Twitter Spaces

Twitter has become world famous as a short message service. Journ­al­ists, celebrit­ies, and politi­cians, but also millions of non-famous users use Twitter to voice their opinions to the rest of the Internet in a brief and straight-to-the-point way. But a new feature has now been released: Twitter Spaces. This enables you to open up a chat room and then have a con­ver­sa­tion with others via mi­cro­phone. So instead of having to be content with just a few char­ac­ters, you can now talk to each other directly, ex­tens­ively, and without a time-delay. Chat ab­bre­vi­ations like wtf or lol no longer need to be used.

While the concept of Twitter was re­volu­tion­ary when it was founded in 2006, the principle of Twitter Spaces is not as new for social media con­nois­seurs. Just recently the Clubhouse app triggered a real hype when it launched its online con­ver­sa­tion rooms.

So, what can you expect from the new Twitter feature? This is what we know as of April 2021.

• Beta phase: So far, only selected iOS users can create their own Spaces and hold con­ver­sa­tions. Android users have the option to listen in but aren’t yet able to fully par­ti­cip­ate.
• Audio only: Con­ver­sa­tions on Twitter Spaces are audio-only, though listeners can use emojis to express their mood. It’s also possible to pin tweets in the space as context to the con­ver­sa­tion.
• Room size: Up to 11 people can actively par­ti­cip­ate in the con­ver­sa­tion and an unlimited number of people can listen.
• Openness: Each Space is freely ac­cess­ible to all Twitter users. So far, there is no option to lock a Space.
• Mi­cro­phone sharing: You either invite specific people to join the con­ver­sa­tion or share the mi­cro­phone with everyone you follow on Twitter. In­vit­a­tions are sent via Direct Message.
• Re­cord­ings: Twitter stores a recording of the con­ver­sa­tion for 30 days so that possible vi­ol­a­tions of the terms and con­di­tions can be reviewed. The re­cord­ings are not publicly available but can be down­loaded from the host of the Twitter Space.
• Ac­cess­ib­il­ity: As the host of a room, you can set up subtitles which are created and displayed in real time so that people who are deaf or hard of hearing can also follow the con­ver­sa­tion. Com­pat­ib­il­ity with screen readers is currently being worked on so that blind or visually impaired people will also be able to use Spaces in the future.
• Tech­no­logy: Spaces is built on the in­fra­struc­ture of Periscope. Twitter had bought the video streaming platform app in 2015 for easy live video broad­casts and is now dis­con­tinu­ing Periscope to con­cen­trate on the launch of Spaces.

With the new Spaces feature, Twitter users will be able to open their own chat room. But instead of com­mu­nic­at­ing via text messages like in classic chat rooms, you turn on your mic. The host of the room can invite other Twitter users to join the con­ver­sa­tion. You can either select in­di­vidu­al people or give the right to speak to all users you follow.

Currently, every Twitter Spaces is open to everyone. Once the room has been created, other users can enter and follow the con­ver­sa­tion. However, these people don’t ne­ces­sar­ily have per­mis­sion to speak - the host decides who is allowed to speak. By the way, as the creator of a room, you can also take away the right to speak from your invited guests. Listeners, on the other hand, only have the option of giving reactions via emojis, and otherwise cannot par­ti­cip­ate directly.

Twitter Spaces is meant to be a direct and transient medium. Just like an offline, everyday con­ver­sa­tion, no re­cord­ings should take place. This enables the con­ver­sa­tions to be more open because par­ti­cipants don’t have to worry about what they said and how it could come across in the future. However, there are a few things to bear in mind: Twitter stores all con­ver­sa­tions for 30 days. This is so that enough time is given to trace any illegal state­ments that might have been made. The host also has the option of down­load­ing the sound file during the storage period. Other speakers should at least be able to download a tran­script of what was said.

Ensure that you don’t rely too heavily on the supposed privacy in a chatroom. Clubhouse came under fire recently after personal data of around 1.3 million users was stolen from the chatroom app and posted on a hacker forum. There have also been incidents of con­ver­sa­tions being leaked.

The Spaces feature is initially only aimed at users of Twitter’s mobile app. Currently, only iOS users can enjoy the full set of features. People with Android smart­phones can log into and listen to Spaces. However, only Apple device owners are able to create their own Spaces and pick up the mic at this time. This is currently being worked on, so you can soon expect a speedy roll-out for the Android operating system as well. As de­velopers have reported on Twitter, they are even working on a web version already, so that you can also access the feature on a desktop PC or on a laptop via the browser.

If you want to open a room, you have two options:

1. On iOS, long-press the Compose button and then select the Spaces icon (multiple circles in a diamond shape).
2. If you click on the Fleet icon (at the top of the app), you can also use this to create a Space.

When you’ve suc­cess­fully opened the room, you’ll notice that your mi­cro­phone is initially muted. Simply turn the sound on when you’re ready to start the con­ver­sa­tion. You can also mute your mi­cro­phone at any time during the call.

A good thing about the feature is that you don’t have to have Spaces open all the time. So, if you want to do other things on Twitter at the same time or even minimize the app, it won’t close Spaces.

Once you have opened the room, you can also remove and block selected users although you have to do this mod­er­a­tion work alone. Unlike Clubhouse, Twitter does not give you the option to appoint ad­di­tion­al mod­er­at­ors. However, Twitter has already assured users that this option is on its way.