How to handle a Twitter pile-on
Chances are, if you’ve found this article, you’re either right in the middle of a pile-on—an avalanche of negative replies and mentions on Twitter—or you expect you might find yourself in the middle of one in the future. This article is a list of highly tactical tips to limit your exposure to the negativity. If you’re looking for ways to apologize or argue your way out of the pile-on, you may want to look elsewhere. From what we can tell, neither of these approaches work in practice. If you’ve caused harm of some kind, you should absolutely apologize, but not because it’ll make the onslaught stop. Do it because it’s the right thing to do.
Stop seeing the bad stuff fast
First things first: is the pile-on in the replies and QTs of a single Tweet, or is it all over the place?
If the pile-on is on a single Tweet, follow these steps first:
- Mute the conversation. This will stop you from receiving notifications about new replies.
- Limit who can reply. It may be enough to change to only people who you follow, but if you follow a lot of people, it may be easiest to switch off replies altogether.
- If a few quote Tweets are instigating a lot of hate, consider using Block Party block lists to block everyone who has liked or retweeted the inciting Tweets. This can sometimes help cut off the pile-on quickly.
If the negativity is everywhere in your mentions, there are some more steps you can take.
Start by cleaning up your notifications.
- First, mute more notifications. This will not only keep these notifications out of your inbox, but also out of your mentions tab. Twitter offers many granular options, but in the case of a pile-on, you may wish to default to turning all of them on:
One important note: if you need to keep evidence of threatening mentions, this option can make it much harder to find. In that case, we recommend you instead use Block Party’s Lockout Filters so you can always find documentation of all mentions if you need it.
- Turn off photo tagging. It’s another harassment vector:
- If you have the quality filter off, turn that back on:
- If you have push notifications on, turn those off:
- If you’re seeing subtweets or other negative content about you in your timeline, you can use mute words to avoid more exposure:
Mute words remove any Tweets with those words from both your timeline and your mentions.
Lock down your account further.
- Turn off DMs, at least temporarily.
- If you’re concerned that people who didn’t previously follow you are digging through your old content to find new ways to target you or drive further outrage, consider temporarily protecting your account next.
This will preserve your existing followers, but stop other people from following you, and hide your Tweets from non-followers.
- Depending on when you caught the pile-on, this may not be enough—or you may just not want to deal with any of it. In that case, you can take your account fully private, which will stop anyone from being able to see your Tweets, while still reserving your Twitter handle and the option to come back in the future. Some people have found that going private for a few days allows the pile-on to die down.
Make sure your account is fully secured.
Regardless of how far you’ve locked down your account, you want to limit your security risk during times of heightened attention.
- Change your password. Don’t reuse it for any other website. If you’re not already using a password manager, now is the time.
- Turn on two-factor authentication. Yes, it’s an additional step when logging in, but it’s less annoying than having your account hacked. Strongly consider using an authenticator app instead of SMS; app-based two-factor authentication is much more secure. While you’re here, toggle on password reset protection too.
Activate advanced Block Party features.
Now that you’ve taken the immediate steps to reduce your exposure, a few other actions for Block Party users to consider:
- Now is the time to revisit your Lockout Filters, and consider moving to Strict mode. If you can’t afford premium but you’re in the middle of a pile-on, send us a note: [email protected]
- Don’t be afraid to ask for help. This is what Helper View was designed for. Delegate review of your Lockout Folder to trusted supporters and limit the amount of negativity you see.
If you feel the need to go through your Lockout Folder yourself, wait as long as you can to do so. Time will help give you some emotional distance so the mental health impact will be reduced.
- Don’t be afraid to make block lists based on who has liked or retweeted Tweets that were harassing you. Have a trusted supporter find particularly egregious Tweets and send you the links so you can feed them to Block Party.
Now take a deep breath. You’ve got this.
