Twitter lets users sideline unwanted direct messages

Twitter on Monday said it is rolling out a filter that will hide away unwanted direct messages, providing a new tool to stymie abuse.

Twitter users who receive direct messages from people they don’t follow on the platform will be able to have such missives automatically routed to a secondary folder.

“Unwanted messages aren’t fun,” Twitter tweeted in August when it began testing the filter that let users keep them “out of sight, out of mind.”

The filter is intended to also catch messages with spam or offensive content, tagging them accordingly so users can decide whether they want to open them.

“We tested, and turns out filters help you cut through the noise to find gems,” Twitter said Monday in a tweet.

“Who knew. So we’re rolling out this filter to everyone on iOS, Android, and web.”

Twitter has been under pressure to battle abuse and vitriol on the platform known for letting anyone express themselves to the world in real-time.

The San Francisco-based company earlier this year introduced the option to hide replies to tweets in some countries, an option that promised to help foster more reasonable online conversations.

“We know that distracting, irrelevant, and offensive replies can derail the discussions that people want to have,” Twitter senior product manager Michelle Yasmeen Haq and product designer Brittany Forks said when tweet reply-filter testing was announced.

“We believe people should have some control over the conversations they start.”