Twitter has introduced a downvote button similar to Reddit on some of the replies in the iOS version. Twitter explains that it is part of an experiment to find out what kind of replies people find useful and relevant. Using this Twitter will be able to put the data obtained together to find methods to bring such relevant responses to the surface. This becomes useful when in long conversations, some good replies will be buried underneath a ton of other replies.
There are now different versions of this feature. One is where the users can find both upvote and downvote buttons, in some others users will see only the downvote button. The third kind is where users get to see thumbs up and down buttons. The number of downvotes a reply gets will only be visible to the individual user.
For now, the number of downvotes won’t change the order of responses. Twitter User Researcher Cody Elam clarifies that the feature is to give “people the power to privately voice their opinion on the quality of replies”. This will also help the company more accurate feedback about such a feature. Earlier, it had started experimenting with emoji reactions like that of Facebook that had upvote and downvote buttons.
