Not too long ago, Twitter introduced a new feature that allows us mute those accounts we no longer wish to see in our feeds. When you mute someone from your account, irrespective of where you do it – from a mobile app or from a web client, you stop receiving push or text notifications from that person, but most importantly, his or her tweets and re-tweets are no longer included in your timeline. Period.
However, what you should understand is muting does not hide your tweets, re-tweets and likes from the muted user’s timeline, so he/she will still be able to read, re-tweet and favorite your tweets. Exception to this new Mute feature is the promoted tweets. Those will remain intact even if you mute their authors.
Now, please note that the feature is currently deployed to some accounts, while others still have to wait for the Mute feature to become available.
So, muting users on Twitter mobile is a simple procedure once you get the feature rolled out to your account.
In iOS app:
1. When you are in a tweet, tap on a Tweet of a user you want muted -> and tap the ••• (More) button -> select Mute -> confirm your selection.
2. From the profile page of a user you want muted -> tap the gear button -> select Mute -> confirm selection.
In Android app:
1. From a tweet of a user you want muted -> tap the question mark button -> select Mute @username -> confirm selection.
2. From the profile of a user you want muted -> tap the gear button -> select Mute -> confirm selection.
In web app:
1. From a tweet of a user you want muted -> select More -> select Mute.
2. From the profile of a user you want muted -> click on the Gear button ->select Mute from a drop-down menu.
As you mute a user, you will see a confirmation banner. However, the muting is reversible, so you can easily un-mute the user from his profile and clicking on the red mute button.
As a result of muting, all tweets by muted users will not be displayed on your timeline except for the ones previously posted and the promoted tweets. If you feel reminiscent, you can read the muted user’s tweets on his profile page.
Things to Consider
Proceed with caution since there is no special list of muted users, so if you should choose to un-mute someone, you will need to remember the username or have that muted user on your contact list, which effectively makes it nearly impossible to un-mute someone who was never on your contact list.
What do you say? Do you think the feature has a potential as opposed to blocking or simply un-following someone you no longer wish to read in your timeline? Of course, the mute option allows you to weed out the unwanted gibberish from your timeline without un-following or blocking a user you do not wish to offend. Nevertheless, Twitter could introduce functionality that currently is the prerogative of a multitude of third-party web services of questionable trustworthiness. For example, you cannot bulk-delete your tweets, re-tweets and favorites. Neither can you block hash tags without a third-party service.
What’s wrong with those, you ask? Privacy. Every third-party service claiming to perform the desired action in your twitter account requires access to it, so Twitter itself needs that ‘advanced’ functionality, don’t you think?
