Filtering Twitter - I'm sure it's simple, but how do I do it?

November 6, 2010 3:24 PM

Surely it's possible to block all Twitter posts tagged with a particular thing. It can't be difficult, but I can't seem to find any way of doing it and my google-fu has failed me.

There's plenty of fun people I follow who sometimes tweet about things I really don't care about. I just want to block those tweets, like everything tagged @xfactor (yawn!). What stupidly simple solution am I missing?

posted by monster max to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

Filttr (a web-based Twitter client) allows you to blacklist tweets with certain words, phrases, or tags, as well as adjust the frequency with which you see certain users' posts. You can also whitelist stuff to make sure you never miss a post from, say, your best friend.
posted by rhiannonstone at 3:51 PM on November 6, 2010

I use a client called Syrinx [for Mac] that allows you to do exactly this.
posted by jessamyn at 4:09 PM on November 6, 2010

If you are on a Mac, Nambu also allows you to mute hashtags or people for however long you prefer.
posted by tigerbelly at 4:31 PM on November 6, 2010

Sorry to piggyback, but is there one of these for iPhone? And will it block retweets from a blocked person? (e.g. I block @KanyeWest, my best friend retweets something of his, it gets blocked so I don't have to see it?)
posted by elsietheeel at 4:35 PM on November 6, 2010

Response by poster: Thank you everyone for all these excellent suggestions! Unfortunately I should have mentioned I use Windows... (Sorry) Apart from Flittr, are there any other suggestions?

As for piggypacking, elsietheeel, no problem, that's an excellent question and one I'd like the answer to, too!

(Anyone? Please?)

Thanks, all.
posted by monster max at 12:55 AM on November 7, 2010

As @episodic mentioned, Tweetdeck - a desktop client as well as a mobile device client - lets you do this. The desktop client works with both Macs and PCs.
posted by jeri at 2:17 AM on November 7, 2010

Seesmic is a web or desktop client that also has this functionality.
posted by statolith at 12:42 PM on November 9, 2010

Response by poster: Many thanks for all of these suggestions. I'll have a look at each of the web / Windows desktop suggestions and pick the one that seems simplest to me.

(I'm sure a lot of it is down to individual preferences, unless you're a real power Twitter-er! I suspect the thing I'll end up with is a web client, to replace looking at the main twitter website, and one that has a mobile device version that i can use on my ipod touch. So probably seesmic or tweetdeck.)

Thanks again!
posted by monster max at 2:42 PM on November 9, 2010