from Hacker News

Ask HN: On Twitter, do you get spam, troll or toxic replies?

by becausecurious on 5/30/21, 8:31 AM with 1 comments

Recently Pieter Levels shared his script[0] to mute and make unfollow some of his followers by keywords in their bio and other criteria. He says that "if you have over 10,000 followers, replies on here become increasingly toxic, political, annoying" and this is his way to improve his experience.

I am wondering how widespread this problem is and what your experience is. Do you or people you know get many such negative replies on Twitter? How many followers do you have? How do you mitigate this or what did you try to do?

Disclaimer: I might try solving this problem.

[0] https://twitter.com/levelsio/status/1397841228079636484 - it uses an interesting trick to make others unfollow you - blocking them temporarily.

by MilnerRoute on 5/30/21, 12:15 PM
A few years ago I started a new Twitter account. I only post links on one certain topic, and I almost never comment. I follow a handful of people I care about, and have a handful of followers -- three digit numbers for both.
And with that, I've achieved a kind of "zero troll" sweet spot. I also have almost no replies, ever -- but I'm not much of a fan of social media anyways. If you use Twitter mostly for "lurking" -- to read what others are posting, but without interacting -- maybe you avoid painting a target on your back?