Twitter has made it easier for users to communicate in private without both users having to jump through the hoop of following the each other. A new feature allows users to send a DM to whomever they are following, provided that the intended recipient has opted-in to the new setting.
It’s as simple as it sounds – a Twitter user can tick a box that allows them to “receive direct messages from any follower“, and then basically you sit back and wait for the DMs to come in from anyone who follows you.
At first, it didn’t make much sense to me: the DM was Twitter’s answer to the spam filter – you choose exactly who can contact you directly. By dropping that wall, you would now seemingly be open to all sorts of random messages from anyone who can be bothered to follow you. This is obviously not a feature for everyone – can you imagine the sheer volume of DMs that the Rihannas and Justin Biebers of the world would receive if they enabled it? However, some journalists are seeing the merit in the new setting…
Darrell Etherington at TechCrunch thinks it will take the hassle out of private communication on Twitter, while also sifting out those who would use the DM as bait:
Sometimes, it even seems like users treat this as a DM honey-pot – i.e., flaunt some potentially useful information in hopes of scoring a permanent follower in return.
So what do you think? Is it less of a hassle to go through the minor inconvenience of a mutual follow that might not be all that sincere, or to be inundated with all manner of spam from random users? Personally, I like to keep my inboxes as clutter-free as possible, so sorry Twitter, but this is a feature that I won’t be enabling.
Will you enable DMs from all followers?