• X (formerly Twitter) has begun rolling out audio calling and video calling to users.
• This is a feature that CEO Linda Yaccarino said was in development in August this year.
• It will allow accounts to accept audio and video calls from verified accounts, people they follow, or contacts in their address book.

X (formerly Twitter) is rolling out a new feature, as some users have reported seeing a notification pop-up when logging into the social media platform explaining that audio and video calling is currently being made available to accounts.

We have logged into our own account, both on desktop and mobile, and have not seen such a notification, so it remains to be seen how quickly the rollout is happening, but it is indeed happening.

As Engadget points out, X CEO Linda Yaccarino confirmed that the platform was working on video calling back in August, and in a relatively short amount of time, the feature appears ready for use.

As for how the feature can be activated/deactivated, after receiving the aforementioned notification, the feature can be accessed in the settings section of the Direct Messages portion of X. From there, you can toggle on/off the option to “Enable audio and video calling”.

The next step is to select which users will be able to contact you on the platform, with three groups currently listed – People in your address book, People you follow, and Verified accounts.

What is of concern, and something that Engadget highlights, is that the feature is automatically enabled for some accounts, with no prior notification appearing. It is therefore a good idea to delve into the settings of your own DMs in X to see whether the feature has surreptitously been enabled or not.

Whether the majority of X users will choose to enable this feature remains to be seen, but Elon Musk’s plan to turn the app formerly known as Twitter into an everything app has taken another step forward, for better or worse.

[Image – Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash]