The block button: an advanced user's guide

Bio Bingo can greatly improve your Twitter experience

After I’d blocked my thousandth account on Twitter in April 2020, I wrote a post explaining that muting people is a cuck move and none of the arguments in favour of it stack up. Getting blocked is not, as some people claim, any kind of a victory for the blockee.

No one should have to waste seconds of their time reading idiotic comments and vexatious questions from people who have nothing to offer. The block should be understood as an essentially preemptive move. An account can waste two seconds of your life once, but blocking ensures that they can never do it again. It is, of course, quite possible that they would not engage with you again even if you did nothing, but why take the chance?

Facebook and Twitter are both about connecting with like-minded people. On Facebook, you do this by building up a collection of friends. On Twitter, you do it by filtering out the scum. Since Twitter has around 200 million active users, this is a Sisyphean task, but you can make good headway by shutting out the worst blowhards. Those of us who make liberal use of the block button are sometimes accused of creating an ‘echo chamber’, but this claim is ridiculous when you consider that blocking 20,000 accounts would still only filter out 0.01% of Twitter.

In the original post I set out some criteria for blocking. In short, you should ask yourself two questions:

• If a stranger came up to you in a pub and said what this person has just said to you online, would you punch them in the face?

• Will your life be any worse if you never hear from this person again?

If the answers are yes and no respectively, reach for the block button.

People who end a tweet with ‘but of course you know that’ should be blocked immediately, of course, but what about those less clear-cut cases when a block could be unnecessarily harsh? Perhaps someone asked you a question and ended the tweet with “I’ll wait” or “Thought not”. Or maybe they replied “And your point is?” to something that was perfectly obvious. The chances are that these people are worthless morons, but we must leave open the possibility that they are just having a bad day. Surely everyone - well, not everyone, but lesser offenders - deserves a second chance, a chance to redeem themselves?

That’s when you start doing due diligence by looking at their profile. A brief glance should be sufficient.

They say you just can’t judge a book by its cover, but you usually can. If it is black with a scary picture and the author’s name in a gothic, silver font it’s probably a horror story. If it’s pink with cutesy handwriting it’s probably chick-lit.

Publishers use generic designs to signal something to prospective readers. Similarly, people on Twitter put things in their profiles to tell you something about themselves. For example, the gentleman below (no, it is not a parody) wants you to know that he is a member of several in-groups.

Stephen here is what I call a five pointer. Let me explain.

I recently blocked my 5,000th account and have been working on a points-based system. It’s scientific, stress-tested and is now ready to be shared with the world. I believe it will make Twitter a better place.

If someone has said something to you on Twitter that is sufficiently stupid or annoying to make you look at their profile, but not so bad as to insta-block, a quick game of Bio Bingo can help you decide whether to get them out of your life forever. There is no need to trawl their tweets - remember, the point of blocking is to save you time in the medium to long term.

It couldn’t be simpler. If they get three points or more, block. If they don’t, they live to fight another day.

Here’s how it works:

Account name

One point for anything with 8 random numbers in it.

Account date

One point if the account was set up in the last three months.

Two points if it was set up in the current month.

This might be unfair to the handful of genuine newbies, but they are greatly outnumbered by the people who are repeatedly banned for being obnoxious and socially undesirable. Newbies can avoid being penalised by not saying stupid things for the first few months. Is that too much to ask?

Profile description

One point for any of the following:

• “Truth seeker”, “Free thinker”, “Critical thinker”, etc.

Parrots everything he sees on YouTube without understanding any of it. Has never had an original thought in his life.

• “Politically homeless”

Got kicked out of UKIP. Holds a set of insane, incoherent and contradictory opinions. Wants to bring back flogging, nationalise the airlines, end all immigration, rejoin the EU, legalise heroin and ban people from smoking in their own home.

• “Crypto trader”

Unemployed gambling addict. Has lost 90 per cent of his savings in the last six months.

• Boasts about having been blocked by someone mildly famous.

• Pronouns.

Hashtags

One point for:

• #FBPE

Come on now. It’s been six years since the referendum. You know they never follow back.

• #LCHF

Stands for ‘low carb, high fat’ (or ‘healthy fat’, according to some). Its keenest advocates ascribe magical powers to what is essentially a restrictive low calorie diet. Tendency towards conspiracy theories and quackery.

One point for anything to do with:

• Bitcoin

• NFTs

• MMT

Followers

One point if account has no followers.

Two points if following no one.

Emojis

One point for:

• Sheep

• EU flag plus one or more other flags

• Blue heart

• Face mask

• Pink flower

This is a complicated one, but the pink flower originated in Michael Yeadon’s mad plan to infiltrate the Liberal Democrats. I doubt most of the people who use the emoji know why they are using it, what it’s supposed to represent or have ever heard of ‘liberal spring’, but it is safe to assume that they are smileys.

• Syringes

Profile pic

One point for any of the following:

• The Joker, especially the Heath Ledger version

• Leonardo Di Caprio in Django Unchained

• Close up of the account holder’s eye

  

• Anyone from The Matrix

• Anfield football stadium

• Account holder riding/holding a bicycle

• Account holder long distance running

Nothing against cycling or running in particular, but making them central to your identity seems to correlate with being annoying.

• Laser eyes

Currently popular with crypto chumps.

• Couldn’t be bothered to get a picture at all

Usually a sign that they don’t expect to be around for long.

• Account holder wearing a face mask

It’s August 2022. How long are you going to keep this up?

Two points for:

• ‘I support the current thing’ NPC meme

• Smiley

• The lad from Kes flicking the Vs

Ooh, an edgy socialist.

Background pic

• One point for anything to do with the EU (pro or anti)

• Two points for Steve Bray’s banner in Westminster

Tweets (optional)

One point if they have never sent a proper tweet (i.e. they only ever reply).

A single upwards thumb movement will confirm this.

And that’s it. You may want to customise the system to incorporate your own bugbears and you will doubtless have your own three pointers.

Some of the references will need updating in future versions but for now you should find Bio Bingo 1.0 to be an efficient and reliable filter of scum and villainy. If you think I have overlooked any obvious red flags, please let me know in the comments.