How to Remove Twitter Spaces

Twitter Spaces are an annoying feature that you can’t turn off that consume part of your precious screen real estate on the official Twitter for Android App (and presumably the iOS app too, but I refuse to be an Apple consumer).

See the image below for an example of what these eyesores look like:

If you’re like me, Twitter Spaces piss you off precisely because there is no “close” feature.

However, there is actually a way to turn Twitter Spaces off that doesn’t involve installing third-party software or paying for Twitter Blue (which doesn’t let you remove Spaces if you’re a second-class citizen with an Android phone, like me).

Get Your Spaces Out of Our Faces

Before I can explain how to turn Twitter Spaces off, you must first understand how the feature works. Once you understand that, removing them is straightforward and obvious.

How Twitter Spaces Show Up On Your App

This is quite simple, but a lot of people misunderstand it.

If anyone you follow hosts or joins a Twitter Space, it will show up on your screen.

That’s it. That’s their entire algorithm.

How to Make the Annoying Purple Bar Go Away

Find the offending Twitter user(s), and immediately unfollow them. Then refresh your home screen and the bar should disappear.

Does Blocking the Host and/or Speaker(s) Work?

No. If anyone you follow is tuned in, it will notify you.

Blocking the host/speakers will not do anything to make the Space disappear from your Twitter App.

It’s almost like Twitter’s project managers and engineers never stopped to consider the abuse potential for their new features.

Why Doesn’t Blocking the Host Work?

Let’s say Alice is hosting a Twitter Space and Bob is listening in, and you follow Bob. No matter whether you block Alice or not, so long as you still follow Bob and Bob is listening to Alice’s Space, Twitter will shove their purple bar in your face.

You do NOT need to block anyone to make Twitter Spaces go away.

Of course, there are some steps Bob could do to make Twitter suck less.

Can We Do Anything to Make Twitter Spaces Suck Less?

Your only recourse: Refuse to use them. Tell your friends not to, either.

Eventually, if enough people do that, the engagement metrics will tank and their project managers will kill off the stupid “feature” once and for all.

But I Like the Person I’m Following!

You can have the best of both worlds!

Instead of following them (and thus subjecting yourself to the Twitter Spaces madness), just put them on a List. This is what I ended up doing.

With Lists, you can still see their tweets when you choose to, without the purple bar’s intrusion.

Best Practices for Twitter Spaces Users

Y’know how furries on Twitter usually have a separate After Dark account for posting NSFW content?

Consider making a separate dedicated Twitter account for your usage of Twitter Spaces, so your tweet followers don’t get an undismissable Twitter Spaces notification.

Turn Off Your Space Nuisances for Your Followers

Alternatively, if you don’t want to contribute to the problem, you can turn off Twitter notifying your followers of spaces that you join.

You can navigate to https://twitter.com/settings/spaces or go to:

1. Settings and privacy
2. Spaces

And then turn this option off:

The option might be hidden on other platforms besides web. I can’t even locate it on my version of the official Twitter for Android app. Update: See below.

Turning Spaces off on Twitter for Android

1. Settings and privacy
2. Privacy and safety
3. Spaces

Closing Remarks

Twitter is bad at responding to critics, as evidenced by their shrugging off my critique of their misinformation project, Birdwatch.

But they’re even worse at system design, as evidenced by the Twitter gender fiasco in 2020, where people trivially bypassed the 30 character gender limit to store, among other things, the entire Bee Movie Script.

I don’t expect the death of Twitter Spaces to be quick or inevitable, but with any luck, we can at least pressure them to give Android users a fucking Dismiss feature for Spaces we’re not interested in at all.

Until then, keep hurting their engagement metrics so the project managers tracking impact for Twitter Spaces knows the feature is hated. Even if they won’t listen to critics, their dashboards have their full attention. Especially if there’s a dollar figure attached to growth. Hit ’em where it hurts.