Recently, Twitter has introduced a new ‘mute’ button to its platform. Basically, the button allows users to “silence” the tweets of others. This feature is highly anticipated as another option beside ‘unblock’ or ‘unfollow’.
Many users see the ‘mute’ button as a “less harsh way” than the ‘unfollow’ or block features already available on the platform. Furthermore, Twitter stated on its official blog post that the muted user will still be able to favourite, 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 him/her, and of course you can unmute at any time.
The new feature has divided Twitter users into two groups: the ones who accept the new feature with open arms, while others suggest the feature goes against what the social media platform is about.
Reasons like ‘I really like you, but don’t want to listen to you’, ‘I hate you but I’m afraid of you’ and ‘I want you to follow me but I don’t care about your tweets’ become the biggest motives of the usage of Twitter’s mute button.