While announcing some upcoming changes to the reporting process and its documentation, Twitter has today revealed that it is planning to launch a new ‘Hide Replies’ feature in June that will allow users to hide any replies they do not want to appear in a conversation thread, TechCrunch is reporting.
Twitter has, however, said that the feature will be introduced as an “experiment” and may be changed or even removed based on user feedback. The social network believes the feature could help encourage people to present their thoughts and opinions “in a more polite and less abusive fashion”.
Twitter is testing replies moderation. It lets you to hide replies under your tweets, while providing an option to show the hidden replies pic.twitter.com/dE19w4TLtp
— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane)
It must be noted that the replies will not be entirely silenced, just made more difficult to view as displaying them would require an extra click:
“We already see people trying to keep their conversations healthy by using block, mute, and report, but these tools don’t always address the issue. Block and mute only change the experience of the blocker, and report only works for the content that violates our policies,” explained Twitter’s PM of Health Michelle Yasmeen Haq.
“With this [‘Hide Replies’] feature, the person who started a conversation could choose to hide replies to their tweets. The hidden replies would be viewable by others through a menu option.”
Meanwhile, Twitter has also announced that it will be making it easier for people to share specifics when reporting tweets so Twitter can act more swiftly when user safety is a concern.
