Twitter direct messages finally get read receipts, and yes you can turn them off

Twitter announced today a handful of upgrades coming to its messaging service on iOS and Android, introducing read receipts, typing indicator bubbles, and detailed previews for links — the latter being a noteworthy change for a social network that once banned external links in DMs.

Although Twitter announced the features this morning, we’re not yet seeming them ourselves. We’ve reached out to Twitter for more details on the roll-out, including when the features may arrive on desktop.

Read receipts may be a polarizing addition — Twitter, riddled with spam and trolls, wasn’t anxiety-inducing enough? — but users can opt out of the feature. Twitter’s move to offer an opt-out mechanism mirrors apps like iMessage but contrasts with Facebook, which doesn’t allow users to disable read receipts in Messenger (although there are alleged workarounds).