The past couple of weeks have been tense for anyone who is a fan of either The Avengers or Game of Thrones. Thankfully, I don’t really care too much about either shows so working on social media wasn’t too much of a problem for me. However, I do know many people who have been panicking about having spoilers ruin their experiences and in the past, I’ve also been a victim to comments or headlines that have slightly ruined things for me. It’s one of the downsides of having to be online, so what can you do to avoid spoilers if you too must traverse search engines and social media?
Mute Keywords
Don’t wait for the movie or tv show to be released, be proactive and start muting keywords on Twitter. It’s a useful tool provided by Twitter, here are the steps to follow:
- Click on notifications
- Click the gear icon
- Click muted keywords
- Add any phrases, keywords, hashtags, usernames or even emojis you want to avoid. For example, if You were late to watch End Game you could add #AvengersEndGame and Avengers, list the characters and so on.
On Facebook, your only option is to unfollow pages or mute them when they pop up in your newsfeed. Do this by clicking the options icon shown on posts and snoozing, muting or removing as you see fit. You can do this with friends too if you don’t trust certain people to keep quiet.
Instagram lets you personalise your feed too, but again it’s impossible to mute keywords from your entire feed at this moment in time. Muting accounts involves clicking the menu in the corner of any post you wish to mute and select mute posts or select mute posts and story if you want to be extra safe. Just remember to unmute once you feel it’s safe to do so!
Extension Tools
There are several extensions that are designed to help people avoid spoilers. Some of the top ones to consider include:
Spoiler Protection 2.0 on Chrome and Firefox on desktop and on smartphones too. This works by blocking everything that is associated with your chosen keywords including videos and photos. This is a powerful tool, an excellent option for everyone.
Shut Up blocks all comments (the source for most of the spoilers I’ve come across) and is available on Chrome, Firefox, Safari and iOS.
Spoilers Blocker works on Android, which works by blocking on keywords you choose, covering them with solid blocks of colour.
Don’t Search for It
Be careful when using the Internet. Stay off news websites, Reddit, YouTube and any other website that you may commonly use to read and research anything to do with the tv series or movie you’re trying to avoid. Be strong, resist the urge to surf and preoccupy yourself with other things, perhaps offline.
How do you steer clear of spoilers?
