The new option is reminiscent of Instagram’s Close Friends feature as it allows users to filter their audience and choose who is going to see and interact with the content they share.
In a way, it offers a middle ground between changing the status of your account to “protected” and simply sharing content as usual. It is also not a true alternative to Twitter Communities, as the company points out, because it serves a very different purpose.
So, how is Twitter Circle going to work? Firstly, you choose the people within your Twitter Circle. Currently, up to 150 people can be added, regardless if they are your followers or not. Secondly, before you share a Tweet, you choose your audience – everyone or your Twitter Circle.
If you choose the latter, the tweet will be available only to the users within your Circle. Hence, only they will be able to interact with it (i.e. like, reply etc.). There is one exception – users will, naturally, not be able to retweet tweets shared via Twitter Circle.
Additionally, only the person who creates the Circle will be able to see all of the users that are members of it. Lastly, users can only have a single Twitter Circle.
For the time being, the feature is available to a limited number of users. Those that have been preselected to receive it, will have the option to create a new Twitter Circle.
Nowadays, every social media platform is trying to become a jack of all trades. Twitter is taking a page out of Instagram’s book, while the latter is trying to become more like TikTok, and so on. Ultimately, even if Twitter Circle resembles Instagram’s Close Friends feature, this should not necessarily be a bad thing.
