Thread by @rahaeli

Easy steps to efficiently #BlockTheBlue:

1. Go to the Trending page and pick any trending topic.
2. In the top search bar, add "filter:blue_verified" to the end of the search query.
3. Click from "top" to "latest". Start blocking. Everyone there has paid for Blue.

Caution: if you are good at getting into the groove and have fast fingers, count how many accounts you block. Stop when you hit 200-225 accounts. Note the time. Wait at least 15 minutes before continuing.

If you block more than 250 accounts in a 15 minute rolling window, you'll hit an API limit (even on web) and get logged out of your current session and have to log back in. If this happens too often your account may get flagged for suspicious activity.

(This is what logged me out of my Twitter client a week or two ago and I can't log back in because it's old and keeps giving me an error message, sigh.)

*sigh* as multiple people have now pulled the disingenuous "but WHAT if someone HAS to have Twitter Blue or else someone will MURDER THEIR GRANDMOTHER" BS on me: you are more than welcome to, you know, use your discretion while fucking blocking people

You don't HAVE to block Blue subscribers, any more than you HAVE to block advertisers. But 90% of the people who are subscribed to Blue are one of two categories: a) culture war assholes and b) people manipulating the extremely augmented reach boost Blue gives.

No one has any right to space on anyone else's timeline. Your life will not be poorer for having blocked Firstname Bunchanumbers and crypto spammers. There are millions of accounts on Twitter; you will not miss anyone you block.

What you will do is, specifically, add to the number of times that account has been blocked, which counters the quite frankly ridiculous extra algorithmic weighting Blue subscribers get.

You will also add to your block list, which Elon has been whining about lately because large block lists add site load, and contribute to making Blue more of a stigma than Elon has already managed to make it.

If you are bothered by "here are tactics that will ensure Elon manages to set $44b on fire in revenge for having already destroyed the vast majority of what made Twitter special, after fucking over thousands of employees", this is not the account for you.

Verizon bought Tumblr for $4 billion and sold it two years later for $3m and my sole purpose for remaining on this site is to ensure that only goes down in history as the *second* most ill-advised acquisition in social media history, folks.

Twitter is already dead. The only remaining question is how much we can cost him in the death throes. I am really fucking mad about it, and you can save me the handwringing about how nice the tactics to get him to regret his life choices are or aren't.

Update: seeing people saying the block rate limit has lowered from 250/15 minutes and that number has been removed from the limits documentation. I'll experiment later and see if I can figure out what the new one is.

Update to the update: it appears that it's now 50/15 minutes for a logout. This will be even more annoying!

Okay, wait, it's even more ridiculous than that. First and second test knocked me out at 50/15. Third test was the old 250/15. They haven't fully propagated the API rate limit changes and it depends on which server you get 🤣