Twitter takes on Instagram: App is working on a Close Friends-style feature that lets users share tweets with a ‘Flock’ of up to 150 people

• Leaked screenshots from a developer show how Twitter’s Flock tool could work
• Users could post tweets to everyone following them or just people in their Flock
• Twitter told MailOnline it’s ‘always working on new ways to help people engage’
• It wouldn’t say when ‘Flock’ would be released or if it will definitely be rolled out

Twitter appears to be mimicking Instagram with its latest feature in the works, called ‘Flock’.

Flock will give users the choice to share their tweets with a ‘flock’ of up to 150 people, Rome-based mobile developer Alessandro Paluzzi revealed in screenshots. 

Twitter users outside of this ‘flock’ won’t be able to like, comment, retweet or even see the tweet. 

A Twitter developer previewed Flock last year under a different name – ‘Trusted Friends’ – although it’s not known if it will definitely roll out. 

Flock sounds very similar to an Instagram feature called Close Friends, which lets users limit how many people can see their Instagram Stories. 

Flock is yet to be confirmed by Twitter, but mobile developer Alessandro Paluzzi has shared supposed screenshots of how it would look

HOW WOULD FLOCK WORK?  

Users would be able to select up to 150 people to form their ‘flock’.

Before users post a tweet, they’d be able to choose whether the tweet is seen publicly or just users who form their flock. 

Users who form the flock won’t be notified if they’re removed from the flock.  

Flock hasn’t been officially announced by Twitter, although it admitted it’s always working on new features.

‘Twitter is always working on new ways to help people engage in healthy conversations, and we’re currently exploring ways to let people Tweet to smaller groups,’ a Twitter spokesperson told MailOnline.

‘We previewed this concept last year as public feedback helps shape what we build. We don’t have any further details to share but more to come soon.’ 

Twitter’s comments were promoted by Paluzzi posting a screenshot of Twitter’s guide to ‘Flock’ with a brief description of how it would work. 

‘Twitter continues to work on Twitter Flock by adding an explanation of how it works,’ Paluzzi said.  

‘You can choose up to 150 people to include in your Twitter Flock Busts in silhouette. People won’t be notified if you remove them from the list.’ 

Earlier this month, Paluzzi also posted a screenshot of a label that may appear beneath tweets from users who have Flock activated.

The tweets, when visible to members of the Flock, would read: ‘You can see this Tweet because the author has added you to their Flock.’

Plans for Flock go back to at least last summer; back in July, Twitter designer Andrew Courter shared images of how the feature might appear.

At the time, the feature was referred to as ‘Trusted Friends’ rather than Flock. 

Instagram has copied its social media rival Snapchat with the launch of a new feature called ‘Rage Shake’. 

Users just need to shake their phone with the Instagram app open and a little pop-up appears that lets them report an annoying technical issue.  

It’s very similar to Snapchat’s ‘Shake to Report’, which already lets users shake their smartphone to report a bug. 

Instagram’s owner Meta (formerly known as Facebook) has been scrambling to emulate the success of Snapchat for years, with a number of distinctly similar features, including Stories and Screenshots. 

Read more: Instagram copies Snapchat with new ‘rage shake’ feature

Before users post their tweet, they’d be able to select the option to make a post visible to ‘Everyone’ or just their ‘Trusted Friends’, the screenshots suggest. 

The Twitter timeline would also show tweets from these so-called Trusted Friends – denoted by a green heart symbol – above other tweets. 

If and when it’s rolled out, Flock – or whatever it ends up being called – could add a Facebook-like element of intimacy between friends.     

According to rumours last year, Twitter is also considering adding Facebook-style emoji reactions to tweets. 

The social network is working on five possible reactions to tweets – ‘Likes’, ‘Cheer’, ‘Hmm’, ‘Sad’ and ‘Haha’ – to complement the existing retweet capability, according to Hong Kong-based app researcher and tipster Jane Manchun Wong. 

Currently, Twitter users are only able to click the heart icon to ‘like’ and indicate their endorsement of a tweet, as well as clicking retweet. 

In 2021, Twitter rolled out its $2.99-a-month subscription, ‘Blue,’ for users in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, although it’s yet to reveal when it will come to the UK. 

Twitter Blue gives users access to exclusive features for the monthly fee, including undoing a tweet and posting longer videos. 

With ‘Undo Tweet’, users get 30 seconds to cancel the tweet that they’ve just posted before it goes public, a bit like the brief opportunity Gmail offers users to cancel sending an email. 

Undo Tweet may reduce some of the most vociferous verbal abuse on the platform by giving users a chance to think twice before they post, although some users seemed unimpressed with the idea of paying $2.99 a month for the privilege. 

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey (pictured) doesn’t seem to be yielding to user demands to introduce an edit button for tweets 

Twitter has emphasised that it’s not phasing out the free version of its platform and any user who isn’t interested in Twitter Blue can continue using the free version of the platform. 

Charging money for an exclusive subscription service will help Twitter regularly turn a profit – something it had consistently failed to do until early 2018. 

Twitter founder and CEO Jack Dorsey has focused on tweaking the product to try to attract more people and increase advertising revenue. 

Twitter still isn’t yielding to user demands to implement an edit button, however – its most-requested feature.  

WILL AN EDIT BUTTON COME TO TWITTER? 

When asked in January last year if the edit button would be introduced in 2020, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey simply replied: ‘The answer is no’. 

In an interview with Wired, Dorsey said at the time: The reason there’s no edit button [and] there hasn’t been an edit button traditionally is we started as an SMS text messaging service. 

‘So as you all know, when you send a text, you can’t really take it back. We wanted to preserve that vibe and that feeling in the early days.’   

Dorsey has previously said two types of editing were under consideration. 

One would give users a brief window of time after the post was sent – five minutes, for example – to make any corrections. 

The other would work in a similar way to Facebook’s editing feature, allowing allows users to amend what they wrote at any time, but with a log of the changes visible.

Undo Tweet, which came to Twitter as part of its ‘Blue’ subscription service in 2021, is more akin to the former. While not an edit button, it could pave the way for editing capabilities in the future.  

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