The Twittersphere was alive with outrage today with an announcement about an update to its direct message feature. Now anybody on the social network can receive DMs from anyone else on Twitter, regardless of whether or not they follow them. Previously, Twitter required users to follow one another in order to send and receive DMs.
Now, before your imagination runs wild with thoughts of spam filling your DMs, how your company will have to wade through even more messages and how your marketing/PR program can maximize the feature…take a deep breath. It’s an opt-in update that is completely optional and automatically turned off for everyone. To ensure the feature is turned off for you, and to change that setting in the future, just go to Twitter > Settings > Security & Privacy and scroll down to “Direct Messages” which is currently at the bottom of the list.
So before you throw a twit (tweet fit), keep calm and take a step away from your phone/keyboard.
Are you planning on turning on the “DM anyone” feature? Let us know if so and why.