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Updated January 28, 2020Twitter can be an amazing tool for professional growth, but it can be a dangerous place, too, and we know that the risks keep a lot of people off the platform altogether. We’re releasing this excerpt first because it’s important to recognize that it isn’t all upside. The platform is getting increasingly polarizing with more people finding themselves on the receiving end of harsh criticism, personal attacks, and harassment. This resource can help ensure that your time on the platform is as safe as possible, for your own physical and mental health, that of your followers, and for your career.
This section will answer questions like:
Putting your thoughts and ideas out into the Twitterverse can yield many positive benefits (which you can read about when the rest of the mini-Guide is released!).
However, it can also lead to unproductive disagreements and even condemnation. As you post more and gain more followers, your tweets will be seen by more people in your industry, including more people who disagree with you—some of whom are not afraid to let you know it. Your peers, and potentially your future collaborators, employees, or employers are looking on. It’s important to act professionally while responding to feedback and show your openness to critical feedback.
Clive Thompson (@pomeranian99), a New York Times journalist, addressed a correction about an article he wrote directly to Twitter after receiving criticism on the platform.
Tracy Chou (@triketora), the founder of Block Party and prominent tech industry figure, responded with a clarification and apology when critiqued about a view she expressed about participants of the cryptocurrency field.
When engaging with criticism, remember the following:
Despite feeling attacked, it’s key to differentiate between critical feedback and valid criticism versus ad-hominem attacks and bad faith denunciations. Listen and respond thoughtfully to the former, block people who engage in the latter two.
important There’s a big difference between “blocking people who disagree with you” and “blocking people who are intentionally rude and hurtful.” Blocking people to protect both your headspace and tweet mentions does not mean you live in a bubble or reject all criticism. It means you’re preserving space for people who can engage respectfully with what you post.
Legitimate critical feedback is an opportunity to grow professionally and should be treated as such. Responding in a way that’s negative or overly sensitive is easily observed by your followers and can signal that you’re not receptive to growth.
“Our crowds are online and our Colosseum is Twitter,” writes Michael Fontaine, a professor of classics at Cornell University, in an article on mob mentality. If a tweet receives enough criticism, warranted or not, it can snowball into a full fledged mob. An unpopular tweet can be ratioed and receive hundreds or thousands of quote tweets, often with deeply personal attacks. A wave of DMs or emails can follow and even attempts at having your account hacked or calls to your employer to fire you.
It’s a deeply unpleasant experience that more and more people are going through, because it can be genuinely difficult to know when a form of public shaming will occur and what might trigger it.
Marc Hemeon (@hemeon), a prominent product designer, shared a viewpoint about the use of fonts that led to widespread disagreement. Industry peers voiced their support for him after his response.
Jon Ronson, author of So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, notes: “When we deployed shame, we were utilizing an immensely powerful tool. It was coercive, borderless, and increasing in speed and influence.”
While such incidents are increasingly common, you shouldn’t spend much time fearing this outcome. However, there are a handful of precautions and actions you can take:
Unfortunately, even with precautions, these pile-ons can be difficult to weather and represent a hazard of the platform. While Twitter mobs have common similarities, what to do in each individual situation can vary dramatically. While some people choose to fight back against accusations they feel are unfair, others apologize, or, depending on prominence, contract reputation management or PR firms to seek advice on how to move forward.
While downsides to Twitter are very real, it shouldn’t deter you from using the platform. The negatives are outweighed by what you have to gain in finding a community of people you can learn from and grow with.
Despite strong suggestions of how Twitter could combat bad behavior on its platform, the platform has failed to adequately address the harassment that occurs on a daily basis. This includes widespread and targeted mobbing campaigns, lewd comments and messages, and death threats.
In 2017, Pew Research found that around 41% of Americans have experienced online harassment, including the following: offensive name-calling, purposeful embarrassment, physical threats, sustained harassment, stalking, and sexual harassment.*
All of this occurs on Twitter.
Unfortunately, harassment on Twitter can arise from any number of things and can extend into your professional use of the platform.
With Twitter’s less than perfect reporting system, users seek other ways to hold people accountable for harassment. Depending on the severity and scale of abuse, different routes can be taken. Unfortunately, all of these come with some level of personal and professional risk. Rather than solutions, they’re options with their own potential and realized consequences.
