Yesterday and today I had two brief unpleasant instances on Twitter. In between I had two interviews in which I was asked how I handle all the noise and crap that flows through the public Twitter stream.
First off, I never use the Twitter stream. It simply has no value for me. Second, I continue to find Twitter better at allowing us to filter stuff that is not useful to us with greater ease than almost any other social media program.
The rude comments came from individuals I do not follow. Bu going to their home pages I could see that they did not follow, nor were they followed by people I know or respect. I could see that they seemed to like making offensive remarks.
It took me less than 120 seconds with each of them to click on the block button and, "presto," these two problems disappeared.
We all have different reasons to be on Twitter. But it seems to me that one intelligent and fairly universal reason is to have interesting and useful conversations. I pay much more attention to who I follow than who follows me. If someone posts several comments that just do not interest me, I unfollow. If someone wants to try to get my attention with offensive tactics, I reach for that trusty Block button.
I think a key to making Twitter useful is to protect your stream. Don't let it get corrupted by trolls and assorted spammers. Avoid the bore. Avoid those who want to engage you in something that does not interest you.
Then when you dip into your personal stream, there is a higher likelihood that you will find more valuable content. If you do not, then use that Unfollow button with greater vigor.
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I agree with you, keep control and keep out rude, offensive or simply uninteresting tweets by using the block button. I am quite new to this, but did not hesitate to use block button for the first time recently for 'pictures !!' I did not want to see or be associated with.
Denise Gray (UK)
Agreed. I am surprised by how much I can control how 'my' Twitter behaves and how it serves me.
It is a paradox that so much noise and activity can be so easily tamed, tailored and tweeked to create an entirely unique experience for each user.
Namaste,
Tina Louise
@tinalouiseUK
Shel,
You say, "I pay much more attention to who I follow than who follows me"... but if you wanted a tool to find & get rid of the spammy followers on your account, twitsweeper.com is good. Just saying....
I use the block button daily. I think it has kept the robots down to a minimum. I've also resorted to "protecting" my account.
I enjoy your tweets. We interact periodically and you're always a gentleman. Keep up the great work!
I totally agree. And an even more interesting phenomenon is that about the same time YOU were blocking them, I was too, simply because they were engaging in a fight with you and not contributing to any sort of intelligent or civil discourse. I wonder which has more influence in the Twitterverse, recommendations to follow, i.e. #followfriday or to block.
I totally agree! One of the things I never liked about usenet newsgroups, forums, commenting at newssite and even sometimes about facebook is the sheer amount of trolling in between the useful content.
It's better on facebook because usually you only see the comments of friends and their friends, but the experience is SUPERB in Twitter.
It's easy to keep my feed trollfree with unfollowing and blocking.
I do read my Twitter main stream though, but I agree: it's probably not for anyone.
What I find more important is to write back, at least if someone asks you something non-trivial or tweets sth nice. And I know that you write back from firsthand experience. ;)
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