Twitter is planning to remove the ability to "like" tweets in a radical move that aims to improve the quality of debate on the social network.

Founder Jack Dorsey last week admitted at a Twitter event that he was not a fan of the heart-shaped button and that it would be getting rid of it “soon”.

The feature was introduced in 2015 to replace “favourites”, a star-shaped button that allowed people to bookmark tweets to read later.

Similar buttons to “like” or show appreciation of people’s status updates, pictures and videos have become a central function of every popular social media service since Facebook introduced them.

But psychologists have suggested that they may be causing social media addiction among users who crave endorsement from their peers. It has led to a trend where young people will tweet or share something on Instagram and Facebook but will delete it if they have not received enough “likes” shortly after.