Twitter rolling out option to ‘unmention’ people to protect them from bad conversations

(AFP via Getty Images)

Twitter is finally adding a way to let people leave conversations.

The tool, named “unmentioning” will let people neatly and quietly leave a conversation that has become unhealthy.

“How do you say ‘Don’t @ me,’ without saying ‘Don’t @ me’?” Twitter said in a post from its official account.

“We’re experimenting with Unmentioning—a way to help you protect your peace and remove yourself from conversations—available on Web for some of you now.”

As suggested, the tool is rolling out now and is only available on the web and for some users.

Those who do have it will choose the option from the menu that shows up in the corner of a tweet. Users can then click “leave this conversation”.

At that point, a person is removed from the conversation: their username is taken out so that it will not be mentioned again, and so no more notifications will be sent.

Until now, users have had no easy way to get out of conversations: there has been a “mute” option for some time, but the only way to actually be removed from a chain of replies would be to specifically ask. That could prove difficult for users who were being harassed or attacked.

People will still presumably be able to add those users back in. In that case, users may have to mute or block the problem user to stop any notifications.