@spla @aral its a bit more complex than a search term - they make it algorithmically difficult to find posts and have them presented to you.

For example, I like men and cats, the more posts I like that fall in this category I get more of that in my feed.

Muting can be full, as in you can't find anything or flooding your timeline with anything but, thus killing any potential traffic from people who maybe interested in the topic.

As Aral said, it's an opaque box

@spla @aral I have a theory, and it has been backed up by a few others. Most instances have already blocked meta from federating with them - it is this that is causing these issues...