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In the GIF posted by twitter, you can see that you can now hide tweet replies and gain more control of your tweet engagement.— Twitter (@Twitter) November 21, 2019
Starting today, you can now hide replies to your Tweets. Out of sight, out of mind. pic.twitter.com/0Cfe4NMVPj
"Currently, repliers can shift the topic or tone of a discussion and derail what you and your audience want to talk about. To give you more control over the conversations you start, we tested the option for you to hide replies to your Tweets. We learned that the feature is a useful new way to manage your conversations.", described Twitter.
Twitter has been testing this option for some time now and now has made it available to users worldwide.
During the testing phase, Twitter observed that people usually hide the replies they think are unnecessary or annoying. It also found out that people choose to hide replies instead of unfollowing or blocking the user. Many people who hid their tweets said that they were afraid of any response or backlash they would get for hiding replies as the icon was still visible. Many people also said that this option also made them think about the way they interact with others on the platform.
Twitter has said that it will continue welcoming feedback and learn more about how this new option would affect the users.
Although people can hide the replies, there's still an icon visible in the corner and if you click on it you'll be able to see all the replies including the hidden ones. But it is still a great way to keep the conversation on track by altering out any disturbing, offensive or irrelevant replies.
This is not it, David Gasca - Twitter's Product Manager has said that they are working on algorithms through which Twitter will be able to hide replies automatically based on certain profiles or keywords. Moreover, Twitter's Product Lead has also said that they are also learning about providing users added control by giving them the choice to choose people who can reply to their tweets.
We are yet to find out the impact this will make on a larger scale, will this make people more comfortable to express themselves or make the platform more complex? Whatever the case may be this sure is a great step to make the app cleaner and give users control over the platform.
