SAN FRANCISCO — Twitter on Tuesday unveiled a new feature that automatically issues formal regret on behalf of users the instant they post something they are likely to regret, the company said, promising to reduce post-publication remorse while increasing corporate confidence that users will remain on the platform despite occasional interpersonal catastrophes.
The feature, called RegretBot, uses a machine-learning model trained on 2.6 billion historical tweets, 14 focus groups, and proprietary behavioral markers to detect language, timing, and context associated with "post-posting discomfort," Twitter product lead Elena Marquez said in a press release. When the algorithm determines a tweet meets the threshold for probable regret, RegretBot immediately publishes a standardized apology reply, sends a private suggested-edit draft, and – if the user opts in – notifies nominated contacts and, at the highest sensitivity level, schedules a follow-up apology via enhanced media attachment.
"Regret is a universal human response, and for decades people have had to experience it unassisted," Marquez said. "RegretBot is core to our mission of enabling confident self-expression while acknowledging the inevitability of being wrong sometimes. Now, instead of suffering in silence, you can suffer with expert-generated language."
According to an internal beta study conducted by Twitter's Center for Responsible Posting, users who enabled RegretBot reported a 73 percent reduction in immediate anxiety after tweeting, and 46 percent fewer calls from ex-partners within 24 hours. The study also found that 81 percent of automated apologies improved perceived sincerity by third-party raters, though independent reviewers noted a "peculiar uniformity" of phrasing across diverse contexts.
RegretBot operates on four tiers. "Prompt" posts a single-sentence apology reply; "Deep" posts a multi-paragraph acknowledgment with contextual clarification and a GIF; "Concierge" drafts a private message, purchases the recipient a coupon for flowers through a partner, and alerts the user's calendar to "apologize in person this week." A premium "Pre-Emptive Regret" add-on — available for a monthly fee — will allow users to set automatic regrets for any tweets posted between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m.
Privacy advocates and behavioral scientists expressed skepticism. "The idea of outsourcing morality to a corporation is both unsurprising and deeply concerning," said Dr. Harpreet Singh, a cognitive ethicist at the Institute for Digital Behavior. "We're training models to anticipate embarrassment and then monetize the social repair. It's social engineering dressed as convenience."
Local residents displayed mixed reactions. "I like that it apologized to my boss before I did," said Minneapolis user Jenna Liu. "Also it paid for the flowers, which I did not opt into but appreciated. My mother thought the public apology sounded robotic, but then again, so do I at family gatherings."
Twitter said RegretBot will be opt-out for accounts flagged as "high risk for conflict" and will integrate an "Annual Regret Report" that compiles users' most regretted phrases into a shareable infographic. The company reported more than 4.3 million automated regrets in the first 48 hours of rollout, with the most common trigger phrases being "just saying," "no offense," and "actually."
Congressional aides signaled interest in exploring the product's implications for workplace liability, while advertisers expressed optimism that the built-in reconciliation flow could keep users on-platform after incendiary posts.
Late Tuesday, Twitter released a brief statement clarifying that while the company stands by RegretBot, it also wanted to apologize for any confusion about the feature, a sentiment that RegretBot immediately detected and posted on the company's behalf.