Basic rules<p>* Never follow accounts with blue checkmarks.<p>* Take the words of very popular accounts (even if they have no checkmark) with a grain of salt.<p>* Use your account to converse or pontificate, not to advertise your personal brand.<p>* Avoid jokey one-upmanship. It is tedious.<p>* Avoid detailed explanation until prompted. Brevity makes for misunderstandings.<p>* Follow people you do not know personally.<p>* Follow artists.<p>* Follow journalists.<p>* Follow minorities.<p>The reason to use Twitter is to get perspectives that have no other outlet - no advertising, no backing, no organization behind them. These are voices that are so faint that they could be tuned out any other way, and they don&#x27;t get covered in the paper the next day, because they&#x27;re going outside of the narrative lines. That is why you do better avoiding the blue checkmarks and people who would strive for them.