Twitter, now known as X, has announced that it will be shutting down its Circles feature. Circles allowed users to share tweets with a limited group of people. X confirmed this decision on its help pages and through a post on its platform.
Twitter introduced the Circles feature last year, before rebranding as X. However, it failed to gain widespread adoption. In its Help Center, X updated the feature description as follows:
X is deprecating Circles as of October 31st, 2023. After this date, users will no longer be able to create new posts limited to their Circle or add people to their Circle. However, they will still be able to remove people from their Circle by unfollowing them.
X has not provided a specific reason for deprecating the feature or why it has chosen this moment to do so. It remains to be seen how users who actively use Circles will respond to this decision.
Only time will tell if the Communities feature can fill the void left by Circles. In the meantime, users who wish to share tweets with a limited group of people can explore other platforms such as Facebook Groups or Discord servers.
The Circles feature will not be retired until October 31st, providing users with over a month to utilize it or find alternative platforms. It is evident that X is not finished making changes to its operations, so it is possible that more features may be discontinued in the future.