To keep up with its competitors, Twitter today announced that it is revamping its direct messaging with a slew of new features including things like Read Receipts, typing indicators, and web link previews which will be rolled out in a couple of days.
Yes, remember Read Receipts? The same feature which shows a blue check mark next to a message when it has been read and that which literally ruined our relationships when it was introduced on WhatsApp.
So, Twitter also thought it would be great fun for Direct Messages to be more ‘dynamic’ and loaded them with read receipts, so now that everyone will know that you’ve seen their message and not replied to it (read: ignored).
Twitter also seems confident that the new features are pretty awesome and even put up a video explaining the enhancements to this feature but that basically turns it into a chat app.
But don’t panic, because thankfully there’s a way to turn them off
To turn off read receipts, simply go to the “Security and privacy” tab in your settings on desktop, scroll all the way down, and uncheck the box. And you are done!