To Filter Or Not To Filter on Twitter

What follows started out as a comment on the blog to which the title of this post is linked but I decided to remove it and post it here instead as i I wanted to share it with you:

Perhaps I'm just weird but I refuse to filter anyone or any type of tweet out - if I don't like the things someone chooses to talk about enough of the time, I will stop following them. If I'm not interested in a particular topic being discussed by people I like, I just ignore the conversation.

What happens if you are filtering out someone's tweets is that you may be unaware that they are saying things you do not wish to be associated with or appear to endorse by following the person. Your reputation is at stake here.

Several people I have followed have suddenly revealed themselves to be racist or in some other way abhorrent to me after having seemed perfectly acceptable people for a while and, because I was allowing all their tweets to flow down my All Friends stream, I have found out almost immediately it happened.

Having spotted a 'bad' tweet, I have been able to disassociate myself from the person straight away, either by un-following if it was simply not to my liking or blocking if that person ought not be allowed to express such views publicly (incitement to violence, for example) in my opinion.

By all means use filters but, at least, be aware of the risks you take by doing so...