeting.
A concept from Lena Emara, a product designer at Twitter, will hopefully prevent you from doing this. Here’s how it works: when you’re tweeting, the app will show you the account the tweet will go out from, on the top of the composition window.
So just in case, you’re tweeting something personal from a brand’s account, you can notice it straight away and make changes accordingly. Scroll to the ‘Account breadcrumbs’ part of Emara’s tweet below for a closer look at her concept.
Account breadcrumbs
Have multiple accounts? I want to make it simpler for you to know which account you’re Tweeting from.
Switching accounts today is doable but not obvious. This makes it clearer and puts your avatar, name, handle, and privacy status all in one visible place. pic.twitter.com/GjatDtMG0q
— Lena Emara (@LenaEmara) July 6, 2021
Apart from this, Emara showed off other concepts related to privacy as well. The first described how you can limit who can see your tweets, who can tag you in photos, and who can direct message you. Notably, one of the company’s designers recently demoed another concept that lets you tweet to a close circle of friends.
Discover me (or not)
Right now, you can control how others find you using your phone or email. This concept lets you:
1️⃣ Get notified if accounts search for your username
2️⃣ Choose if you want to be found that way
3️⃣ Set a time limit for it(ID in replies) pic.twitter.com/zrHORC4Eiu
— Lena Emara (@LenaEmara) July 6, 2021
The second concept was about limiting discoverability, where you can turn off toggles for a certain time that makes your profile disappear from search and ‘Who to follow’ recommendations.
These are some handy concepts, but there’s no guarantee Twitter will put its resources to work to develop them. Lately, the company has been tweeting out theseconcepts to gather feedback about how it can improve conversation on the platform.
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