Five Tips on Avoiding Trolls and Abuse in Twitter
- January 23, 2020
One of the most known social media today is Twitter. It reaches a broad range of people, and most celebrities have Twitter accounts so many people joined on this site to follow the celebrities that they like or admire.
Twitter is also one of the most used social media platforms today. It garnered a total of 328 Million active Twitter users in 2017 which quite a large number compared to the previous years. With this record, there is no doubt about the popularity of Twitter worldwide.
Twitter can also be used for promotions. Many social media sites are already used for the promotion of products, goods, and services. It also directs information fast and reaches a huge range of audiences. Recently, Twitter is the fastest source of news like class suspensions during Typhoons and any other important news that is happening around the globe.[irp]
On the other hand, aside from the positive use of Twitter to many people, there is also a negative side in using it. The number 1 problem on Twitter are the trolls and abuse. If you have a Twitter account, I bet you already encountered a troll account and abusive posts. Even it sounds like it is not a big deal, it is a big problem that needs an urgent solution. Aside from that, a new problem arrived again which are the fake accounts and spams on Twitter. In a recent report, there is a total of 15% fake accounts which are active users on Twitter. Fake accounts are accounts that they create to impersonate a celebrity or using other people’s photo and pretending to be the person in the photo.
Everyone already encountered those problems. So here are the five tips you need to know to avoid abusive posts and trolls on Twitter.
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Don’t follow back when you don’t truly know the user.
The most common reason why users tend to have troll followers/following is that many users just follow back automatically whenever someone followed them. There is an idea that the more followers you have, the better. They don’t consider the fact that some of the users that they are following are fake accounts or trolls. On Twitter, when you are following a user, you tend to see their tweets in your feed. So if ever you added a troll account, you can see their troll and abusive posts in your account.
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Check first the user’s profile before following back.
Being careful is an important thing to prevent an encounter with troll users on Twitter. If someone followed you, make it a habit to check the user’s account first if it is a real person or to use a fake account. Many fake accounts are created to troll someone on Twitter because no one can know their true identity that is why they have the confidence to bash and troll someone they know or even someone they don’t know personally. This is why people still love to buy retweets for their Twitter account and it gives their overall profile Social Proof. After checking the account and you didn’t see any suspicious things in the tweets, and the person is using his/her real photo, you can follow them back.
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Check if the celebrity you are following is not fake by finding a “check” sign beside its username in Twitter.
When you are using Twitter to follow your favorite idol or celebrities, you need to check first if the account has a blue check sign. It means that it is the real account of the celebrity. It is easy to know whether the celebrity is fake or not by just basing in the check sign. However, some celebrity accounts which are not that popular don’t have the blue check sign yet. You can also base it on the number of followers. The one with the most number of followers is usually the real account. You need to be an observer and pay attention to details.[irp]
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Report a Twitter account if it posts trolls and spams.
Whenever you encountered a troll or spam posts and accounts, the first thing you need to do is report their accounts. With that, Twitter will receive notifications from that account, and they will be able to check and track it. You might also want to tell your friends to report that user if it is already doing something wrong and abusing the use of Twitter. Prevention is better than cure. It is best to stop the user before he/she might harm other people on Twitter. The only way to do it by reporting it immediately.
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Always check @mentions don’t follow.
It is better to know the lists of troll Twitter accounts in @mentions don’t follow. Knowing information is a good thing because you can prevent yourself from being a victim of abusive posts and trolls on Twitter. It takes a minute to look at the lists of mentions you must not follow. This move will prevent you from trolls and abuse and serve as a guide to all the users of Twitter.
Now that you know these tips, you must keep it in mind and apply these tips while using Twitter. Is it effortless to follow right? But the most important of all is being a smart use of social media regardless of its kind. If you are a responsible and disciplined user, you will do the right thing. Social media is a potent tool that connects with a large group of people in different countries. Because it is powerful, we must be careful in using it just like in the line “Great power comes with great responsibility.” We have a great responsibility in using our social media accounts. We need to think first before posting. Every post and tweet that we do must be reviewed first and think carefully if this post will harm someone. Lastly, if you encounter a troll user and he/she sent you an abusive message or post, better not to reply to him/her. Instead, just report the account immediately.
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