Know how 'hide replies' works on Twitter

On Thursday, Twitter started allowing users to hide replies that might sound abusive or harassing in the latest move by the online platform to create a more welcoming environment.

The move is made to help users "feel safe and comfortable while talking on Twitter," Suzanne Xie, head of product management, said in a statement announcing the feature.

Hidden replies can still be glanced at and engaged with by tapping a grey icon that will appear, but they will no longer be active parts of the main exchange that jumped from a tweet, as per Twitter.

Xie said, "This way, you have more control over the conversations you start, but people can still see the entire conversation."

Earlier this year the San Francisco-based company introduced the option to hide replies to tweets in some countries, a choice to help foster more reasonable online conversations. Testing showed that it is a useful tool for managing the back-and-forth exchanges tweets can inspire, as per Twitter. During testing, hidden tweets were typically considered "irrelevant, off-topic, or annoying," Xie said.

Twitter said, "We're exploring more options around who can reply to or see specific conversations, and are testing engagement changes to see if these lead to healthier discussions."

Twitter is rolling out hide-away feature globally and in updates to the Twitter mobile app.

Twitter users who receive direct messages from people they don't follow on the platform can have such missives automatically routed to a secondary folder.

In 2016, the platform began allowing users to eliminate, or mute, notifications based on keywords, phrases or entire conversations they are not interested in seeing in the effort to stem abusive comments.