Twitter is significantly expanding its autoblocking Safety Mode beta

The feature is still in beta but will be available to many more people. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Twitter is significantly expanding the beta of its Safety Mode feature, the company announced Tuesday. Safety Mode, which initially rolled out in September, lets you temporarily autoblock accounts that send you harmful or abusive tweets.

Safety Mode was previously available to approximately 750 beta users, but it will be expanding to ~50 percent of people in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand, Twitter spokesperson Tatiana Britt tells The Verge.

Twitter is also introducing proactive Safety Mode prompts. “Since the initial rollout of the Safety Mode beta in September, we’ve learned that some people want help identifying unwelcome interactions,” Britt said. “For this reason, our technology will now proactively identify potentially harmful or uninvited replies, and prompt people in the beta to consider enabling Safety Mode. This update further reduces the burden on people dealing with unwelcome interactions.”

Image: Twitter
Here’s a screenshot of the prompt that will let you turn on Safety Mode.

While it’s still unclear when this feature might be rolled out more broadly, for those that have access to it, Safety Mode seems like a potentially helpful way to help reduce harassment on the platform. However, while Twitter may be taking a step forward here, it’s also arguably taking a step back with its test of a feature that lets you send a DM right from a tweet, which could make it easier for harassers to send unsolicited DMs.