May 13, 2014 05:13 PM EDT By Jaleesa Baulkman, UniversityHerald Reporter

Twitter introduced a new feature Monday that will let users hide certain tweets and retweets from their feeds, the Washington Post reported.

The "mute" feature lets users control the type of updates moving through their Twitter feeds, meaning certain tweet and retweets will no longer appear in their home timeline.

"In the same way you can turn on device notifications so you never miss a Tweet from your favorite users, you can now mute users you'd like to hear from less," officials said on their Twitter blog. "Muting a user on Twitter means their tweets and retweets will no longer be visible in your home timeline, and you will no longer receive push or SMS notifications from that user. 

The mute feature is a "toned-down version" of Twitter's block function, which prevents a user from following the person who blocked them, USA Today reported.

Unlike Twitter's block function, muted users will be able to favorite, reply to, and retweet the tweets of those who muted them.

Muted users will not be notified, according to Twitter officials. They can be unmuted at any time.

 "Mute gives you even more control over the content you see on Twitter by letting you remove a user's content from key parts of your Twitter experience," Twitter officials said.

The social networking and microblogging service will roll out the mute feature to its entire user base  in the coming weeks.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the feature already exists on some third-party Twitter clients, including Twitter's own Tweetdeck.

To mute a user from a Tweet on an iOS or Android device or on Twitter for web, tap more and then mute @username. To mute someone from his/her profile page, tap the gear icon on the page and choose mute @username.

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