Twitter announced today that it will implement a new messages setting on July 14th aimed at reducing spam in users’ inboxes. The change is straightforward on paper: messages from people a user follows will appear in the primary inbox, while messages from Verified users the recipient does not follow will be routed to a separate “Message Request” inbox.
That distinction matters because direct messages are not merely another feed. A crowded timeline can be ignored. An inbox carries a stronger expectation of relevance, privacy and urgency. When spam lands beside messages from colleagues, friends, customers or sources, the platform is not just dealing with an annoyance; it is weakening one of the reasons people use private messaging in the first place.
Under the new setting, everyone who opens their inbox to allow messages from anyone will be able to receive messages from anyone on Twitter, regardless of whether the sender is a Verified user. The platform is therefore not closing direct messages to unfamiliar accounts. It is changing the route those messages take and giving users a clearer separation between contacts they have chosen to follow and everyone else.
There is also an important exception for existing conversations. If you have sent someone a DM in the past, they will be able to DM you again without having to follow you first. That preserves the continuity of prior exchanges, which is sensible: forcing people to re-establish permission after they have already spoken would make ordinary use of the service needlessly awkward.
The practical result is that users will receive messages from accounts they follow in their primary inbox. Messages from Verified users they do not follow will arrive in Message Requests instead. Users can reset their settings to receive DMs from Verified users in their main inbox if they choose to do so after the changes are implemented.
Twitter’s own support announcement is available here. But the policy’s significance is larger than the mechanics of inbox sorting. It is an acknowledgment that verification, as it currently operates on the platform, has become entangled with the spam problem rather than serving as a meaningful signal against it.
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A filter, not a cure
Users responded to Twitter’s announcement by pointing out that the update does not actually reduce spam from Verified users or otherwise, but rather moves those messages to a different folder. That criticism is fair. Routing unwanted messages into Message Requests may improve the primary inbox, and that is useful, but it does not remove the accounts sending them or reduce the volume of unsolicited outreach across the service.
There is a familiar trade-off in any messaging system: a stricter filter protects people from unwanted contact but can hide legitimate messages; a more open system makes discovery and outreach easier but invites abuse. Twitter’s approach chooses compartmentalisation. It treats the primary inbox as a space reserved mainly for existing social connections, while placing unsolicited communication behind an extra layer of attention.
For many users, that will be an improvement. A Message Request folder gives people a chance to assess an unfamiliar message on their own terms rather than making it compete with correspondence they expect to see. The limitation is equally clear. The burden of sorting spam has not disappeared; it has been shifted from the main inbox to a less prominent folder.
That may be enough for users whose goal is simply a cleaner inbox. It is less satisfying for those who believe the core issue is that spam accounts can still make contact so easily. The change is a moderation decision expressed through product design, not a demonstrated solution to the underlying supply of spam.
What the Verified label now signals
Verification showed that someone was a public or well-known figure, such as a politician, celebrity, athlete, journalist or other famous individual. By allowing anyone with a credit card to get the Verified checkmark, Twitter reduced the value of verification.
That loss of meaning sits at the centre of the new DM policy. A verification label can function as a shortcut: it tells recipients that an account has met some threshold of identity, prominence or trust. Once the label becomes widely available through payment, recipients have less reason to treat it as an assurance that an unexpected message deserves priority.
People have become angered by the amount of Verified user spam clogging up their main inbox, even though they initially allowed it. Twitter’s decision to move messages from Verified users into Message Requests effectively responds to that anger by withdrawing the inbox advantage that verification had provided for people the recipient does not follow.
It also exposes an uncomfortable contradiction. The platform had allowed Verified accounts into a more prominent part of users’ private communications, yet it is now building a setting designed to keep those same accounts out of the primary inbox unless there is an existing relationship. This demonstrates that Twitter has a Verified user spam issue.
For ordinary users, the consequence may be a calmer main inbox. For people who use Twitter as a professional contact channel, the cost could be more significant. Journalists will now have a harder time contacting sources for more information or permission to use a tweet. This is because Musk has taken away their verification badges, and even if they pay to be Verified, their DMs will go to the Message Requests folder, which may not be seen.
That is not a minor edge case. Direct messages have long been useful when a public post prompts a private follow-up, when someone wants to provide context without broadcasting it, or when a reporter needs to ask whether material can be used. A request folder is not the same as a rejection, but it is a weaker and less reliable route to someone’s attention.
Spam remains a broader test for Twitter
Elon Musk had proclaimed that reducing spam and bots on Twitter would be one of his major objectives after buying the social network for $44 billion last year. Yet The Wall St. Journal recently reported that fake and spam accounts are still a major issue on the platform.
The report noted that, by at least one measure of bot activity, the degree of bot activity has remained the same after Musk’s takeover. Last month, Musk also claimed that Twitter had eliminated at least 90% of scams and spam on the platform. Those positions are difficult to reconcile without clearer evidence about what kinds of scams and spam were measured, where they were measured and whether users are seeing a meaningful reduction in unwanted activity.
The DM setting does not settle that dispute. Instead, it gives Twitter a way to reduce the visibility of one consequence of spam: unwanted messages in the primary inbox. That may make the experience feel better for some people, but it should not be confused with eliminating the problem.
Twitter’s new arrangement is best understood as a defensive inbox rule. It draws a sharper line around who gets immediate access to a user’s attention, while leaving the wider question of fake accounts, spam and the value of verification unresolved. For a platform still judged against Musk’s stated ambitions on bots, that distinction will matter.
For related context on Twitter’s changes under Musk, see Squaredtech’s earlier report.
