Twitter is rolling out support for voice direct messages (DMs) for iOS and Android in India, the company has announced. According to Android Central reports, the audio, messages are live in three countries: Brazil, India, and Japan.
The feature, which was first announced last year, is still in the “experiment” stage and is being rolled out in phases. Twitter India’s managing director Manish Maheshwari, said the voice messages have been designed to “give people a new way to express themselves and help them connect through the nuances, emotion, and empathy built by hearing someone’s voice.”
🎤test,🎤test: Starting today, you'll be able to record and send voice messages in DMs 😉 Here’s how👇
PS. The experiment will be rolled out in phases. pic.twitter.com/aqQM6h9sof
— X India (@XCorpIndia) February 17, 2021
Other social media apps including Messenger, Instagram DMs, and Whatsapp already have a similar feature.
Read: Twitter Rolls Out Tweet Scheduling Feature
Twitter released a video demonstrating how the feature works. To record a message, users will tap a small icon placed at the right hand of the message box. Voice messages can be 140 seconds in length, with an option to review a voice message before sending it. At the moment, users cannot send voice messages from the app’s web version, but audio clips can still be played on the browsers.
Twitter, which has always been a text-based platform, has been testing a number of audio features in the last year. Apart from audio DMs, the company has been testing audio tweets and most lately Twitter spaces, which consist of audio-based chatrooms designed to be like Clubhouse.
The company has faced criticism for not providing users accessibility options to their audio features. In response, Twitter said it was setting up new accessibility teams within the company and that it would be adding automated captions to video and audio on the platform in 2021.
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