Why blocking trolls and bad faith tweeps is good.

The last updated estimate on the number of twitter users stands at 330 Million as of 30 Nov 2019. It's probably higher than that by now.

Every day new anon accounts are made with the sole purpose of trolling minority groups.

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When I rejoined Twitter, 2 years ago and began to interact with the LGBTQ+ community, in particular trans & non-binary folks, every tweet I posted was inundated with abusive transphobic & homophobic responses. When they weren't being abusive, they were mass reporting. The...

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tweets I posted didn't break any of the ToS but the sheer number of transphobes mass reporting was enough to trigger the algorithm and almost every other day, I found myself locked out of my account. At that point, I began to use a block list, which blocked about 40k known...

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transphobic & homophobic accounts. It was very effective and at the time, it seemed enough. I was able to tweet without being mass reported, able to make a point without being dogpiled by the worst kind of abusive trolls on Twitter. A few months later, I subscribed to a...

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friends alt right block list, adding another 100k trolls to my block list and that was the start of my tweets being much more peaceful and I felt safer. Over time, my block list has grown. Not because old twitter users have found me, but because new anon trolls are created...

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daily. It's not just one or two new accounts either, it's much more than that. As a result, I'm constantly adding to my block list because if I don't, the abuse begins again.

Now these transphobes & homophobes shout that blocking them is "silencing them". It is not. They...

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are not silenced at all. All my block means is that they can't see my tweets. That they can't post hate on my threads. That I don't have to see them. Everyone who hasn't blocked them can see everything they post. They have not been silenced at all.

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They cry about echo chambers. Yes of course, echo chambers exist but only when your audience is limited to a specific and controlled group. You cannot control 330 million twitter users. If you block 150K abusive trolls, you still have 330 million users who can see...

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and interact with the everything you tweet, if your reach is big enough. If you don't have a large following, your tweets can still go viral and many often do.

Since controlling my blocks, being liberal with the block button, my tweets remain relatively bigot free.

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Why is that a good thing? It's meant that people who read what I post don't have to wade through hundreds of misleading and abusive replies to get to the facts. There aren't trolls lining up to abuse them if they are here to be supportive. My friends are safe to...

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comment and share their opinions without being dog piled via my account when they do. Curious cis-hets who are genuinely interested learning can ask questions and be answered with actual FACTS instead of trolls finding them via my tweets and attacking them or posting lies.

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When I RT trans & non-binary folks, the trolls don't find them via my account which means more people are hearing what they have to say. Potential supporters are reading their words and not having to filter the lies from the truth.

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Bad faith trolls and bots get blocked on sight and never get to use my threads to spread lies and misinformation, while the rest of twitter can read the facts. Preemptive blocks mean that they don't even get the chance to attack me or anyone else via my account. This has...

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had nothing but a positive effect so far. Passers by are seeing the facts. They are hearing the truth, minus all the misinformation and lies spread by anti-LGBTQ and in particular anti-trans troll accounts.

I have no regrets for blocking. I will continue to block for as...

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long as I have to. My personal twitter experience is much better now. Less abuse from trolls means more productive posting. The positive messages & comments I receive from cis-hets who get to read facts has been overwhelming and that's all I need to know to remind myself...

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that blocking is good & effective.

Never feel bad for controlling your account.
Never let bigots bully you into allowing them access to your tweets.
Blocking abusive trolls is good.
You don't owe anyone your time & your own mental health should always come first.