Twitter’s Hide Replies feature is now available to developers as an API that can be included in their own software.
Twitter, as well as most social media platforms, have been under fire for not always doing enough to combat trolls and online harassment. Back in November, Twitter unveiled the Hide Replies feature, giving users more power over the discussion in their threads.
Now the company is making the Hide Replies API available to developers so they can include that same functionality in their tools. According to TechCrunch, “these sorts of tools will be of particular interest to businesses and brands who maintain a Twitter presence, but whose accounts often get too many replies to tweets to properly manage on an individual basis. With Hide Replies now available as a new API endpoint, developers can create tools that automatically hide disruptive tweets based on factors important to their customers — like tweets that include certain prohibited keywords or those that score high for being toxic, for example.”
Twitter worked with a small group of developers prior to the API’s launch and the company says it is making improvements based on their feedback. It remains to be seen if the feature will be a success or not, as some critics worry it could create as many problems as it attempts to solve if it ends up being used to censor speech.