Since the invention of the Retweet, one of the most significant changes to the twitter is radical “Hide Replies” feature. It is now available to the global user base of Twitter. Yesterday, the company said that the feature would roll out for all Twitter users across the platforms.
Hide Replies has been one of the most controversial features to date of Twitter. It was designed to balance the conversation in social media by putting the original poster back in control of which replies to their tweets remain visible.
Hide replies are placed behind an extra click, while no answers are deleted from Twitter when a user wants to hide them. It means that insulting, irrelevant, trolling, or otherwise disagreeable comments can’t dominate the conversation.
Twitter thinks that in this way, it will encourage people to be more civilized online because users will know everyone can hide inappropriate behavior and hateful remarks.
But the disadvantage of “Hide Replies” is that it can stifle dissent and silent healthy critic, even if someone will offer a fact check or something else.
Canada was the first country that checked the feature, then came to the U.S. and Japan this September. Mobile and web platforms used hide replies.
The Twitter survey said that people hide replies mostly when it is off-topic, annoying, or irrelevant.
Instead of harsher noise reduction controls like mute or block, people were using Hide Replies.
Around 27% of surveyed in Canada who have hidden their tweets said that they would reconsider in the future how they interact with others. It is a promising metric.
Global Debut
Before its global debut, the feature will change slightly. After using the Hide Replies, some of the users wanted to take further action.
From now on, a function will ask the user if they’re going to block the replier or don’t. Others were afraid of retaliation because they could still see the icon. When users choose Hide Reply, the reply is still visible.
As the new feature first rolled out, another concern was that the broader pop-up notification appeared. It was happening when users encountered a tweet with hidden replies.
The notification was so disruptive and massive that people paid more attention to the hidden replies than they would without warning.
However, Twitter said the screen only displays when a Twitter user encounters a tweet with a hidden reply for the first time.
Alongside the global debut, Twitter will use a new endpoint of hiding replies in its application. There will be available new management tools for the additional building conversation.
Twitter’s director of Product Management, Suzanne Xie, said that everyone should feel comfortable and safe on Twitter. For this reason, it is necessary to change the conversation structure in the service application.
Tests are going to encourage healthier conversations. There might be more options about who can see specific discussions and who can reply. Some features will evolve. Other features are developing. Twitter was running a beta product (twttr) simultaneously of Twitter to try new ideas.
