Twitter is giving users a way to bail out of conversations that no longer serve their original purpose–or never had any point. “Unmentioning,” announced in a tweet Monday, lets you exit a conversation in two taps or clicks, stopping everybody in it from @-ing you anymore in that thread without having to block each of them.
To use this social-media ejection seat, click or tap the ellipsis button to the right of a reply in your notifications, then select “Leave this conversation.” As a dialog will explain, choosing this option will untag you (“Your username stays, but it’ll be untagged from the original Tweet and all replies”), stop people from mentioning you again in the conversation, and stop notifications about the conversation.
At first glance, unmentioning looks like it could be a helpful solution to two common Twitter annoyances:
- An account with a large following of people who are way too emotionally invested in their support of that account tweets something uncomplimentary about you, after which you are deluged with spittle-flecked, grammar-deprived replies.
- Your tweet or somebody else’s tweet mentioning you can be read as expressing any possible interest in cryptocurrencies, after which you are deluged with bot- and bot-like accounts pitching emoji-littered, grammar-deprived cryptocurrency scams.
Twitter’s existing “Mute this conversation” option, also available via that ellipsis menu button, cleans up your notifications but doesn’t have the go-away effect of blocking people from mentioning you at all.
Unmentioning follows a series of moves aimed at giving people more ways to control, if not clamp down, on the worst parts of the Twitter experience. For example, in August 2020, it added a “conversation setting” that lets you limit who can reply to a tweet. Last September, it added a "Safety Mode" that imposes a seven-day block on accounts that use "potentially harmful language—such as insults or hateful remarks—or [send] repetitive and uninvited replies or mentions.” And this spring, it began testing a “Circles” feature with which you can create a defined audience for a tweet that will remain private to other users.