Twitter allows users in US, Japan hide replies to tweets

Twitter has rolled out a test for its users in the US and Japan where they can now hide hurtful or irrelevant replies to their tweets and fuel more positive conversations. People mostly hide replies that they think are irrelevant, abusive or unintelligible. "With this test, we want to understand how conversations on Twitter changes if the person who starts a conversation can hide replies," Twitter said in a blog post on Thursday.

The micro-blogging platform has been under scrutiny to do more to fight abuse and harassment on its platform. To hide a reply, users in the US and Japan can now click on a gray downward arrow on the right-hand corner of a tweet and then click on an option that says "Hide reply." Users can also unhide a reply and an icon at the bottom right of a tweet will indicate if any replies have been hidden.

Twitter has other features like blocking, muting keywords and accounts to notifications filters for users globally. "We saw that people were more likely to reconsider their interactions when their tweet was hidden: 27 per cent of people who had their tweets hidden said they would reconsider how they interact with others in the future," said Twitter.

If you tap to hide a Tweet, Twitter will check in with you to see if you want to also block that account.