Twitter rolls out ‘hide replies’ feature to its users worldwide
After months of testing, Twitter has now announced that it’s new ‘hide replies’ option will be rolling out to all users globally.
Users will be able to hide certain replies on their tweets, in order to give people more control over their conversations on the site, the company said last week.
Starting today, you can now hide replies to your Tweets. Out of sight, out of mind. pic.twitter.com/0Cfe4NMVPj
— Twitter (@Twitter) November 21, 2019
The feature, which has previously been tested in the United States, Canada and Japan, is part of Twitter’s efforts to clean up abusive content and make the social media platform more user-friendly.
The option to hide replies, which may be offensive, hateful or racist in nature, has rolled out globally on iOS, Android, Twitter Lite and twitter.com, the micro-blogging platform said in a statement.
Currently, people who reply to your tweet can shift the topic or tone of a discussion and derail what you and your audience wants to talk about.
Here’s how it works:
Anyone can choose to hide replies to their tweets. Everyone can see and engage with hidden replies by tapping the grey icon that will appear on the tweets.
This way, users will have more control over the conversations they start but people can still see the entire conversation.
The option is a new way to shut out noise as 85 per cent of the people who hide replies are not using block or mute.
It is not the equivalent of a delete button, but hides replies behind an icon.
If your followers still want to see the hidden replies, they can press the icon and view those.
A user can also hide replies that attempt to correct misinformation or offer a fact check.
The company said it is also working on new controls and more clarity around the rules of conversation spaces.
It will soon launch a new “hide replies endpoint” so developers can build additional conversation management tools.