Twitter started testing Circle earlier this month with a limited group, and now it looks like it’s starting to roll out to more users (via Android Police). The feature works a lot like Instagram’s Close Friends, as it allows users to send out tweets to a specific group of people rather than all of Twitter.
To check if you have access to Twitter Circle, update your Twitter app or head to Twitter in a web browser. When you start composing a tweet, you’ll see a dropdown menu at the top that reads Everyone. From here, you can choose Twitter Circle to limit your tweet to a select audience, or you can hit Edit to add or remove people from your Circle. Twitter won’t notify users if you add or remove them.
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You can add up to 150 users to your Circle, whether they follow you or not. Users in your Circle will see a note appended to Circle-only tweets (and vice versa), stating: “Only people in @[yourusername]’s Twitter Circle can see this tweet.” Tweeting to your Circle is almost like having a private account, only it privatizes certain tweets instead of limiting access to your entire profile.
The people in your Circle won’t be able to retweet anything you post to it, but they can still screenshot and download your tweets. It’s also important to keep in mind that Twitter’s community guidelines still apply even if you’re sending your tweets out to a smaller audience.
Right now, it’s unclear how many people currently have access to Circle. It looks like more users (myself included) are finally seeing the feature pop up when they start composing a tweet. The Verge reached out to Twitter to see if Circle is rolling out to everyone, but didn’t immediately hear back.
