INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Twitter controversial &Hide Replies& feature, aimed at civilizing conversations on its platform, is launching today in the United States
and Japan after earlier tests in Canada
The addition is one of the more radical changes to Twitter to date
It puts people back in control of a conversation they&ve started by giving them the ability to hide those contributions they think are
unworthy.
These replies, which may range from the irrelevant to the outright offensive, aren''t actually deleted from Twitter
They&re just put behind an extra click.
That means people who come into a conversation to cause drama, make inappropriate remarks or bully
and abuse others won''t have their voices heard by the majority of the conversation participants
Only those who choose to view the hidden replies will see those posts.
Other social media platforms don''t give so much power to
commenters to disrupt conversations
On Facebook and Instagram, for example, you can delete any replies to your own posts.
But Twitter has a different vibe
It meant to be a public town square, where everyone has a right to speak (within reason.)
Unfortunately, Twitter open nature also led to
Before today, the only options Twitter offered were to mute, block and report users
Blocking and muting, however, only impact your own Twitter experience
You may no longer see posts from those users, but others still could
Reporting a tweet is also a complicated process that takes time
It not an immediate solution for a conversation rapidly spinning out of control.
While &Hide Replies& will help address these problems, it
ships with challenges of its own, too
It could be used as a way to silence dissenting opinions, including those expressed thoughtfully, or even fact-checked
clarifications.
Twitter believes the feature will ultimately encourage people to better behave when posting to its platform.
We already see
people trying to keep their conversations healthy by using block, mute, and report, but these tools don''t always address the issue
Block and mute only change the experience of the blocker, and report only works for the content that violates our policies,&explained
Twitter PM of Health Michelle Yasmeen Haqearlier this year.
Since launching in Canada in July, Twitter said that people mostly used the
feature to hide replies they found were irrelevant, abusive or unintelligible
User feedback was positive, as well, as those who used the tool said they found it was a helpful way to control what they saw, similar to
keyword muting.
In a survey, 27% of those who had their tweets hidden said they would reconsider how they interact with others in the
That not a large majority, but it enough to make a dent
However, it unclear how representative this survey was
Twitter declined to say how many people used the feature or how many were surveyed about its impacts.
The system will now also ask users who
hide replies if they also want to block the account, as a means of clarifying that &hiding& is a different function.
These are positive and
heartening results: the feature helped people have better conversations, and was a useful tool against replies that deterred from the person
original intent,& explained Twitter in a blog post, shared today
&We&re interested to see if these trends continue, and if new ones emerge, as we expand our test to Japan and the United States People in
these markets use Twitter in many unique ways, and we&re excited to see how they might use this new tool,& the post read.
Despite the
expansion, Twitter says &Hide Replies& is still considered a test as the company is continuing to evaluate the system, and it not available
to Twitter global user base.
The new feature will start rolling out at 2 PM PT in both the United States and Japan and will be available
across mobile and web clients.
