Block many, block often, block to make the Internet community better.

Here’s the case for blocking *any* and *all* problematic handles you see on Twitter, regardless of whether they’re trolling or being rude to you personally:

1. If someone is trolling or being rude to someone else today, they’ll troll you tomorrow, and someone else the day after that. Not blocking them encourages their behaviour. Block them.

2. When someone is trolling or being rude to you under your tweet, they’re crowding out responses by reasonable people. It doesn’t matter if you’re personally ok with being trolled, by not kicking them off your tweets, you’re encouraging the trolling of others who reply to you.

3. Before the Internet came along, many regressive views couldn’t be said out loudly. Today even if 0.1% of India holds onto a regressive view, that’s still 10 lakh people. On the Internet that’s a formidable number. They don’t deserve to legitimised. Block them.

4. Your blocking them will not deplatform them. It will not restrict their views. They will still be free to say what they want — just not to you and reasonable people who engage to you.

5. Blocking rude people, trolls and extremists will not put you in a bubble, just as it does not when you stop talking to a rude or extreme person in real life. The sum of your human interactions aren’t restricted to twitter.

6. Not blocking rude people, trolls and extremists could fool *you* into thinking they are legitimate views held by large groups of people. They are not. They’re just enough of them to create that illusion on social media.

7. It doesn’t matter what these views are that you think is extreme. Just block. I’m always happy to be blocked by others, and you should too.

8. Don’t chase outrage every day. You’ll get consumed by the relentless need to respond, argue, be rude, and troll back. This is not who you are. And if it is, then I’ll block you too.

9. A small fraction of social media users poisons most of the well. I’ve blocked 2000 people and I barely ever see hateful tweets anymore. I’m not ignorant about it — it just doesn’t overwhelm my timeline.

10. Muting is selfish. You’ve made them disappear from your timeline, but they’ll still harass reasonable people who respond to you. Block them instead.