Twitter launches tip jar

Twitter has launched a new “ tip jar” feature that lets people send money to others on social networks. The company says the feature is “an easy way to support the incredible voices that make up the conversation”.

Twitter says the feature is “an easy way to support the incredible voices that make up the conversation. Only a select group of people can receive tips – a group Twitter said was made up of “creators”, journalists, experts, and non-profits”.

The tip jar function essentially adds a small icon to a user’s profile – on mobile devices only for now – with a dropdown menu for other payment providers such as Paypal, Venmo, or the CashApp, the latter two of which are popular in the United States.

 Because the payment is made through those external systems, some Twitter users noticed that tipping a PayPal account lets the recipient know the postal address of the tip sender.

The tip jar is the latest in a string of experiments from the social network which has seen user growth slow in recent years.