Twitter is testing 'Spaces' - a voice chat room!

Twitter is experimenting with its latest - “Spaces”. Twitter Spaces is a Clubhouse-like voice-based chat room, and is being rolled out to a few users on the social networking website.

Last month, Twitter announced that it would start testing Spaces with its primary group of subjects - primarily women and people from marginalised groups. Last week, Twitter had announced the first “Spaces” would work among its first subjects, who will essentially function as a feedback group on Twitter DMs.

Also read: Twitter may soon create label for automated 'bot' accounts

Twitter described Twitter Spaces - “the human voice can bring a layer of connectivity to twitter through emotion, nuance and empathy often lost in text. we see this with voice tweets & voice DMs. sometimes 280 isn't enough, and voice gives people another way to join the conversation.”

Twitter Spaces offers a lot of features in the phase of testing. Part of this are hand gestures, live transcriptions, blocking and reporting, among many featured - also including the ability to share tweets. 

So far, Twitter Spaces is available in beta only on iOS. The audio-based will be a host-moderated which features speakers and listeners.

To create Twitter Spaces, one has to hold and press the compose button on Twitter’s iOS application. Additionally, one may use Twitter Fleets to use the feature. Naturally, the feature will be available only to a select users.

Nevertheless, the host may invite anybody to join Twitter Space. Hosts can also decide who speaks among the invitees. 

Twitter Inc may soon create a new type of account for bots next year that will identify them as automated, the company said in a blog post on Thursday.

Also read: 'Conspiracy crackdown': Twitter to scrub posts claiming COVID-19 vaccines ‘cause harm’

The move is a part of plans undertaken to finalise a blueprint for a reboot of its long-paused verification programme.

The company said bot accounts "can bring a lot of value to the service," but acknowledged that "it can be confusing to people if it's not clear that these accounts are automated." 

Twitter Inc may soon create a new type of account for bots next year that will identify them as automated, the company said in a blog post on Thursday.

Twitter has faced years of calls from misinformation researchers to disclose more information about bots, which have been used to amplify influence operations and make certain narratives appear more popular on its site.

It started requiring developers to identify automated accounts as bots in March, but resisted pressure to apply a designated label, saying as recently as May that "calls for bot labeling don't capture the problem we're trying to solve."