Twitter on Thursday, December 18 announced that it has launched its Clubhouse-like voice-based chat rooms called Spaces for beta-testing, which is set to fight against harassment and regulations issues Clubhouse is currently trying to combat.
Beta testing is the final round of testing before a product is finally released to a wide audience. The objective is to uncover as many usability issues as possible in a controlled setting.
Last month, Twitter announced it would soon begin testing the new social experience on its platforms involving audio-only chat rooms, similar to the startup Clubhouse but with better features.
Clubhouse is an invite-only social platform where users, currently over 250,000, congregate and create “rooms” for voice-based conversations.
Read Also: Why Everyone Is Talking About Invite-Only Voice-Based Social Media Platform ClubHouse
Today, Twitter Spaces, as the product is now being called, launched into private beta testing. During this time, the product will be limited to select individuals, largely from underrepresented backgrounds, Twitter says.
In a Twitter thread announcing the test of its own Spaces feature, the company said a very small group of users would be given the ability to create Spaces, but that in theory anyone could join them — though who would be allowed into any given space depends on the user who created it.
aye we’re live! what up y’all, we’re the team behind Spaces––a small experiment focused on the intimacy of the human voice🧵
— Spaces (@TwitterSpaces) December 17, 2020
we are giving Spaces to a very small feedback group. people in the group will be able to create Spaces for their followers and other people on twitter to join. they’ll have full control over who can/cannot speak in their space.
— Spaces (@TwitterSpaces) December 17, 2020
Twitter also emphasized in its last month’s announcement, when the company outlined how the first people to be given access to Spaces would be women and people from other marginalized communities, groups.
It said these groups are more likely than others subjected to abuse and harassment when trying to engage in conversations in regular, comment-based discussions on the platform.
Rival app, Clubhouse has already earned a reputation for being a mouth-watering business for Silicon Valley venture capitalists, however it has been embroiled in a number of controversies of encouraging harassment of some users.
The app, which is also in its beta testing stage, has run into challenges with content moderation and hosting sometimes-controversial conversations, including criticisms of journalists.
However, in combating these challenges, Twitter’s Spaces has moved in the right direction by introducing moderation tools like reporting and blocking users who fail to comply with regulations.
Creator of a space can control who can or cannot speak in the Space with the reporting and blocking features included in the first version.
With the creator of a Space in control of who joins and who gets kicked or muted, the hope is it will allow for more intimate discussions than Twitter’s character limits allow and cultivate the atmosphere of “a well hosted dinner party”.
Meanwhile, just like Clubhouse, there is a need for an invitation to be part of the platform but for the ongoing private beta tests, Twitter said a small group of users would be able to create Spaces and invite any of their followers or other Twitter users to join.
Selected users can create a Space by pressing and holding the compose button in the lower right corner of the main screen on Twitter.
Additional features being tested include live voice transcriptions, being able to share tweets in Spaces, and “reactions similar to hand gestures.”
other features we’re testing:
– reactions similar to hand gestures
– a very early version of live transcriptions
– reporting & blocking
– sharing Tweets in spaces— Spaces (@TwitterSpaces) December 17, 2020
Twitter says it will roll out to a few hundred iOS users over the course of the coming weeks.
At the moment, it seems like joining a Space only works from the Twitter mobile app as trying to join from the web just takes you to a “page not found” error.
