It’s another day, which means that Elon Musk has introduced another new feature for Twitter. Announced earlier this month, users are not starting to see the view count feature in action. Though it’s not quite as controversial as other things Musk has brought in since becoming CEO, that doesn’t mean that everybody wants it. Now, people want to know if you can turn off Twitter views.
If Elon Musk is stepping down as CEO, then he’s making sure to bring in all the features he can before he goes. In the last few weeks alone we’ve had new verification tick colours, as well as businesses getting a square profile picture. But before the year came to a close, there was clearly time for one more.
Actually, there’s still a week left of 2022, so there’s probably room for several more at Musk’s current rate.
What Are Twitter Views?
The new feature allows users and their followers (or anyone if their account is public) to know how many people have seen their Tweet. Now, any recent tweets will have a little graph icon next to the retweet and like buttons below a tweet, with a number next to it indicating how often it has been seen.
Beforehand, you could see this for any videos posted on the platform, but now it will be standard for most tweets. There are a few exceptions, with circle, community, and older tweets not having the feature.
According to the Twitter Help Centre, anyone who sees your tweet counts towards the views. This is regardless of whether it appeared on their timeline, they searched your profile or topic, or if it’s your own tweet
“Multiple views may be counted if you view a Tweet more than once, but not all views are unique. For example, you could look at a Tweet on the web and then on your phone, and that would count as two views.”
On views, the Twitter CEO said that it would give a more accurate idea of engagement on the platform.
However, like all new features, it’s not necessarily something that everybody wants.
Can You Turn Off Twitter Views?
Like seeing how many likes and retweets you have, Twitter views cannot currently be turned off officially.
However, you can control who sees your tweets in the privacy settings on Twitter.
However, Design Chief Priest has found a way to turn off the feature on your web browser so that you can no longer see the view count. Unfortunately, your followers will still be able to see it though.
Users are already asking Twitter to introduce a way to disable the feature. Some think the feature is an “eyesore”, whilst others think it will negatively impact mental health.
For some, it’s having the opposite effect that Musk intended — putting them off tweeting altogether.
Social media sites such as Instagram allows users to disable the likes feature so that there isn’t such a focus on engagement for users. It seems like Twitter has gone in the other direction and is focusing in on it further, much to the users’ dismay. Hopefully, with such an outcry for a more mainstream way to disable the feature, Musk will introduce one as quickly as he brought Twitter views in.
