X shuts down its Circle feature in October

X, formerly Twitter, owned by Elon Musk, is shutting down its Circle feature – ending its problematic history. The feature allowed users to share a post only with a set of people. It was the social network’s version of Instagram’s “Close Friends” feature.

The company announced that this feature will disappear on October 31 and users will no longer be able to add people to their circle.

“X is discontinuing Circles as of October 31, 2023. After this date, you will no longer be able to create new posts limited to your circle, or add people to your circle. You will, however, be able to remove people from your circle by unfollowing them as described below,” said its support page.

The company will still allow people to view their historical posts on Circle after the deadline.

Twitter first launched the Circle feature in August 2022, after testing it in beta for a few months. The company allowed people to add 150 people to their circle. Users were only allowed to create one circle.

Earlier this year, users started noticing that their Circle posts weren’t labeled with a green flag, leading them to believe the post was being sent to all of their followers. Although it was just a simple scare, in April users reported that some of their Circle posts had started showing up on other people’s For You algorithm timelines. In May, the company confirmed the bug as a “security incident” that could cause “users outside of your Twitter circle” to view circle posts.