Twitter introduces feature to receive direct messages from people you don't follow

Twitter has clarified tweeting rules as police begin investigating eight allegations of abuse (PA)

Twitter has introduced a new feature which means you can receive direct messages from any of your followers - even if you don't follow them back.

Of course, this eliminates the fussy problem of tweeting people to ask for a follow-back so you can DM them, but it could spell disaster for those with huge followings on Twitter.

Good news for clebs and the Twitterati, however - they've kept the original setting to default, so you'll have to enable the new feature from the settings page on your account if you want to use it.

While it might be handy for businesses, and it might even free up some One Direction fan hatred from the public domain, there's also the possibility that abusive messages could be sent directly into people's inboxes without being publicly seen.

Will you be turning on the feature?