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So Twitter launched "lists" recently giving every user a way to group together Twitter users under one or more titles, for instance I might like to have a list of "Charity People" or "Cool Charities I like" and then assign particular followers to the more appropriate list.
Lists are even public and show up on your Twitter Profile so you can see who's list you are on, other Twitter users can even follow another users list making them very viral and help filter the good from the noise on Twitter.
Ok so great so far @BullyingUK is on 317 lists but as I was scrolling through I spotted one that had an unsuitable title "Famous F*****s". Very flattering but not something I can have associated with a children's charity in a public way, brand perception and all that.
Twitter Etiquette needs a new section
How to deal with the issue? Tricky in my mind, I very much believe in free expression and the Twitter user isn't malicious on a glance through their stream, it wouldn't feel right to ask them to change the name of their list just to please us.
So I turned to Twitter to see if anyone had come across a way to remove yourself from a list but NOT remove the Twitter user. This also sparked off some debate around this issue with many agreeing that Twitter needs to provide an opt-out against individual lists.
Success @bugjem tweeted some advice from @mergyeugnau if you Block and then Unblock the twitter user who's list you are on it will remove you from the list but allow the user to remain a follower, or of course you could just block them for good but that's not really the point I don't think.
The Happy Social Media Ending
Yes there is a happy ending to this tale, the Twitter user who's list we had removed ourselves from sent me a tweet to say sorry it was a "not thinking before typing error" which is cool and I expected to be the case.
So the lesson here is there is no need to over react and using the tools Twitter does give us can be a good way to remove an issue like this quickly while giving the Twitter list owner a chance to correct the problem.
Next time I may tweet the user as well but I think given there is always a time pressure on removing yourself from unsuitably named lists the block/unblock is the fastest solution then follow up with a tweet to explain why.
Tou may also like to read How to prevent your Twitter account from being Hacked! and please follow me @technicavitauk
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