Twitter has started testing a feature that will allow users to hide replies to their tweets, in an attempt to curb trolling on the site.
The company confirmed that it has started testing the new feature in Canada - although it had to temporarily turn off the experiment on Android today, to fix some crash issues.
The feature will eventually be available to Twitter users around the world, the company said.
Discussing the feature back in February, after it was first uncovered by an app researcher, Twitter product manager Michelle Yasmeen Haq explained it was intended as a way for users to protect their conversations.
"People who start interesting conversations on Twitter are really important to us, and we want to empower them to make the conversations they start as healthy as possible by giving them some control," she said.
"We think of conversations as an ecosystem of different groups: authors, repliers, the audience and the platform. We try to balance the experience across all four groups, and we are continuously exploring ways to shift the balance without overcorrecting."
She added that people already try 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 Twitter's policies.
"With this feature, the person who started a conversation could choose to hide replies to their tweets. The hidden replies would be viewable by others through a menu option," said Haq.
"We think the transparency of the hidden replies would allow the community to notice and call out situations where people use the feature to hide content they disagree with.
"We think this can balance the product experience between the original Tweeter and the audience."
The feature has been met with mixed reactions from Twitter users.
Some welcomed the new feature, claiming it would give tweeters the power to prevent trolls and abusers from hijacking the conversation.
However, others described it as "outrageous", claiming it would allow politicians and other powerful people to censor criticism and reinforce echo chambers.
"Transparency is important to us - that's why we're hiding the replies behind an icon where they can still be accessed," said Twitter.
"We want to give Tweet authors control over their conversations, but in a way that's open."
