<SYSTEM_TASK:>
Solve the following problem using Python, implementing the functions described below, one line at a time
<END_TASK>
<USER_TASK:>
Description:
 def parse_response(response):
 """ Decodes the JSON response, simply ignoring syntax errors. Therefore it should be used for filtering visible output only. :param response: Server response as a JSON string. :type response: unicode | str :return: Decoded object from the JSON string. Returns an empty dictionary if input was invalid. :rtype: dict """

    if isinstance(response, six.binary_type):
        response = response.decode('utf-8')
    try:
        obj = json.loads(response)
    except ValueError:
        return {}
    return obj