Blocked on twitter!

[recently]

I rarely post on twitter although I do use my real nameon there. It has recently come to my attention though that I have been blocked by several posters tweeting on trans issues - weird, as I don't think I have even liked anything particularly controversial! Am I on a list? Should I not use my real name on twitter? I am a bit taken aback actually as I really seems so bizarre to ban someone who hasn't even said anything.

Even Sally Hines doesn’t use Terf-blocker (or if she does, it’s of a milder form).
Academia on twitter now seems to be awash with people like Dr Grady. Traits: claims to be feminist, makes repeated claims generalising ‘all men’ but refuse point blank to recognise structural link, publicly bully/undermine feminists who do speak out, play on sexist stereotypes yet claim it’s a ‘feminist act’ bc everything a woman does is feminist, dismiss female concerns as ‘terfy’. I could go on. Other examples include Dr Charlotte Lydia Riley, Dr Fern Riddell, Dr Ellie Mackin and many more. Usually with a v large following too, so can do serious damage when they turn on others for ‘wrongthink’

There are a number of mass 'terf block' lists. These are run by different people and others can then sign up to them.
On a previous thread, it was discovered that some twitter accounts were unknowingly on a number of lists despite having had very little interactions.
This information would not be known so its possible to be interacting on a twitter thread and not know that you can't see part of the conversation.

I don't really understand the history of block bots but it was discussed on a recent thread.

QuietContraryMary wrote:
"The context of block bot is that Mr. Billingham created 'block bot'. This had 'levels', where it was determined someone was a level 1, level 2, or level 3, in terms of their degree of nastiness. So more people were blocked in level 1 than level 2 than level 3.

Anyway, this quickly ran into shit as people were squabbling about who should be blocked.

Mr. Billingham, then posting as @oolon, or @ool0n, got some serious legal heat for the bot

www.breitbart.com/europe/2015/03/20/bbc-featured-block-bot-runs-into-legal-trouble/

The Kilgore Sprout account was created presumably to be more anonymous while doing Social Justice Warrioring.

This account seems to date from January 2016, possibly earlier

twitter.com/adam_maher14/status/693263468565270528

At some point mid-2018 I think, this account got banned from Twitter as it was basically dedicated to doxing & harassing feminists.

He set up various replacements with similar names despite being banned from Twitter. He is quite keen on banning feminists for the same 'ban evasion', strangely enough.

He (as Sprout) is the official author of the @unblock_list, which runs off a very low-powered computer, a Raspberry Pi, twitter.com/unblock_list/status/1036985976193785856 Mr. Billingham is a performance engineer who is (or was? seems to have been removed from his employers' experts' list) paid to enhance the efficiency of software, so running a database off a very low-power, low-cost device is the sort of thing you'd expect.

The unblock_list is related to Billingham's original 'block bot' in that it tracks people blocked on Twitter, however it links to 'blocktogether', which is a third party tool."

thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3418617-mumsnet-is-breaching-section-26-of-the-equality-act-2010-harassment-by-hosting-feminist-forums-that-discuss-gender-critical-issues-legal-case?pg=18

My personal Twitter account is on terfblocker block lists and I've been careful not to like or comment on anything remotely gender critical.
I think you just need to follow the 'wrong' kind of feminist account and you're on it.
I can't find the screenshot now, but at one point terfblocker tweeted that following an account (or was it liking a tweet from an account?) on their list would be enough to get you blocked.
Of course, then they'd block anyone interacting with you... And then with anyone interacting with them.
It's only a matter of time before everyone on Twitter is on it.

MargueritaPink

Sorry, Dr Jo Grady, if you hadn't guessed from the later comments.

How on earth anyone who's supposed to be an academic can justify that level of ignorance, the blind following of a demonstrably false narrative, and refusal to even countenance more than one viewpoint without having the vapours is beyond me. It is cognitive dissonance writ large.

Dr Grady hasn't blocked me. I'm not on the terf blocker list. I see however that Blaire White is.

I am blocked by Dr Jo Grady although I have never said anything remotely GC on twitter.

Yes, that's how I first found out I was blocked! I have no idea who she is.

This teaching union seems to be using one of the mass 'terf block' lists
(Labour union for more than 40,000 public teachers in BC Canada)

twitter.com/preta_6/status/1081381565408542720

worth checking

I'm blocked by them too. This is so bizarre!

