App researcher Jane Manchun Wong has discovered that Twitter is working on bringing the downvote button to the web version. It’s a fairly simple downward-pointing arrow that sits between the like and share buttons, much like on the iOS app. The button glows orange when tapped. Nothing extravagant here. Twitter has yet to announce the rollout of the downvote button on the web. Perhaps the rollout hasn’t begun yet, or maybe it has for some users. Replying to Wong’s tweet, a user suggested that they had the button on the web version of Twitter for a while. Nonetheless, the company appears to be close to rolling out the feature to more users. We will likely have an official announcement soon. Availability on the Android app should also follow in the coming weeks or months. During the initial announcement in July, Twitter said that downvotes will not be public and will be visible only to you, at least during the testing phase. The button will be available for tweet replies only, not the original tweet. Also, the company will not count downvotes as dislikes. They will not affect the order of the replies. The testing is meant to “understand the types of replies you find relevant in a convo, so we can work on ways to show more of them.”
Twitter has more such engagement features in the pipeline
The downvote button isn’t the only new feature that Twitter is testing currently. The microblogging giant has a bunch of other engagement features in the pipeline. Among them is a tray of four Facebook-style tweet reactions, which is currently being tested in Turkey. Alongside the existing ❤️ (Heart) reaction, users will also now be able to react to tweets with the 🤔 (thinking face), 😢 (crying face), 😂 (tears of joy), and 👏 (clapping hands) emojis. Twitter recently opened its audio chatroom Spaces to everyone. The company is testing a voice transformer feature that will allow speakers to use different effects to their voices in live Spaces. It could take some time before these features become available but we will keep you updated as and when more information emerges.
