How to filter your news
One topic can flood everything you read for weeks. Here is what the big platforms actually let you filter today, why those controls fall short, and a more reliable way: muting words on a source list you own.
The problem: one topic everywhere
An election, a celebrity trial, a product launch — when a story gets big, every outlet covers it, and suddenly it is most of your feed. You do not want to quit the news. You want less of one thing. Most platforms give you only blunt tools for that: unfollow the whole outlet, or hope the algorithm notices you scrolling past.
What the big platforms give you today
As of mid-2026, here is roughly where the filtering controls stand. Details change often, so treat this as a snapshot and check each app's current settings.
Google News lets you hide a source entirely and ask to "show fewer" stories like one you did not want. But the feed is algorithmic: the algorithm still decides what you see, and "fewer" is a suggestion, not a rule. There is no OPML export, so your source choices stay inside Google.
YouTube offers "not interested" and "do not recommend channel" on recommendations. These shape future suggestions, but you cannot see the rule you created or audit what it hid. Two stable facts help here: the Subscriptions feed gives you a dedicated place for new videos from channels you explicitly subscribed to, and every channel has a public RSS feed, so you can follow channels outside the recommendation system entirely. Browser extensions such as Unhook can also hide recommendations.
Apple News lets you block channels and topics, which is closer to real filtering — but the selection you see is still curated, and the controls live inside one app on one platform.
Social apps vary. Some support muting words where the feature exists, and word mutes are genuinely useful there. But coverage differs by app, the mutes apply only inside that app, and an algorithmic feed refills around whatever you hide.
Why word muting on your own source list works better
All of those controls share one weakness: an algorithm sits between your rule and your feed. You express a preference; the system interprets it. A different approach removes the interpreter.
Pick your own sources — the sites, channels, and podcasts you actually trust — and apply word or phrase filters on top. This is better for three plain reasons:
- Deterministic. A rule like "mute the word tariffs" either matches a headline or it does not. No guessing about what a "show fewer" click did.
- Reviewable. You can see exactly which stories a rule hid, and which rule hid them. Algorithmic hiding is invisible; you never know what you missed.
- Undoable. Delete the rule and everything comes back. You are never training a model you cannot untrain.
| Word muting | Algorithmic hiding | |
|---|---|---|
| Who decides | Your explicit rule | The platform's model |
| Can you audit it | Yes — see every hidden story | No — hidden means gone |
| Can you undo it | Fully, any time | Partially, unpredictably |
Platform details captured mid-2026; features and prices change. Check each product's own documentation for current behavior.
How this works in Muuted
I built Muuted around exactly this model. It is a calm feed for everything you follow, and muting is the core feature, not a buried setting.
Pick your sources. Add websites and blogs by RSS, YouTube channels, podcasts, weather, and local news. OPML import and export plus one-click JSON backup mean no lock-in. There is no ranking algorithm and no recommendations — your sources, newest first, and it tells you when you are caught up.
Mute in one tap. Mute any word or phrase — forever, or for a day, a week, or a month. Timed mutes fit stories that will pass on their own.
Review everything. Hidden stories stay in a review list showing the exact rule that caught them. Restore a story or unmute a word any time. Nothing disappears silently.
Quiet whole subjects. Detox packs are curated mute-word sets — Politics, Spoilers, Doom & Gloom, and more. Every pack shows the exact words before you apply it, and it lands as a named list. If politics is the specific problem, the Politics detox pack quiets the whole subject in one tap. Each pack can be paused, edit, or delete. Junk filters (a Pro feature, with a 7-day trial on free accounts) handle sponsored posts, coupons, and press releases.
The Free tier is $0 forever: 70 sources, 20 muted words, 30-minute refresh. Pro is $4/month or $36/year at the founding price. No ads on any tier, and no advertising trackers.
If a platform's built-in controls already work for you, keep using them — they cost nothing and live where you already read. Muuted makes sense when you want filtering you can see, audit, and reverse, across all your sources in one place.
Muuted is a one-person project. Competitor and platform details above can change at any time.