Twitter ‘muted words’ feature may be one of its answers to curbing online abuse
Scared of seeing Game of Thrones spoilers on Twitter? Soon, you may be able to mute any mention of the series on the platform.
More importantly for Twitter's so-far flailing effort to curb online abuse, you could eliminate curse words or other hateful terms from appearing on your timeline.
A new feature appears to let Twitter users create a list of “muted words,” which seemed to be a way to exclude tweets with particular words or phrases from their timelines.
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The setting was spotted by The Next Web's Matt Navarra Friday and by several users of the Twitter iOS app users Sunday, but has since been removed, according to the report.
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The new feature appeared just a day after Twitter announced during the company's quarterly earnings report that more features and new policies addressing safety would be introduced in the coming weeks.
The feature was reportedly removed because it was accidentally released too early. It should be incorporated in the app in the future, according to a trusted anonymous source speaking to The Next Web.
When it was available, users could see the "muted words" setting in the Notifications menu. When the feature is turned on, users are able to create a list of terms to exclude. It's unclear if there is a limit to character length or the number of terms. For example, Game of Thrones spoilers would require much more than one word or phrase.
In August, Twitter introduced the quality filter to its tiny toolkit to address abuse. The setting makes it less likely for users to see duplicate tweets and automated responses. Twitter also allowed users to limit the notifications they see to users they follow.
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Topics X/Twitter
Kerry Flynn is a business reporter for Mashable covering the tech industry. She previously reported on social media companies, mobile apps and startups for International Business Times. She has also written for The Huffington Post, Forbes and Money magazine. Kerry studied environmental science and economics at Harvard College, where she led The Harvard Crimson's metro news and design teams and played mellophone in the Band. When not listening to startup pitches, she runs half-marathons, plays with puppies and pretends to like craft beer.
