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Twitter testing new ‘Hide Tweet’ button, possibly new moderation feature

Twitter has confirmed to TechCrunch today that the company is currently developing a new “Hide Tweet” option for the social media platform. The new button is shown when you tap the “Share” button in a tweet, potentially adding moderation options for replies.

Like it sounds, “Hide Tweet” appears to function as an alternative to muting or blocking a user, while still offering some control over a conversation.

In addition to being able to hide a tweet, users will be able to “View Hidden Tweets” as well. This’ll show a list of tweets a user has previously hidden in addition to being able to unhide tweets. The “Hide Tweet” button has been spotted on a version of the Twitter app for Android.

At the time of writing, it’s unclear what Twitter plans to use the feature, but some employees will reportedly tweet “more context about the feature” soon.

Naturally, there are concerns surrounding the feature. For example, if someone tweets about a controversial topic, it’s possible that they’ll be able to hide hate replies to the tweet.

But as of now, it’s not clear that the “Hide Tweet” button is something that would hide the tweet from everyone’s view, or just the from the person who clicked the button.

Today’s discovery could potentially be part of a larger plan to shift Twitter’s focus to a conversation-based platform.

Do you think a “Hide Tweet” button for Twitter would be useful? Let us know in the comments below!

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