Muted Role

My server is built with all but 3 channels set privately. Welcome, Help & Rules are viewable by everyone. Send msgs is allowed in Welcome & help. This is to assist in keeping out troublemakers. Once the new member receives their 'Verified' role they can access the rest of the server and access to the Welcome channel is removed. I do not use any voice channels.
All other channels are built to allow different privileges to different levels of management beyond basic verification.
A channel based hierarchy system, if you will.
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Slowmode has been about 97% effective in the Help channels in regards to troublemakers. My only issue is the use of the 'Muted' role.
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When a verified member becomes unruly, it is necessary to mute them to avoid server wide irritation, however, applying the muted role manually or via automod bot is ineffective.
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I'm relatively new to discord, but from what I could gather through your online help resources regarding the priority in which permissions are granted, on effective muted role in this setup as not possible.
If that is incorrect, I would appreciate assistance (lol) otherwise, my suggestion is:
A built in 'Mute member' override setting that can be applied to any user without the use of roles.
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Either implicitly cannot be applied to server owner, or perhaps has an optional 'Exempt role(s)/member(s) option' that can be set for the highest ranking admin member(s).
^Basic functionality^
~For myself though I would love to be able to customize this feature mildly...view/hear, but not talk, type, react, or DM server members (unless they share a secondary mutual server)
I would use this feature, quite literally, like putting them in timeout. Seeing all the other kids having fun, but not being able to play with them.