Ever since I first noticed the option was available, I have had Twitter set to not show me replies (tweets beginning with @username) sent by my friends to other people I am not myself following. I was happy to see the option, as I found it confusing and distracting to watch one-sided conversations. I always found myself trying to find the other side of the conversation to understand what they were talking about, and it was taking up too much of my time.
This setting has also been the default for new Twitter accounts for quite some time. And recently, Twitter decided to make it the default and only option for all accounts. Well, that sparked a huge outcry of people demanding to have the option to see all replies put back, and tagging their protests with the hashtag "#fixreplies". And Twitter admitted that the change wasn't only to reduce confusion, as they originally claimed, but also because having to check every account's preference every time a reply was posted was causing a huge strain on their database, and to eliminate this strain they had to eliminate the variable. They chose to make the most popular option the standard behavior.
Yes, to hide replies to people one is not following was the most popular option. In fact, only 3% of users were using the alternative setting. That's quite the vocal minority! Those who complained said that seeing who else their friends were talking to helped them to find more people to follow. That's fine for some, I guess, but for me, my goal with Twitter has never been to follow a ridiculous number of people. I actually try to keep my list of friends trimmed down as much as possible so that I actually have time to read all of their tweets. I often unfollow people, even people I consider personal friends, if I find myself skipping more of their tweets than I read.
Now that Twitter has said they won't put things back the way they were because of the technical problems it presented, some people are using a workaround referred to as the "dot fix". By starting their reply with a period before the "@", the tweet is not designated a reply by the system and is therefore shown to all of the sender's followers. Personally I think that using this fix for every reply is highly disrespectful to the 97% of Twitter users who had already opted not to see those replies, and I will likely be unfollowing anyone on my friend list who does so. Of course, I have no problem with people using the "dot fix" sparingly for replies they think will interest their other followers, but on behalf of the "muted majority", please don't make it standard practice.
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