Twitter Changes Continue, As The CoTweet Feature Will Be Removed After Less Than A Year

Twitter has gotten interesting in the months following Elon Musk's takeover. There was a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff that drew most of the media attention, but changes were also being made to the platform itself. Some features were removed, others altered, and new ones were added. Some were genuine attempts at improving the platform, while others were designed to make Musk's $8-per-month premium service Twitter Blue more appealing. Others sounded pretty good on paper but didn't really work out. CoTweets was one of those features.

The idea was pretty simple: if two accounts wanted to put their weight behind a single message, they could CoTweet it. It would appear on both of their timelines and be attributed to both tweeters. Select accounts in the United States, Canada, and South Korea had access to the feature and could invite other accounts to CoTweet with them. There were also a couple of unique considerations with CoTweets. 

Firstly, they couldn't be edited; the CoTweet would have to be deleted and republished if the authors wanted to make changes. Twitter recommended users collaborate via DM so they agreed on the content of a CoTweet before an invite was sent. Users could also change their minds after a CoTweet was published and remove their names from it. Doing this would simply turn it into a regular tweet by the remaining author. The tweets were also limited to two users, so you couldn't CoTweet with three or more people. Times have changed, though, and starting today you can't CoTweet with anyone.

Twitter has announced that the CoTweet feature has been removed following its initial testing period. The CoTweets that have already been posted aren't disappearing straight away, but they will "revert to retweets" in a month's time, according to the company. It's not explicitly stated how the reversion will work, but looking at the other CoTweet rules, it seems the original author who sent the invite will have the tweet on their timeline, and the person who accepted the invite will have a retweet of that tweet. It isn't all doom and gloom, though. 

There is a chance CoTweets could make a comeback at some point. The statement on Twitter's CoTweet FAQs page thanks the people who tested the feature over the last several months for their feedback. It then goes on to state, "we're still looking for ways to implement this feature moving forward." So CoTweets are gone for now, but they may not actually be gone for good.