There are no real routes to winning when it comes to addressing abusive behavior. Bearing the brunt of harassment can be embarrassing and temporary and traumatic and lasting.
danger At its extreme, it can leave individuals having to flee their homes, opt for burner phones, and permanently change the way they interact with the world, as The New York Times reported in a series on the topic. Holding people accountable can be incredibly challenging or impossible. It can also have professional implications:
What you can do:
Direct public outreach. If abusive or mean-spirited comments are coming from someone you may know or have familiarity with, one route is speaking to them directly. Responding directly to a tweet they’ve written can be a route to asking them to stop their behavior, be more considerate, or explain a point of contention. Unfortunately, in these situations, they may respond with more of the same or simply block you. Your response may even fuel further abuse.
Direct private outreach. Again, if vitriol is coming from someone you’re familiar with, reaching out to them through a DM or private channels like email can be a potential route to a civil conversation without onlookers. However, they may be unwilling to have this dialogue. They may simply ignore you, or worse, screen capture and post your DM to their followers.
Sharing widely. People are generally sympathetic of people experiencing harassment and abuse and may be willing to help or broadcast the issues you’re facing. Quote tweeting, screen capturing, or discussing the abuse you’re experiencing can sometimes get individual attackers to stop. You can also encourage your followers to help report abuse, making it more likely that Twitter will act. Unfortunately, sharing the abuse you’re experiencing is far less likely to work in the case of mob attacks and may actually fuel additional mobbing.
Reporting to a workplace. Companies are increasingly protective of their brand and public perception, including the individuals who work for them and the content they choose to post on Twitter.
After Jonathan Weisman, a deputy Washington editor of The New York Times engaged in Twitter behavior that his employer said showed “serious lapses in judgment,” he was demoted.
A developer advocate at Auth0 was fired after offensive tweets were shared with his employer directly on Twitter.
If you’re experiencing harassment by someone whose identity and workplace is known, making their actions known to their employer is a tactic for holding them accountable for bad behavior. However, this is an increasingly polarizing action that may lead to personal escalation and additional mobbing. Often a workplace won’t act, but may notify the employer that they were reported, which could give them further ammo.
Utilizing whisper networks and backchannels. Experiencing abuse can be an isolating experience. While speaking up can cause revictimization or retaliation, not saying anything means abusers can continue abusing others without consequence. Finding individuals and groups you trust to discuss these incidents can be a less dangerous route for revealing abuse and warning community members. Often this can be done anonymously.
I’ve made really close friends on Twitter. I got my first job through Twitter. Obviously, that’s all great, but then there’s the other side, too. People have harassed me on Twitter. I’ve dealt with a lot of abuse on Twitter. Twitter has made me much more cautious about who has access to my personal information. I try to be pretty careful to never post a picture or mention a location while I’m still there. All of that is important, too, even if it’s not as fun.Jackie Luo (@jackiehluo), software engineer, Square*
Dealing with online harassment and abuse can take a personal toll.
In an article for Wired, Robyn Kanner (@robynkanner) discusses the feeling of being publicly shamed: “It’s a lonely experience to feel like the most hated person alive for just saying what was on my mind.”
Even high profile figures who are routinely at the receiving end of this abuse can find particular events extremely concerning.
What you can do:
Issue a statement. Issuing a response may not halt harassment and may even provide fodder for more. However, it can be personally helpful to speak on a tough situation and issue any clarification or points of contention.
Take a hiatus. Often the best way to deal with harassment is time and space. It’s become commonplace for people to opt of Twitter permanently or for an extended period of time in a response to harassment and toxicity. Choosing to step away and focus on other aspects of life can be helpful in easing some of the suffering associated with being a target on Twitter.
Susan Fowler (@susanthesquark), an editor at The New York Times and the author of the widely read post, “Reflecting On One Very, Very Strange Year At Uber,” took nearly a four-month break from the platform after weathering abuse on Twitter that turned into hate mail.
Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT), a White House correspondent for The New York Times, opted to use Twitter in a limited capacity and wrote an article on why, noting, “The viciousness, toxic partisan anger, intellectual dishonesty, motive-questioning and sexism are at all-time highs, with no end in sight.”
Unfortunately, while there are Twitter rules, they are frequently broken and that breaking can go unaddressed. These are a few Twitter rules that are commonly broken and relate closely to online harassment:
Experiencing abuse and harassment under these categories can look a few different ways:
danger If you’ve fallen victim to any of these actions, report it directly to Twitter.
Unfortunately, this often is not an adequate way to deal with harassment:
As an extra layer of protection, you may take the following actions:
A Gallup poll concluded that “although the U.S. is divided politically, most Americans do not commonly discuss politics or public affairs with other people,” after finding that “34% of Americans talked about public affairs—including politics, issues and news.”* “Don’t talk about politics” is a mantra many uphold offline.
