Twitter says it could get rid of the Like button entirely –?but not 'soon'

Twitter could be planning to kill the "like" button – but it will not be happening anytime soon.

A new report claimed that the site could do away with the famous button, in an attempt to make conversations on the platform more healthy.

Twitter says that it is true that it is re-considering how the site works – including its most famous and central features – but that it is early in that process and that change is not coming anytime soon.

The concern about the like button emerged after a Telegraph report suggested that Twitter would be removing the button. CEO Jack Dorsey said he did not like it and it would disappear "soon", the report claims.

Now Twitter has said the button is being reconsidered and that it is possible that it could disappear in the future.

"As we've been saying for a while, we are rethinking everything about the service to ensure we are incentivizing healthy conversation, that includes the like button," it wrote in a tweet that quoted the Telegraph's report. "We are in the early stages of the work and have no plans to share right now."

Brandon Borrmann, who works in communications at Twitter, said specifically that claims it would happen anytime soon were wrong – but that it could be happening in the future.

"We've been open that we're considering it," he tweeted. "Jack even mentioned it in front of the US Congress. There's no timeline. It's not happening 'soon'."

Twitter has been explicit that it is thinking about the way its site works, in an attempt to address concerns about the "healthiness" of discussion on the platform.

That discussion has sometimes focused on the role of the like and retweet buttons, which exist as a way for people to approve of posts. People including Kanye West have suggested that those numbers should be hidden entirely – a move that Mr Dorsey did not seem to reject.

But it has been repeatedly criticised for failing to address some of its more central problems, including from users who believe it should be acting to ban people from the platform rather than