After some Twitter users began noticing a new icon when looking at tweet replies, Twitter’s Support account admitted that it’s testing a new idea (for Twitter): upvotes and downvotes. According to the announcement, this is being used as a way for the platform to better understand what kinds of replies they consider relevant to a conversation. Twitter Support went on to explain that upvotes and downvotes are currently just being used “for research” and won’t necessarily become a standard feature. It’s also stated that downvotes will not affect the order of replies, and will not be publicly visible—though upvotes will appear as likes. Twitter Support was also insistent that downvotes are definitely not dislikes, a statement that many, many users are skeptical of. A lot of people who use Twitter are concerned that downvotes will be used to cause harm, with Twitter user @Gaohmee saying “Noooo thank you, I don’t need more ways for people to dogpile.” Most of the over 2,000 replies (so far) to the original tweet express similar worries about downvotes being abused. Twitter’s latest “test” is so far only being conducted on the iOS app, and only for a select number of users. If you’d like to try it out there’s really no guaranteed way of becoming a part of the test group, but you can install the app to see if you’ve been selected.
