Twitter rolls out ‘Hide Replies’ feature globally


Update: November 22 — Twitter has started rolling out the hide replies feature globally so that users can choose to hide replies to their Tweets, after testing it back in July. Everyone can see and engage with hidden replies by tapping the gray icon that will appear on the Tweets. It has also posted things it learned during the test.

  • People mostly hide replies they think are irrelevant, off-topic, or annoying.
  • The option is a new way to shut out noise; 85% of the people who hide replies are not using block or mute.
  • People were curious to see how public figures like those in politics and journalism would use this update. So far, they aren’t hiding replies very often.
  • In Canada, 27% of people who had their Tweets hidden said they would reconsider how they interact with others in the future. Also, they thought it was a helpful way to manage what they saw, similar to muted keywords.
  • We learned that you may want to take further action after you hide a reply, so now we’ll check to see if you want to also block the replier.
  • Some people mentioned that they didn’t want to hide replies due to fear of retaliation as the icon remains visible. We’ll continue to get feedback on this.
  • These are early findings and we look forward to continued learning as the feature is used by more people.

Earlier: Social media networking platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to some extent has become one of the easy targets for trolls, fake news and spreading negative comments.

To fight it out, various platforms are coming up with new features that would allow users to better control the privacy of their conversations. In this regard, the micro-blogging website Twitter is working a feature called “Hide Replies”, starting with users in Canada which will be rolled out globally.

With this feature, users will be able to hide replies in the conversation threads that are negative or offensive. Having said that, followers can still see the hidden replies just by pressing the new icon. According to the micro-blogging website, this feature enables users to have a more healthy conversation.

A few hours later, Twitter updated, “Update: we’re turning off the experiment on Android to fix some crash issues we’ve run into. We’ll let you know as soon as it’s back on”

All said and done, it is unclear when it might expand to other countries. Rolling out this feature depends more on the feedback it receives through the test. Lately, Twitter introduced several changes to its platform including a dedicated ‘Report’ option, ability to Retweet with GIF, photos and video as well.