Twitter now lets anyone choose to hide replies to their Tweets

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Everyone should feel safe and comfortable while talking on Twitter. To make this happen, we need to change how conversations work on our service. 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. Today, we’re making this available to everyone globally.

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, you have more control over the conversations you start, but people can still see the entire conversation.

Here’s what we learned during our tests:

• 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.

Looking ahead, we’re working on new controls and more clarity around the rules of conversation spaces. Soon, we’ll be launching a new hide replies endpoint so developers can build additional conversation management tools. We're exploring more options around who can reply to or see specific conversations, and are testing engagement changes to see if these lead to healthier discussions. We're committed to making sure people feel safe and comfortable talking on Twitter.

The option to hide replies is rolling out globally on iOS, Android, Twitter Lite, and twitter.com. Let us know what you think!

What it looks like when you hide a reply

What it looks like to view a conversation with hidden replies

Source: More control over your conversations: now available globally

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