In my article Twitter Toxicity: Beware The Ultracrepidarians I wrote:
“It all started with Brexit. At least, that’s when I first became aware of the preponderance of people who are more than happy to pontificate about, and lecture the rest of us on, a subject of which they have no expertise.”
After that it seemed to become even more annoying. I mentioned this to my lady wife, who said “Well, I don’t see anything nasty in my Twitter stream.”
This made me think: actually, I don’t see anything nasty on my other Twitter stream either, the one I use for my writing persona.
So I scrutinised the tweets I was seeing, and in the end it came down to mainly just a few people. They are in the fortunate position of being an expert in everything. At least, they have an opinion on everything the government is doing wrong, not only in education but lockdowns, vaccine distribution, road traffic management and, of course, international trade in the context of Brexit. But do they offer any constructive suggestions? Of course not: they just criticise, criticise, criticise, and in the most intemperate terms.
bliss, by Terry Freedman
Well, I unfollowed them, muted a couple of people who they quoted (or vice-versa; I can’t remember: these people are all the same), and unfollowed someone who misquoted an article from a newspaper, thereby rendering its meaning as the exact opposite of the one the journalist clearly intended. (The giveaway line by the journalist was: “But this view would be completely wrong”, which I should have thought was clear enough.)
Voila! Since these unfollowings and mutings my educational Twitter feed has been a lot more pleasant to read, and much more informative. When you reduce the noise, you automatically get more of the signal.
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