After about two months of testing, Twitter has finally started rolling out a direct message filter aimed at keeping away stray messages. In a Tweet, the company revealed that the new tool is intended to keep unwanted messages out of sight and out of mind.
These unwanted messages include messages from people you don’t follow. With the new filter, the company hopes it will contain abuse on the platform, something it has been criticized for in the past.
“Unwanted messages aren’t fun. So we’re testing a filter in your DM requests to keep those out of sight, out of mind,” said the company in a Tweet back in August.
In the latest announcement, the company stated the new filter would catch messages with either spam or offensive content.
Furthermore, these messages will also be hidden further than regular “message requests.” Normal message requests are usually found one-click away from the Message requests button located on top of the inbox screen.
But under the new implementation, if you wish to open the spam messages, you will navigate to your inbox > Message Requests then click Show, and you will be taken to a new tab named Additional messages.
Twitter says the new feature has already started rolling out to everyone on iOS, Android, and web.
In the latest update, Twitter rolled out a hide replies feature in some countries that let a user hide some replies on their tweet to keep away “distracting, irrelevant, and offensive replies.”