Twitter on Wednesday, launched audio tweets which will allow users to share their opinions in a much more personalized way through their own voices on the microblogging platform.
“Sometimes 280 characters aren’t enough and some conversational nuances are lost in translation. So starting today, we’re testing a new feature that will add a more human touch to the way we use Twitter – your very own voice.” said Twitter in a blog post.
As of now, the Audio Tweet feature is available only to a limited number of iOS users. Twitter however mentioned, that the feature will be available to all iOS users by the end of the week. As of now, there is no official word for Android or Windows users. In any case though, no matter the platform, everyone will be able to hear and reply to these audio tweets.
The feature seems quite easy to use and is not very different from the usual text tweets. For those who have this feature, they can use the same by first opening the Tweet composer and then taping the new ‘wavelength icon’. Finally, You’ll see your profile photo with the record button at the bottom – tap this to record your voice. To listen to an audio tweet, simply click on the tweet. You can even listen to it as you scroll. In addition to this, users can only hear an reply to the original tweets and not the retweeted versions.
This concept is not entirely new to twitter. In 2018, Twitter launched audio-only live-streams which provides a way to share audio in tweets.
These tweets have a time-limit of 140 seconds. However, after this time is over, instead of cutting you off, twitter will continue to record your voice in a new threaded tweet.
However, it is important to note that there are some very valid concerns related to this new feature. One of them being the inclusion of differently-abled people like people who are deaf or hard of hearing. In response to this concern, Twitter said, “this is an early test of audio for us and we’re still exploring the best ways to meet the needs of people with different abilities.”
Apart from this, there is a concern regarding the control of online harassment and trolling. Twitter puts labels on triggering or potentially-offending tweets but doing the same with audio tweets will be a much more challenging task, even for the smartest of AI tools. This issue specially holds importance considering the plethora of deep fake videos/audio that have started surfacing online these days.
Apparently, many users have already started spamming using these audio tweets. Women, people of colour, and members of the LGBTQ community have detailed experience of years of putting up with abusive language, harassment and threats on many social media platforms including twitter. Hence, flagging abusive tweeting is going to be a difficult task for the content moderators.
Twitter is an ever-evolving social media platform- it keeps introducing and updating new features. In March, it introduced self-disappearing tweets (like stories on Instagram) called fleets. Then it launched the polls feature, moments feature and allowed unlimited characters in direct messages.
