Twitter is releasing a spam and abuse filter for direct messages—a much-needed feature for the social media platform.
The filter will be available on Twitter’s iOS, Android, and Web apps, TechCrunch reports. The company announced it had started testing the feature about a month and a half ago.
The filter works by adding a new view to the "additional messages" inbox, where DMs from people you don’t follow are located. If you click it, messages that possibly include graphic content also have hidden previews, with the choice to delete the message without reading it first.
The new DM feature is beneficial for people who like to keep their DMs open but don’t want to receive offensive messages. In any case, this feature feels overdue, since abusive content is common for users with open boxes. So common, in fact, that third-party developers have created their own filtering tools, such as a plugin that discovers and deletes dick pics.
Earlier in September, Twitter also rolled out its "hide replies" feature in the U.S. and Canada after testing it in Canada. It allows users to have the option of picking which replies to hide but doesn’t delete them. Rather, the replies are still shown in a separate view that’s linked to a button in the original tweet.