I’ve heard that there’s a GC blocklist called @CultBlockerPro that blocks 15,000 TRA accounts (they say it’s ten times more than @TerfBlocker) - I’m not sure if this is true, or who runs it?

It's mass block List. McKinnon was blocking over 71k last time I looked. She has 4K followers so that is a terrible ratio! It's crazy and self defeating as people end up blocked for doing and saying nothing. They have just associated in some minor way with a horrid Terf.

I’ve heard that there’s a GC blocklist called @CultBlockerPro that blocks 15,000 TRA accounts (they say it’s ten times more than @TerfBlocker) - I’m not sure if this is true, or who runs it?

There is this. It has almost no followers
mobile.twitter.com/cultblockerpro?lang=en

I don't understand what the point of block lists is. You can still view what someone has written- just log out of Twitter.

It is all rather self-aggrandizing isn't it? The person I've never heard of and have never communicated with has 700 followers. Not exactly a big name.

On the other hand Blaire White (yes I know she's not everyone's cup of tea)is one of the most famous trans women around with several hundred thousand followers and she's on block lists. The vanity involved in thinking "yeah Ms White you might be famous, popular and at ease with yourself but you're not getting to see my tweets, oh no" is impressive.

Dr Jo Grady has tweeted about using a block list...I don't know which one. Someone pointed out to her that that would include a lot of academics because some block a blocked person's followers too. They make the mistake of assuming that people only have gender critical followers. They will be shooting themselves in the foot when they care about who sees their posts.

Twitters a conference of idiots and these tools using blockers are just talking into space. That's why they get so angsty against people actually meeting and talking. We need to do more of that old fashioned comms stuff 😲🙄😮

I’ve been blocked and I’ve never posted anything on there. Badly written sledgehammer piece of code imho. Decently written code would be more sophisticated.
Anyone using it should ask themselves why the writers would want to control their Twitter experience.
It doesn’t stop us from seeing their tweets - you can either set up another account or just don’t log in to do that - but it does prevent them from seeing anything that Terfblocker decides they must not see. I wonder why it would want to do that...

People who block you can read your tweets, and report you.

But you can't read theirs or report theirs.

Welcome to the real reason why block lists are used.

Thanks to this thread, I have also discovered that I am blocked by someone I never knew existed Like PPs, I have also never tweeted, just follow and like. My names are unidentifiable though.

Kindofageek - ah, so that makes sense. Can you see who has blocked you and block them in return ? I had no idea for ages that Madigan had blocked me as I had never interacted.

I’m on at least six block lists, all people I’ve had no interaction with. I follow a lot of gender critical tweeters and that’s all it takes. It doesn’t bother me. I hope the Rachel McKinnons at al keep on blocking everyone in the world with a different opinion to them until they’re left just sullenly tweeting to themselves.

But you can't read theirs or report theirs

You can see them if you don't log in. You can report tweets without even having a Twitter account. The only tweets I've reported related to someone promoting fgm and I didn't have an account at the time.

You can see them if you don't log in.

You can also read them is you have another account, or log into an incognito window.

But to use the report function, you have to be logged in.

Now IF you have a second account and monitor mentions of your main account from it, you can see whether or not an account which has blocked you is targeting you. That's an awful lot of work - which is the purpose behind the blocklists.

That's not how they began, but it's a main reason they're so popular.

But to use the report function, you have to be logged in

I don't think I had an account when I reported the fgm posts.

Can you see who has blocked you and block them in return

From twitter, the way to find out of someone has blocked you is to look at their account and find that you're blocked from their account.

There are 3rd party sites which host block list, and you can name search there. I don't trust that method completely. I also don't trust accounts which purport to discover which lists you're on.

The safest way to find out which list you are on is to find out which lists are being used by by people who oppose your position through twitter search or

Or, use the method described here:

medium.com/@ZigaTurk/how-to-find-who-is-blocking-you-on-twitter-ae444e680a93

Both methods are laborious (while twitter did that on purpose, others are taking advantage).

Good luck, Marguerita, with doing that now.

Without being logged in, twitter's options are "Copy tweet" and "Imbed Tweet". There is no report function.

A 3rd party site may have a report function without a twitter account, but twitter has set it up so that it will not happen, ergo, unlikely that such reports from 3rd party sites are being taken seriously.

Oops. "Embed"