Facebook has been suffering on the PR front for a while now. The company has struggled to shake off its association with right-wing propagandists peddling #FakeNews, and a recent series of underhand privacy violations has led to a mass exodus of young users.
So, needless to say, Twitter’s attempts to imitate Mark Zuckerberg’s under-fire social network has drawn some controversy and concern.
Twitter employee Sara Haider tweeted out this week that the company will be testing out threaded replies and online status indicators, both reminiscent of Facebook features.
The change is designed to make replies feel more like conversations, as opposed to the public forum format that the site was built on.
Haider notes that the features are still early in development, and has welcomes feedback from reluctant users, but Twitter has never been afraid to unveil a provocative redesign to the platform apropos of nothing.
It's understandable that Twitter would want to hoover up the Facebook dissidents – but judging by users' reactions, this doesn't feel like the right way to go about it.
Nick Pope is the Site Director of Esquire, overseeing digital strategy for the brand.
