Hey, folks, Attorney Andrew Branca here from Law of Self Defense.
I’m making this post to have a place I can point people to, to get an answer to one of the most common questions we get here and that is “Andrew, what’s up with your Twitter SOP for blocking people on Twitter?” SOP standing for standard operating procedure. So here’s how it goes folks:
Particularly when I’m covering high profile trials, or really almost anytime, my Twitter account is flooded with apparent troll accounts and bot accounts (meaning nonhuman accounts). Typically, these are created for propaganda purposes, for talking points, political talking points purposes, or simply to be gratuitously insulting to yours truly.
So, when I see an account that appears by its content to be one of those trolls or bots, just there to insult, I take a look at the bio. And the typically bio has a very low number of followers. ttypically double digit number of followers. And many of these accounts, folks, have 12 followers, six followers, zero followers.That tells me that it’s almost certainly not a genuine human user actively and regularly engaged on Twitter, or they wouldn’t have so few followers.
That low follower number by itself is not enough to get blocked by us on Twitter. If you’re asking reasonable questions or engaged in reasonable discussion on Twitter, I don’t care if you have zero followers, you’re good to go as far as I’m concerned.
But if your content consists of apparent political talking points, propaganda, or gratuitous insults, and you have a low follower count, you’re almost certainly going to get blocked per SOP by yours truly. This particularly applies to whining from the SISTERHOOD! and the WHITE KNIGHTS!
So that’s how the Twitter SOP block works.
Don’t worry, if you have a low follower count, all you have to do is not be a jerk and you’ll be fine.
But if you’re a jerk, and you have a low follower count, blocked you will get. I find that helps keep the troll bot activity on our Twitter account much reduced from what would otherwise be the case.
So there you go, folks, that’s the answer, that’s the Law of Self Defense Twitter block standard operating procedure (SOP) policy.
–Andrew
Well, I would say my replies were very reasonable, and I don’t know why you’d think I was being a jerk except that I was replying to several of your posts…with REASONABLE responses that point out the lack of consistency in your cop-vs-citizen analyses. Sure, I have only 40-some-odd followers, because I’m not the sort to seek out followers and I don’t post much except replies. But I’m no troll, and I’m not propagandist. My account has been active since 2013 and every reply I sent you was both reasonable and on-point. But rather than just argue that I should be able to disagree with you without a block, I’d gladly take an un-block so I can keep following you, and promise not to reply to any more of your tweets, if you’re willing. @SiliconPlayer