Twitter Spaces — Know everything about the Clubhouse competitor

• Follow

Amid the Clubhouse exhilaration, after Elon Musk announced his entry in the platform for a chat, Twitter also launched an audio feature called ‘Twitter Spaces’.

“Spaces are for small and intimate conversations with just a few others, or for big discussions about what’s unfolding right now with thousands of listeners,” Twitter said in a blog post.

Who can join Twitter Spaces?

Twitter users can host a Space only if their follower count is 600 or more. If users join Spaces as the listener, they can react to the conversation with emojis and can even request to speak.

“When someone you follow starts or speaks in a Space, it’ll appear at the top of your timeline as a purple bubble for as long as it’s live,” the microblogging platform said in a blog.

On keeping the restriction of 600 followers, Twitter said, “Based on what we’ve learned so far, these accounts are likely to have a good experience hosting live conversations because of their existing audience.”

Features

In an attempt to make Twitter’s new launch user-friendly, the platform has come up with several features. A few of them to mention here are:

Firstly, while hosting a Space, Twitter gives a facility pinning tweets. You can also tweet the Space so that your followers can join. Interestingly, you can also turn on captions so that your followers can follow along.

Secondly, as a host, you have the facility to mute other speakers. You can also remove them from your Space. Talking about the safety features, Twitter said, “Anyone can report and block others in the Space, or report the Space. Also, people you’ve blocked can’t join a Space you’re hosting, and you’ll see labels and warnings if someone you’ve blocked is speaking in a Space you join.”

Thirdly, a maximum of 11 people can speak simultaneously.

Data privacy

According to Twitter’s help centre, the public can access Spaces only while they are live. Once ended, the audio copies are retained by Twitter for 30 days.

The microblogging platform responded to a query related to data protection by saying, “Twitter retains copies of audio from Spaces and captions (if turned on) for 30 days after a space ends in case there is a need to review them for violations of the Twitter Rules. If a space is found to contain a violation, we extend the time we maintain a copy for an additional 90 days to allow people to appeal if they believe there was a mistake.”

It is imperative to note that users with private accounts cannot host Spaces. Although they can join other Spaces as a speaker or listener.