Twitter said the ability to hide tweets would give users “more control” over their conversations. Critics of the move argue that such a feature would allow users to silence dissenting voices. But the platform believes that visibility of the hidden replies — as well as the fact that anyone can view them — will prevent it from becoming a proxy for censorship.

The platform’s test of the tool in Canada has been encouraging. Users mostly hid replies that were irrelevant, abusive or intelligible. More than a quarter — 27 percent — of users who had their replies hidden said they would think about their actions in the future.

The “hide replies” feature isn’t permanent. Based on the trial’s outcome in the US and Japan, Twitter could decide to axe the feature.

Starting today, this feature test will be available in Japan and the US.

Now, you can hide replies to your Tweet, so you have more control over your conversations. Want to see all the replies? View hidden replies in the dropdown menu or through a new icon in the original Tweet. https://t.co/bnOmSzCP2f

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) September 19, 2019

The social media giant has made some efforts this year to use technology to flag abusive tweets without the need for human intervention. While such algorithm-assisted policing can work, they also flag plenty of false positives and miss a lot of filth. Twitter has also tested a “hide replies” feature and made it easier to report abusive tweets.

Still, much of the abuse and vitriol on Twitter comes in the form of direct messages from perfect strangers — many of which users may not even follow. Women and people of color are particularly subject to this form of online harassment. If your account is set up to accept direct messages from anyone, Twitter will file messages from users you don’t follow in a folder called “message requests.” It also has a “quality filter” that will weed out what it defines as “lower-quality” messages from your message requests folder entirely. You won’t be able to see the suspect messages unless you unselect the quality filter.

This latest filter for sensitive content by Twitter is a bit of a happy middle ground. The first few lines of suspect messages will be hidden and replaced with the line, “This message is hidden because it may contain offensive content.” You can then choose to either view or delete them. This way, you won’t miss the odd NSFW missive from an old sorority sister or the awkwardly written message from a random business contact.

Twitter claims that its new in-app reporting feature will cut down response times by 60 percent. If Twitter decides you broke its rules, you receive a notification with the tweet in question, along with the rule in violation and a link to its guidelines. You then have the choice of either removing or appealing the tweet. If you choose the appeals process, a write-in box appears that lets you add any context that the moderators may have missed.

In an example GIF, Twitter shows a user being suspended after making a violent threat. In their appeal, the user explains that the “threat” was actually a joke about a video game directed at a friend.

We move quickly to enforce our rules, but sometimes we don’t have the full context and can make mistakes.

To fix that, we added a way for people to appeal our decision in the app and have been able to get back to people 60% faster than before. pic.twitter.com/0BWBnff9lt

— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) April 2, 2019

A faster, in-app appeal feature is part of a larger effort by Twitter to be more transparent about how it manages harmful behavior. The company has been struggling for years on how best to get a hold on the rampant abuse that pervades on its platform. Twitter has finally been more active in the last year or so, and more changes are sure to follow. Labeling tweets that violate its abuse terms was one method recently discussed by Twitter’s head of legal Vijaya Gadde. Color-coded replies, which can help you ignore replies by users you don’t follow, are being tested as part of an overall initiative to make the site more conversational.

Some tactics already explored by the social media giant included changing its algorithm to rank the health of conversations and purging accounts by white nationalists and other hate groups. The company also changed the way it displays reported tweets so people can understand why enforcement actions were taken. As Twitter ramps up its enforcement efforts, more benign behavior inevitably will get swept up in the process. The new reporting feature will likely make it easier for innocent users to make a fast return online.