Twitter’s New Limited Opt-in Lets Any Followers Send A User Direct Messages

You know what’s really annoying about Twitter? When super famous celebrities send you direct messages because you follow them, but then you can’t send one back saying yes, let’s be best friends, because they don’t follow you (the nerve!). But now Twitter will let you open the flood gates and release The Kraken, if you will, by letting any followers send DMs — but only on a limited amount of accounts, it seems.

That is, if you as the Twitter user click a little box in the Settings menu that PCMag says rolled out to some users. The opt-in basically means that anyone with the option who clicks that box, super famous celebrities or no, is potentially opening up their inbox to a landslide of messages, including those from spammers.

Twitter’s note below the opt-in box reads:

Generally, you must follow someone before they have the ability to direct message you. If you check this option, any Twitter user that follows you will be able to send a you DM, regardless of whether you decide to follow them back.

This could be good for customer service reps trying to deal with problems Twitter users tweet about when they don’t follow the company, so that’s a pro. But it’ll also likely mean a slew of unwanted DMs from spambots trying to get you to click on bad links.

It’s not for everyone though, at least for now. Twitter said in a statement that it opened this feature up to some accounts “in cases where having that capability may be beneficial.”

“We do not have plans for making the feature more widely available at this time,” the company said. “We will continue to experiment with ways of helping people and companies get more value from Twitter.”

So wait — Twitter gets decide who is important enough to receive messages from the masses? It’s all a popularity contest? Great. Now I’ll never get to tell that bearded folk singer how I really feel.

Twitter Opens Direct Messages to All Followers [PCMag]

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