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How To Use Twitter's New Mute Function

Welcome to 2016, where social media is an ongoing dumpster fire and trolls roam the earth. While online harassment is by far nothing new, Twitter is finally making a huge stride in cracking down on it by their platform by introducing several new functions to help dealing with online bullies — among them a new mute function. Learning how to use Twitter's mute function is actually pretty simple, and will help you block specific keywords in advance, similar to the way Instagram lets you block keywords in the comments on posts.

In a blog post on Nov. 15, Twitter explained that although there has been a "mute" button to hide tweets from accounts you follow or don't follow in place for quite some time, this is the first time users will be able to block specific words from entering their feed. You could, for instance, block the word "Nickelback," and anything that popped up as "Nickelback" or "#Nickelback" would never meet your eye line on your feed. You can also mute phrases of more than one word, and entire conversations. You won't ever see the notifications for them, and it will be like, for all intents and purposes, the nonsense does not exist.

Here's how to do it:

Go To Your Notifications Tab

Tap that, yo.

Hit The Gear Icon (Or Settings, If You're On Your Laptop)

This will take you to a page where you can see conditions you've already set and people you've already blocked or muted.

Hit "Muted Words"

Then type in whatever words you don't want to see.

BRB, typing in the name of literally every vegetable that exists.

Hit "Save"

... And then click "Done." Et voila! Your words are officially muted.

If you're not seeing the option right away, make sure you are using the fully updated version of the app. It should rollout to everybody on Nov. 15. In addition, Twitter is cracking down on its Hateful Conduct Policy, giving users more direct ways to report harassment. Here's to a safer, troll-free (ish) Twitter!

Images: Pexels