Twitter is working on a new feature called ‘Flock’. What exactly is it?

Twitter is working on a feature that lets users share tweets with a specific group of people (via Input) – along the lines of Instagram’s ‘Close Friends’.

The social media site gave a glimpse of the feature last July, which it called ‘Trusted Friends’ at the time. Since then, mobile developer Alessandro Paluzzi has been keeping track of Twitter’s progress.

According to Paluzzi, Twitter seems to be working on a page that shows more information on its ‘Flock’ – its name for the feature – which explains you can add up to 150 members. Only these users can view or reply to tweets sent out to your Flock. And in case you decide you don’t want someone in your Flock anymore, Twitter notes you can remove people from your list at any time, and they won’t get a notification.

If you’re in someone’s Flock and they send out a tweet, Paluzzi noticed a label that may appear beneath that tweet, reading: “You can see this Tweet because the author has added you to their Flock.” This should make it easy to distinguish between close friends versus everyone else you follow on Twitter. To send a tweet to your Flock, it looks like Twitter will display an audience option before you send it out, letting you choose between all of Twitter and your selected users.

“Twitter is always working on new ways to help people engage in healthy conversations, and we’re currently exploring ways to let people share more privately,” Twitter spokesperson Tatiana Britt told technology website The Verge. “We don’t have any further news to share about the feature at this time, but we can confirm ‘Twitter Flock’ is just a placeholder name.”