Twitter removes CoTweets, its experimental collaborative feature
CoTweets allowed users to simultaneously create and publish tweets
Twitter is removing CoTweets, a fairly new feature that allowed users to collaboratively create and publish tweets that would appear on both of their profiles at the same time.
CoTweets was first introduced by Twitter last July as a “limited-time experiment” for “select accounts in Canada, Korea, and the US”. But it seems that time is now up, as those users who got to use the feature will no longer have access to it.
➡️ The Shortcut Skinny: Bye, CoTweets
👋 Twitter is removing CoTweets from the platform
✌️ The feature allowed users to simultaneously publish the same tweet
⌛ It soft-launched last year
🤔 It’s the latest Twitter feature to be changed
“For the last several months we’ve been testing a new way to Tweet together using CoTweets,” Twitter said. “We’re sad to say that the current experiment is coming to an end.”
“Already existing CoTweets will be viewable for one more month at which point they will revert to retweets. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.”
Existing CoTweets will remain visible on the initiating author's profile, while they’ll only appear as retweets on the profile of co-authors, effectively removing their name from the Tweet.
Twitter said it’s “still looking for ways to implement this feature moving forward”, so we may see the feature return in some form in the future.
CoTweets was pitched as a way for influencers and brands to more easily collaborate on the platform, letting them make shared announcements and statements. One user would write a Tweet, then invite another account to appear as a co-author. They’d have to accept the invite for their name to appear on the final tweet.
This is far from the first change Twitter’s made since Elon Musk took over the platform. As well as banning third-party clients, it’s rolled out public view counts in an attempt to show how active Twitter is among those who don’t actually tweet, and altered users’ default feed settings to push algorithmic content and bring the platform in line with TikTok.
Despite those changes, plus the very many alterations that have been made to Twitter Blue over the past few months, the platform is still thriving in terms of active users. Alternative services that were bandied when Musk first took over the platform haven’t been able to sustain their spurt of attention.