The first round of Democratic primary debates is taking place over two nights this week in Miami, where 20 candidates will face off against each other—10 candidates each night—in an attempt to win over voters and proceed to the next round of the Hunger Games-style cage match that is American presidential politics in 2019.
If the idea of 20 politicians vying for precious screen time with platitudes, one-liners, virtue signaling, and zingers isn’t already enough to stress you out, President Trump has said he may live-tweet during the whole thing. And since noise is basically a feature of Twitter, not a bug, there’s a really good chance your feed will be polluted with obnoxious comments about Sleepy Joe, Crazy Bernie, and whatever Trump’s nicknames are for all those candidates no one has heard of.
All of which is a way of saying it’s understandable if you want to mute the president of the United States on Twitter for the rest of the week. Do you? Would you? If so, you’ll be happy to know that Twitter offers numerous features to help you achieve that goal:
Muting a specific Trump tweet:
- From the tweet, click the icon on the right
- Click Mute this Conversation
Muting all of Trump’s tweets:
- Go to Trump’s profile page
- Click the overflow icon
- Select Mute from the options listed
Once you’ve muted Trump, Twitter says you’ll see a “confirmation banner” letting you know you’ve successfully done it. You can reverse the steps to un-mute Trump after the debates are over. Or who knows—maybe you’ll discover that you’re happier this way.
Oh, but it gets even better:
Let’s say you want to mute not just Trump’s tweets but all mentions of Donald Trump on Twitter. You can do that by taking advantage of Twitter’s advanced muting options, which let you silence words, phrases, usernames, hashtags, and more. Learn more about advanced muting here.
Finally, you may determine that muting Trump’s tweets aren’t enough and you want to go with the full nuclear option and block Trump. Blocking is more serious because it means you can’t follow the blocked account and it can’t follow you. It also means Trump won’t be able to slide into your DMs, although that’s probably fine for most people. Here’s how blocking works:
To block a single Trump tweet:
- Click the icon located at the top of the Trump tweet you want to block
- Click Block, and then select Block to confirm
To block Trump’s full profile:
- Go to Trump’s profile page
- Click the more icon
- Select Block from the menu
- Click Block to confirm
Now that you’ve considered your options, you’re ready to enjoy a Trump-free night of Democrats trying to one-up each other with promises of free college, better healthcare, and higher taxes on the superrich, which, let’s be honest, all sound more pleasant than Trump’s nicknames. Twitter has more information about muted accounts at its Help Center here.
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