Social Media

Twitter To Let Users Filter Unwanted Replies

Twitter users will soon be able to filter out malicious and offensive replies with the help of the auto-reply filter.

The new feature was revealed by app researcher Jane Manchun Wong, who shared a screenshot on Twitter:

Twitter recommends that the reply filter do the following:

Replies to your Tweets that may contain offensive or hurtful language will be filtered and appear here. Others can still see these replies.

Keep in mind that we use technology to help us identify such responses, so while we’re always improving, we may not get it right all the time.”

Located under privacy and security settings, users can turn the reply filter on and off with a toggle.

There doesn’t seem to be a way to customize the filter; It is either on or not.

Twitter admits that it may inadvertently filter out harmless replies, which makes this section of the Privacy and Security panel worth checking out in case you’re missing something you want to see.

Filtering does not equal censorship

The key point to note here is that the filtered replies will be visible to all other accounts on Twitter. It is only filtered from the stream of responses that appear in the notifications tab.

In other words, Twitter does not censor tweets. It is unlikely that anyone else will know when certain responses are filtered from the perspective of the user who posted the initial tweet.

The goal of this response filter is to reduce negativity experienced by Twitter users or account managers.

Watching fewer toxic tweets per day can positively affect a person’s mental health. Not to mention the peace of mind knowing you can check your responses without reading anything you wish you didn’t have.

Twitter also offers the option to limit responses entirely, but it almost defeats the purpose of being on social media if you don’t want to have an open letter.

The reply filter is a more passive way to deal with spam comments.

It is not known when this feature will be available to everyone. We will post another update when it is officially launched.


Featured image: mundissima / Shutterstock

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