Twitter continues to make slow, somewhat stumbling steps toward letting its users filter the unadulterated assholeitude of the internet from their accounts, with NBC reporting that the social messaging platform has made it harder for random strangers to directly message people on the platform. The news follows the recent introduction of other features designed to protect users from the rampaging online monsters known as “other people,” including a continued widening of the site’s “mute” features to silence unwanted content.
Instead of simply dumping every rando-sent missive directly into the inboxes of people who opt for “open DMs”—which allow people you don’t follow to send you messages—the site will now segregate those probable-dick-pics into a separate “message requests” folder similar to what Facebook does with its Messenger service. Users can then peruse the requests at their leisure, presumably through a thick sheet of protective glass, with a finger poised over the delete button, and a bottle of wine at the ready to blot out the worst of what they see.