But late in the afternoon I was ditzing around on my iPad and I strayed into the never-ending tyre fire of that is the favoured social media platform of neo-nazis and the sentient orange fur ball in the White House, and I thought, you know what, there should be a nice Twitter.

Forget about the Book of Face, it’s a lost cause, a plaything of anti-vaxxers and Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate and it will surely be broken up by legislation.

But when I woke up, I found out that my little brainfart about a nice Twitter had collected more than six hundred likes, retweets and comments overnight. Blue tick mavens Claire Connelly  and Asher Wolf  had suggested judicious use of the block and report function to cull an unruly timeline.

Annabel Crabb, whose mentions I’ve always imagined as a boiling ocean of demonic munter drool, had replied that because she worked for a public broadcaster, she didn’t feel it was right for her to block or even mute.

But, borrowing a phrase from Jimmy Carter, she did admit to having “blocked in my heart a few times”.

“Should I change?” Annabel asked.

When last I checked, nearly 40 people had chimed in to answer, most of them arguing that the online platform was part of her workplace, and she was entitled to a safe working environment.

Which she is.

If you walked into the foyer of the ABC studios in Sydney and started yelling the sort of abuse that the broadcaster’s on-air talent receives online, you’d quickly depart the foyer in handcuffs and the custody of the police.

Ginger Gorman, the author of the recently released Troll Hunting, dropped by to comment that employers who require their workers to be online should offer social media self defence training. She described it as an OH&S; issue.

If you think that’s a bit much, you’ve never been trolled like the women in my mentions who screen-capped a grotesque tweet from a fake-name account which is currently suspended, referencing her stillborn child. Crabb described that particular line of abuse as ‘unspeakable’. It was also dangerous. Not just for the target of the abuse, but for the troll. Were his or her real name ever to be revealed it could easily turn into an extinction level event.

So what is to be done?

Annabel should definitely give the mute button a try, but if I were her I would block-block-block-block-blockity-block like a pro. Public broadcaster or not, if a basic level of civility can be demanded and even enforced in the world of real things, why not online?

For myself, I’m thinking of setting up another Twitter account, and following only puppy Twitter and friends who don’t talk about #qanda.

That would be nice Twitter.