You Can Now Shut Your Annoying Friend Up with Twitter Mute

Twitter’s new feature may have been designed by one Regina George. Here’s why.

Do you dislike someone you follow? Do you fear the backlash that comes with unfollowing him? Now, you can simply mute the user, (you spineless twerp) removing the hassle of unfollowing the “friend” who tweets “Rise and grind!” every day, while preventing those tweets from ever meeting your eyes.

But wait, there’s more: the person you follow can still reply to your tweets and RT you. He’s just shouting at nothing, blissfully unaware that his witty responses are falling on deaf ears. This is the Mean Girls-esque part of the deal.

In the same way you can turn on device notifications so you never miss a Tweet from your favorite users, you can now mute users you’d like to hear from less. Muting a user on Twitter means their Tweets and Retweets will no longer be visible in your home timeline, and you will no longer receive push or SMS notifications from that user. The muted user will still be able to fave, reply to, and retweet your Tweets; you just won’t see any of that activity in your timeline. The muted user will not know that you’ve muted them, and of course you can unmute at any time.

To mute a user from a Tweet on your iOS or Android device or on Twitter for web tap more and then mute @username. To mute someone from their profile page, tap the gear icon on the page and choose mute @username.

Ice cold. (Or is it burning hot?)

[H/T: Twitter]