Should You Hide Replies On Twitter?

Back in 2019, Twitter launched its “Hide Replies” feature. The goal was to give a tweet author the ability to control where the conversation goes by limiting visibility of controversial comments or replies the author might consider “trolling”, irrelevant, or otherwise unpleasant to them.

The feature, however, does not completely wipe out the tweets. It adds a layer in the form of an extra click. When you hide a comment, followers who visit your original tweet are shown an icon indicating some tweets have been hidden. Upon clicking, readers are shown all replies that were “hidden by the original Tweet author”.

The feature can be useful at times, especially when you have a lengthy discussion going and you want to keep the topic on track without letting interruptions disrupt the flow. However, some argue that hiding tweets will trigger the exact opposite effect of the intended purpose, by increasing curiosity. People often wonder what was so bad that the author had to hide, leading them to specifically check hidden replies that they might otherwise have scrolled through without giving them any extra attention.

So should you hide Twitter replies? decide on a case-by-case basis. For example, you might have noticed a tweet from Evelyn Claire announcing a live Twitch stream, where inside appears the hidden replies notice, peaking curiosity and revealing an amusing GIF you might have otherwise not noticed as much. In other cases, however, the feature might prove to be more effective.