X (formerly Twitter)– the microblogging platform owned by Elon Musk – is said to developing a feature that may let users disable links in the replies of their posts, according to claims by an app researcher on social media. It is speculated to aid in reducing spam links posted in replies to posts on the platform by introducing the ability to natively block links. Notably, X was also recently reported to be working on a ‘dislike’ button for the iOS app, allowing users to downvote replies.
Disabling Links in Replies on X
The discovery was made by independent app researcher Nima Owji (@nima_owji) with a track record of unearthing unreleased features on X. In a post on the platform, Owji revealed that X may allow users to disable links in post replies via a check mark. A screenshot shared by the user suggests it appears under the Only accounts you mention banner.
Replying to a subsequent quoted post, Christopher Stanley, a Security Researcher at X, confirmed its authenticity. “My team built this”, Stanley wrote.
It is just one of the features that X is reported to be developing as it aims to realise Elon Musk’s vision of becoming an “everything app” that can do everything, from messaging to payments, similar to China’s WeChat. The platform was rebranded from Twitter to X last year, replacing the iconic ‘Larry the Bird’ logo with a simple ‘X’.
Previously reported under-development features of X include in-app currency which content creators can earn on the platform – an extension to the existing tipping features on X. However, it hasn’t made its way onto the platform yet.
Hidden Likes Tab
In addition to developing the ability to disable links in replies, X also introduced a big change last year when it removed the Likes tab from the profile, albeit for X Premium subscribers only. However, earlier this year, Haofei, an engineer at X, announced that the tab would soon be hidden for everyone to prevent people from feeling “discouraged” when they like certain content. Following the change, only the author would know when someone has liked their post.