Twitter adds option to mute new accounts

Twitter announced on July 10 through the company's Twitter Safety account that new options to mute notifications have been added to the site.

The social messaging service supports several security functions to deal with other Twitter users. This includes blocking accounts, muting words or muting accounts.

While it is easy to mute accounts for instance, doing so won't prevent blocked users from creating new accounts to interact with you again.

Blocking also always means that you are acting after the fact for the most part. Someone messaged you or showed up in your timeline, and you decided to block that user as a consequence of that action.

Twitter mute new accounts

The new controls that Twitter added to the service's notifications system extend the functionality by giving you more control.

It is possible now for instance to block new accounts, or any account that does not follow you. It needs to be noted that you may block users from interacting with you that you would not have blocked otherwise.

Here is how you configure the new options:

1. Load https://twitter.com/settings/notifications_timeline directly to open the Notifications settings on Twitter. You can open Notifications, and click on the Settings link there instead if you don't want to open that link directly.

Twitter displays the available notification muting options on the page:

1. Mute users you don't follow.
2. Mute users who have a default profile photo.
3. Mute users who have not confirmed their email.
4. Mute users who have not confirmed their phone number.
5. Mute users who don't follow you.
6. Mute users with a new account.

You can check one or multiple options on the notifications page. The changes take affect right away, and the new options are also included in Twitter's mobile applications for Android and iOS.

On Twitter's mobile apps, you would go to your notifications timeline, tap on the gear icon, and select advanced filters there to open the configuration page.

Twitter does not define "new" when it comes to blocking new accounts. It is unclear for how long accounts are flagged as new on the site.

Closing Words

The blocking of new account notifications helps in special cases where new accounts are created to message specific Twitter users after previous accounts were blocked by Twitter users.The downside to this is that you will block legitimate users as well if you block all new accounts.