However, political conversations run rampant on Twitter, which has a heavy presence of politicians and political journalists. It’s commonly known that politically motivated aggression can be some of the most negative content taking up your Twitter feed. According to 2019 Pew Research, heavy Twitter users frequently discuss politics while light users are less likely to get political:
Of course, conversations about politics extend beyond politicians and journalists whose jobs are dependent on their political commentary and analysis. Academics, technologists, and everyone in between can use Twitter to discuss politics and adjacent topics, and should consider the impact of doing so. The expanded definition of politics has come to mean wildly different things to different people. A narrow, more traditional definition might refer to electoral and political processes, political parties, and political and elected public servants.
On Twitter, discussing politics directly might look like this:
However, politics—who makes the rules, what laws get passed, which issues get addressed—impacts people and the natural environment. Politics have become inextricably bound to a host of social and environmental issues including human rights, homelessness, global warming, immigration, green energy, mass shootings, and much more. These matters, which are impacted by politics, have come to be seen as politics (or a part of political ideology), and have become equally as polarizing online as traditional party alignments.
As a consequence, these important subjects are often relegated to the “Don’t talk about politics” pile. People are routinely accused of “getting political” on Twitter in simply addressing or discussing these topics—even if they’re directly related to professional matters.
This level of polarization and this contention between “politics” and “social issues” is extremely commonplace on Twitter. People often choose not to discuss politics because they feel it can’t be done constructively under 240 characters. They’re on to something. An article in The Atlantic suggests that “political discussions online are perceived as less respectful, less likely to be resolved, less civil, and more angry than discussions in other forums.” It’s important to understand what they can yield and what they can displace. If you’re using Twitter for professional growth, there are pros and cons to discussing politics on the medium, and, if you choose to engage, guidelines to help keep you safe, personally and professionally.
Personal dimension. Often, people want to “bring their whole selves to work,” and when you’re using Twitter for professional growth, that means the political beliefs you hold or conversations you want to have can extend to your online life. Limiting yourself to only talking about work can mean you’re actively omitting topics you’re passionate about and interested in, including political ones. With a 24-hour news cycle, for some it can feel like an omission to only discuss issues within their single industry. For some, representing yourself as a whole person, beyond your professional interests, means discussing political and social issues. Often (and some might say always), political and social issues are inextricable from business or industry.
Impact. The impact that tweeting about social issues has or does not have is hard to quantify. On one hand, people often reside in filtered bubbles, tweeting to their online acquaintances and friends, who largely agree with them already or share the same views. Furthermore, it’s been observed that people only become more polarized when exposed to opposing views. So what might the impact of discussing politics on Twitter be? Is Twitter legitimate activism or just a form of “Slacktivism”? While opinions are mixed, a Pew Research study titled “Activism in the Social Media Age” found that a majority of Americans note social media is “important for getting politicians to pay attention to issues, creating long-lasting social movements.” It’s also been noted that online activism can spawn real-life action.
Finding like-minded people. Posting about certain political and social issues can act as a magnet to draw in like-minded people. Often politics and profession collide and you can find subcommunities like “Ethics in AI” or “Diversity in Tech” that open conversations about how we work and live, and that emphasize the ethical and political responsibilities of companies. Additionally, as founders and companies are increasingly taking social stances, having politics aligned with somewhere you might want to work for, and expressing this through your account, could be helpful for showing that you share a company’s values.
Polarization. Politics, or perhaps the discussion of politics, is polarizing. A New York Times article notes that “Americans are open to people with all sorts of political and partisan opinions, our research shows—as long as they keep those opinions to themselves.” Sharing about politics on Twitter doesn’t meet this criteria. Unfortunately, this can cause people to view your feed as polarizing. This may stop people from following you (people routinely note not following or unfollowing based on political tweets). Alternately, they discount or diminish your professional contributions.
Leaves you open to discrimination. Publicly sharing your political views can make you an easier target for hiring discrimination if you’re searching for your next role. Companies whose leadership or culture have a particular political affiliation may show a bias against those whose views don’t align.
Can make you a target of harassment. Discussing politics on Twitter can make you a target. Responses to tweets about politics can become abusive and turn into wide-scale harassment.
If you opt to discuss politics and social issues on Twitter, use the following guidelines:
Attack ideas and actions, not people. Despite the existence of bad actors, try to criticize and discuss ideas rather than individuals like politicians or other public figures. Don’t resort to ad hominem attacks which can diminish your arguments and flood your followers with negative content.
Go to the source. Clickbait headlines and out of context quotes and videos can spread like fire. Not to mention, the era of deep fakes may be upon us. When tweeting about politics and social issues, always do your best to look for primary sources or trusted secondary sources. If something sounds incredibly inflammatory, it might be designed that way. If people are sharing something that sounds too ridiculous to be true, that could be the case. Routinely getting hoaxed can damage your trustworthiness when it comes to discussing politics and, by extension, your credibility as a professional.
