Twitter Dumbs Down, Removes @Replies

Twitter has decided to dumb things down a notch and remove @reply functionality across the board. Mind you, this is a service that users had to activate if they wanted it, so I’m not sure what the thought process is here.

The @reply allows you to listen in on conversations between people you are following, usually as long as you’re following both parties.

You can, however, use this functionality to listen to all @replies, even if are aren’t following both parties, and Twitter seems to think this is confusing and creates too much noise in your stream.

We’ve updated the Notices section of Settings to better reflect how folks are using Twitter regarding replies. Based on usage patterns and feedback, we’ve learned most people want to see when someone they follow replies to another person they follow—it’s a good way to stay in the loop. However, receiving one-sided fragments via replies sent to folks you don’t follow in your timeline is undesirable. Today’s update removes this undesirable and confusing option.
Confused? That’s understandable and exactly why we made the update.

I would argue that the function itself was not undesirable. Many people just simply didn’t understand it, so perhaps Twitter simply needs to come up with a better way to explain how @replies work, rather than dumb things down to the lowest common denominator.

Twitter users are not happy about it at all, and they are squaking about it under the channel #fixreplies. Not surprisingly, this is now the top trending term on Twitter.

UPDATE: Twitter CEO Evan Williams just tweeted about the change: “Reading people’s thoughts on the replies issue. We’re considering alternatives. Thanks for your feedback.”