Twitter has rolled out a new VIP filter feature for those with a blue check mark on their Twitter accounts to easily chuck out spam tweets and only see the ones from verified accounts.
Here is good news for all those rich, famous people who have a blue check mark on their Twitter accounts and not so good news for those who follow them. In other words, verified account users can now choose not to see all the tweets they get with their names mentioned in it.
Twitter introduced the new feature Thursday, to over 50,000 verified users on its site that allows them to filter the tweets based on two categories. The new VIP filter that sits on the Connect tab of a verified account will feature three self-explanatory options: "All," "Filtered," and "Verified."
Selecting "All" will show all the tweets with user's "mention," while the "Filtered" will filter out the spam based on Twitter's algorithm and finally the "Verified" will only display mentions from other verified accounts. Quite convenient for celebs who often get lost in looking for their famous friend's tweets amidst thousands of other tweets.
"We'll continue to evolve and improve this feature -- for example, by bringing it to mobile -- in order to help verified users better monitor and engage with others on Twitter," Ed Gutman, Twitter Product Manager, wrote in the company's blog.
While the new feature brings a sense of relief to some famous users, regular non-verified users criticized Twitter's latest move.
So what if the twitter verified users can filter out regular users? Best chats are amongst us unchecked rabble anyhow ;-)
- Jane of Arc (@Janey_uk) September 13, 2013
Verified filter seems like an (admittedly awkward) attempt at allowing high profile people to filter out eg abuse while still using twitter.
- Jamie McKelvie (@McKelvie) September 13, 2013
This is the poshest feature ever! -> Twitter now lets the verified elite filter out regular users.
- Daniel Freytag (@FreytagFilm) September 13, 2013