Go beyond words. Twitter users are increasingly starting and participate in charity matching initiatives, leveraging their following to raise money for causes like family separation, gun violence, and women’s reproductive health. For example, Ashley Mayer (@ashmleymayer), Head of Communications at Glossier, frequently starts Twitter charity campaigns including the charities Everytown and YellowFund.
Alongside Twitter’s hallways of positivity and endless learning are alleyways of negativity, ad hominem attacks, and pile-ons. Following people who engage in these activities, or magnify people who do, can leave your feed barren of knowledge and laden with toxicity.
Liberally remove people from your Twitter experience who attack you or others personally or are overly negative or critical of others work.
Unfollow. Stop following individuals who are frequently negative or tweet about subjects you find irritating or non-productive. Reserve your attention for individuals whose tweets you find interesting, funny, or informative.
Audit your list. Regularly prune your list. You can do this on the fly when you notice someone you follow who makes arguments in bad faith, attacks others, or is generally a source of negativity. Unfollow them. Additionally, in regular intervals (every few months), sit down and shave your list manually or with tools like Tokimeki Unfollow.
De-follow. This is a lesser known hackstrategy that doesn’t have much of a use case. If you block and unblock someone, they no longer follow you. If someone is unhelpful in your replies or negatively quote-tweets (a retweet with a comment) you with negativity, the de-follow is a low-conflict way to get them to stop following you, making it more difficult for them to see your tweets in their timeline, without the risks of keeping them blocked.
Turn off retweets. Seeing other people’s retweets can help you discover new people and ideas. However, not everyone is discerning with what they RT, and engagement on negative tweets is often high. (This is part of the reason you see the phrase, “RTs are not endorsements” in a lot of bios.) This can fill your feed with unwelcome content. If you find this to be a continuous issue, turn off retweets on Twitter.
Mute keywords. Often, you may not want to block individuals but are tired of hearing about a specific subject or certain keywords that are tied to a broader discussion. In these cases, you can mute keywords or hashtags. This can also be helpful during live events where your feed may be cluttered with keywords like “Game of Thrones” and “#GoT” or or “MMVAS” and “#MMVAs,” and all you’re there for is to reply to C++ threads. Go to Setting → Content preferences → Muted → Muted words, to silence certain words from your timeline.
While muting caustic individuals can help you avoid negativity, if they interact with your tweets on a regular basis, their negativity is viewed by your followers and can make your mentions a negative space.
Blocking jerks is a service to the world. When you allow people to be jerks in your Twitter threads, you’re not just unnecessarily subjecting yourself to vitriol, you’re subjecting all your followers to it as well. Which makes their lives a little more unpleasant.Julia Galef*, co-founder, Center for Applied Rationality
Here’s how to block someone:
People are not notified when you block them. However, if they navigate to your Twitter profile, they will be unable to see your tweets and instead see a message that reads, “You are blocked from following @username and viewing @username’s Tweets.”
caution Please note that blocking someone comes with some risk and and the following can ensue:
They may take a screen capture your profile, showing they were blocked by you, and announce this to your followers generally in an unkind manner.
They will still be able to access your tweets by accessing your profile while logged out of their account or using a different account.
In some cases, blocking may lead to escalation with people attempting to contact you through other social media platforms (Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram), email, or through a different Twitter account.
Muting can be a good option for people who you generally like but whose tweets you may not enjoy.
Here’s how to mute someone (Twitter also offers some advanced muting options:
What you see in your timeline is a microcosm of reality. Remember, Twitter as a whole, but especially your corner of Twitter, isn’t reflective of the world. Among lots of other interesting data collected by Pew in 2018, the research center found: “The 10% of users who are most active in terms of tweeting are responsible for 80% of all tweets created by U.S. users.” This is a version of reality where a few voices—usually negative ones—are amplified and the majority of people and opinions are lost in the noise.
That might sound a lot like the rest of life, and like the rest of life, making Twitter better is all about exposing yourself to opinions and perspectives that make you more well-rounded and empathetic, recognizing which opinions will do nothing of the kind, and carving out a supportive community of people who share your interests, passions, and questions.
Remember that adding your own voice to the mix has the potential to make other people’s experience of the medium better. Tweet the kind of tweet that you want to see.
I don’t think there’s really a secret to getting stuff out of Twitter. It’s like learning any other skill: start yesterday, do it a lot, pay attention to what you’re doing and seek to improve, let others influence you, and have fun! I’d say the same thing about writing, painting, and coding too.Sahil Lavingia (@shl), founder and CEO, Gumroad*