Twitter’s new mute button officially rolls out, lets you block annoying users

Twitter today unveiled its widely-rumored mute button, giving anyone the power to silence over-active Twitter users in a couple of clicks.

According to Twitter, this feature is slightly less severe than a full-on block, and should help prevent over-active users (like yours truly) from taking over your feed. As Twitter wrote, “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.”

Unlike with a full user block, Twitter says, “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 feature first appeared for some Twitter users last week. Muting remains a popular feature in third-party apps like Tweetbot and Tweetdeck.

Available on iPhones, Android devices, and the Web, Twitter claims that muting adds a new layer of curation to the service. Luckily, Twitter doesn’t notify users when you mute them, as that would be quite awkward. According to Twitter:

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.

Facebook offers a similar feature in its own news feed.

If you don’t see the feature yet, don’t panic. It’s rolling out over the coming weeks to everyone.