Instagram is Finally Adding a Mute Button

In a bid to help its users avoid noise and nonsense, Instagram said this week that it will finally add a Mute feature.

“Mute lets you hide posts in feed from certain accounts, without unfollowing them,” the Instagram announcement explains. “With this change, you can make your feed even more personalized to what matters to you.”

Mute will let you remove unwanted distractions from your Instagram feed without the messy confrontation that can happen when you delete someone: Those who are muted do not know they are muted. I do this routinely with some of my more annoying friends on Facebook, which makes the service a lot more usable, and with idiots on Twitter.

Muted accounts will only disappear from your feed: You will still be able to visit the accounts to see their posts. And you will still be notified when a muted account comments on your own posts or tags you in a post.

You will also be able to mute posts and stories, Instagram notes.

Mute will be rolling out “over the coming weeks.” This can’t happen soon enough.