In such scenarios, the ability to hide a Twitter reply may be a good idea to keep the discussion clean and polite for other people. So here is how you can hide Twitter replies to your Tweets on iPhone, iPad, Android, and Web. Note: The method for Web and other phones is similar.
How to Hide Twitter Replies on iPhone, iPad, Android and Web
Step #1. Launch the Twitter app on your iPhone and open the Tweet that has the reply which you wish to hide. Or, if you see the reply in your Twitter Notifications, tap on it. Step #2. Tap on the small down arrow next to the name of the person who made the comment. Step #3. Now, tap on Hide reply. Note: If this is the first time you are hiding a reply, you will see a pop-up explaining you how this feature works. Tap on Hide Reply here too. That’s it! After this, you will also see a pop-up asking if you would like to block that person. All Hidden replies are moved to a separate page. Anyone can view them by tapping on the hidden reply icon on that Tweet. If you would like to unhide the reply, you have to go on your Tweet that has the hidden response and tap on the hidden reply icon. Now, tap on the arrow next to the person’s name and select Unhide reply. So this is how you can hide replies to your Tweets on the Twitter iPhone app.
Disadvantages of Hiding a Twitter Reply
Though the motive behind letting a user hide replies to their Tweets is good, the execution is somewhat flawed. See, the reply you hide is removed from all the replies below your tweet and moved to a separate page that anyone can tap and see. This makes the nasty hidden response stand out from the rest. Suppose you make a tweet that gets twenty replies. Now, if you hide two bad replies, they are removed from the regular comments list and moved to a separate page, which anyone can see. So, instead of these replies being mixed among other normal replies, they are listed separtely which makes these replies even more accessible and noticeable. Furthermore, a person who reads the comments you have hidden on your Tweet, can know what types of lines and words affect you. There may be various outcomes for this. Let me tell you one incident that I saw first-hand on Twitter. Some people had written ‘Aunty,’ ‘Oldie,’ and such similar replies for a young journalist on her Tweet. Now she hid a few of these replies from her tweet. But the end result was worse. A small number of people took screenshots of the hidden replies and tweeted it with comments like ‘She doesn’t like to be called Aunty’ etc. It made the situation worse. So this is one thing Twitter needs to address. I agree that giving the ability to delete a reply would mean that people would start removing even responses with slight criticism or constructive criticism. But nevertheless, Twitter needs to work on the current ‘hide replies option’ and come up with some better solution. You may like to read…
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What are your thoughts about this new feature Twitter has introduced? Have you used it to hide replies on your Tweets? Share your comments below.
