Twitter Now Lets You Mute Notifications From Accounts You Don't Follow

Twitter, in its latest step to curb abusive behaviour on its platform, rolled out new features on Monday to help users disable notifications from accounts that they want to avoid.

The micro-blogging website said its "advanced filter settings" will now have options for users to mute notifications from accounts that they do not follow as well as from accounts that do not follow them.

Users can also filter lower-quality content from notifications such as content that appears to be automated and mute notifications related to certain words and phrases.

Twitter had said in March that it would introduce new filtering options for notifications to allow users to limit what they see from certain types of accounts, such as those that do not have a profile photo.

Twitter and rival Facebook have been facing a barrage of criticism for failing to tackle cyber-bullying, fake news and extremist propaganda on their platforms.

Last week, a US judge ruled that Twitter could move forward with a lawsuit that aims to free technology companies to speak more openly about surveillance requests they receive from the US government.

The US government had failed to show the kind of "clear and present danger" that could possibly justify restraints Twitter's constitutional right to talk about surveillance requests, US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California, said in a written order.

"The government's restrictions on Twitter's speech are content-based prior restraints subject to the highest level of scrutiny under the First Amendment," Rogers wrote.

The First Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees certain rights including freedom of speech.

Written with inputs from Reuters