X/Twitter is disabling its Circles feature

X/Twitter has today announced that it will be disabling its Circles feature. The feature is set to be shut down by the end of next month, leaving users with a major change in how they share content on the platform.

“X is deprecating Circles as of Oct 31st, 2023. After this date, you will not be able to create new posts that are limited to your Circle, nor will you be able to add people to your Circle. You will, however, be able to remove people from your Circle, by unfollowing them as described,” the company said in a statement on Friday.

Twitter Circle, which was originally introduced in August 2022 allowed users to select a subgroup of followers to receive particular posts. After users set up a Twitter Circle, they can tweet to their entire following or a smaller crowd.

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While users can still set their entire Twitter/X profile to private to prevent random people from reading and interacting with their posts, there will no longer be a method to filter which of their followers can see specific posts.

Earlier in the year, users started noticing that their Circle posts started appearing on other people’s “For You” algorithmic timelines, which was not ideal if the user actually intended for the posts to be seen by a private Circle audience.

In May, the company confirmed this bug as a “security incident” that might have made “users outside your Twitter Circle” look at Circle posts.

Implication of removing Circle posts for X’s users

It remains to be seen how the previous Circle posts will be treated, however, it seems that the company is pushing towards creating something similar to Facebook Groups-like Communities. 

Earlier in July, Elon Musk tweeted that, “We’re deprecating Circles in favor of Communities & DM group chat.”

Since taking over and rebranding Twitter into X, Musk has introduced a flurry of new features and changes that are geared towards monetizing the platform or aligning it with his philosophy and commitment to advancing free speech and total freedom for everyone.