Not content to leave the potentially user-hostile decisions to Apple, Twitter announced last week that they were adding read receipts (among other features) to direct messages. Annoyingly, this is an opt-out feature. Twitter is once again adding a feature no one wants while ignoring the real problems of abuse on the platform.

I’m no product management expert, but I know there are times when you listen to your users and times when you don’t. “I want this thing” is a good time to not listen to your users. That’s not to say you ignore their wishes entirely, but you can build a product that people like even if they don’t realize that’s what they want at the time. Apple has had a fair amount of success with this approach.

“This thing is a problem” is absolutely something you listen to your users about. Particularly when prominent people end up abandoning the product. While Twitter has given lip service to the harassment problem, it does not appear to have taken any meaningful steps to address it. In fact, the read receipts can bolster harassment.

Before the addition of read receipts, harassers would have to guess if a direct message was read or not. With read receipts on, there’s the immediate satisfaction of knowing your message got through. Even setting harassment aside, read receipts just reinforce the cultural demand for immediacy. I’m fairly connected digitally, but I don’t see a benefit to read receipts. I’ll probably respond to a message quickly, but if I don’t then that’s my decision. I don’t need the platform insinuating that I’m ignoring someone when I’m really just trying to keep my children from tearing the house apart.

Instructions for disabling read receipts came out almost as quickly as the announcement.

Full disclosure: I own a small number of Twitter shares.