Twitter has been spotted testing a new option in Canada, that allows users to hide replies from their Tweets.

Since around February this year, Twitter has been building a new option that allows users to better control their experience on the platform by being able to hide specific replies from Tweets. At the time, the company had confirmed the feature, but now it’s been spotted being tested in Canada.

Jane Manchun Wong shared an update this week, showing the feature in action, with a new ‘Hide Tweet’ option available under the tweet drop-down list. If you choose to hide a reply, it will be hidden from your timeline and from others as well. Those others can, however still choose the ‘View Hidden Tweets’ option on Tweet to see if a reply was hidden.

A way to make Twitter more “conversational?” Perhaps.

Twitter is testing Hidden Replies in Canada. pic.twitter.com/MeBFAOmqg8 — Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) June 10, 2019

The new feature isn’t a radical one, but it goes a step further towards cleaning up conversations on the platform, allowing users to at least “silence” some voices that may cause them distress. Of course, some would also argue that it gives people the ability to censor others if they simply don’t like an opinion.

However, I think it does make sense and it goes in the right direction in terms of giving users more control over their conversations on Twitter.

After all, users can still view hidden Tweets, it’s not like they’re totally removed.

Of course there is also the risk that the feature could be used nefariously. That’s probably why Twitter is first testing it in Canada. Twitter hasn’t commented on when or whether this feature will be rolled out more widely.

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