Frustrated Twitter users realize they can't mute promoted tweets

If an advertiser wants to reach you on Twitter, they will — whether you like it or not.

Twitter’s new mute button has no effect on promoted tweets — a talking point left out of Twitter’s initial announcement earlier this month. The new mute button enables users to discretely silence overactive users, yet to serve advertisers, Twitter safeguarded them from the feature.

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Twitter’s decision works in two ways. The mute button is conspicuously absent on promoted tweets [below]. And if users want to mute advertisers, they can navigate to the advertiser’s profile page to mute them — yet doing so will only mute nonpromoted tweets.

In other words, while people can “dismiss” individual ads, advertisers are virtually unstoppable on Twitter. Users can additionally opt to block advertisers, but doing so will still not hide promoted tweets from your feed.

Twitter disclosed this immunity to advertisers earlier this month, and now users are (understandably) frustrated by the decision. When it was announced, Twitter proclaimed that the mute button will give you “even more control over the content you see on Twitter by letting you remove a user’s content from key parts of your Twitter experience.”

You can “edit” your experience all you want, as Twitter says, but advertisers firmly have the upper hand.

Thanks: @TimelessP.