Twitter Inc (TWTR  ) is rolling out a temporary new feature in an effort to curb the amount of verbal harassment posted in replies on the social media platform. The prompts affect replies only, not tweets themselves. For a few weeks, users who attempt to post content that includes "offensive or hurtful language" will be asked if they would like to revise their reply before posting it.

This move comes amid the ongoing context of an overwhelming number of accounts under scrutiny on a regular basis for posting content that violates the platform's abuse and hateful conduct policies. Even within just the first half of last year, Twitter responded to nearly 396,000 accounts in question according to their abuse policies and even more based on its hateful conduct policies, more than 584,000.

Twitter shared the temporary feature in a recent tweet: "When things get heated, you may say things you don't mean. To let you rethink a reply, we're running a limited experiment on iOS (AAPL  ) with a prompt that gives you the option to revise your reply before it's published if it uses language that could be harmful."

According to Sunita Saligram, head of site policy at Twitter, the intention is for users to think twice about what they're about to post, especially if the exchange involves heightened emotions and loss of better judgment.

"We're trying to encourage people to rethink their behavior and rethink their language before posting because they often are in the heat of the moment and they might say something they regret."

To be clear, this option to revise a reply that contains potentially harmful language before posting is not the same as editing a post. That's something Twitter may never become known for, unlike Facebook (FB  ) which allows its users to continuously edit content that's already been posted.

Instagram has a similar feature to what Twitter is doing at the moment. Last year, the Facebook-owned platform introduced a feature that "nudges" a user facing a similar situation, prompting a revision. According to Instagram, that roll out has been going relatively well.

"Results have been promising," Instagram wrote in a blog post, "and we've found that these types of nudges can encourage people to reconsider their words when given a chance."

Despite Twitter's feature and undoubted good intentions, users are naturally able to ignore the prompt and continue to post their reply as is.