After failing to copy Instagram Stories for their Fleets feature, Twitter is cloning Reddit’s upvote and downvote feature.
For clarification, Reddit wasn’t the first site to have this feature – services like Hacker News, Digg, forums, Slashdot already had it, but Reddit definitely popularised it.
Twitter is doing this research with various methods in the replies – up and down arrows, heart icon and a down arrow and a thumbs up and thumbs down icon. This limited test is only available for iOS users.
Twitter even clarified that the downvotes are not public. The company adds that they are not using this upvote/downvote feature to rank replies. Prolific reverse-engineer Jane Manchung also confirmed this.
Twitter said that this test is going to help them figure out what sort of replies users on its platform find most relevant during their conversations.
Also, this test confirms what Twitter’s product lead, Kayvon had shared on Twitter late last year.
This revelation received mixed reactions on Twitter.
