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The best way to avoid Avengers: Endgame spoilers and leaks

It’s a snap, if you know what you’re doing

Captain America looking strained Marvel Studios
Matt Patches is an executive editor at Polygon. He has over 15 years of experience reporting on movies and TV, and reviewing pop culture.

One of the few Avengers: Endgame moments Marvel Studios has been willing to tease in advance of its April 26 release date finds Tony Stark reuniting with Steve Rogers, who became his ideological adversary over the course of Captain America: Civil War.

“Do you trust me?” Stark asks Cap, as they prep for what one assumes will be whatever course of action is necessary to defeat Thanos and revive the snapped-away population. Steve’s response is momentous (and a shipper’s dream): “I do.”

Avengers: Endgame is all about trust — and so is the buildup to Avengers: Endgame, which has fans in a tizzy over scarce marketing materials and leaky spoilers. The world wants this movie, and a handful of internet dwellers are actively trying to give it all away before Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Black Widow, and the rest of the gang can even suit up for battle.

Late on Monday night, around five minutes of Avengers: Endgame’s most revealing and climactic moments dropped online. The anonymous social account promoting the clip promised more footage if the initial leaks generated enough engagement. The bars, of course, were quickly cleared, with snippets of footage trickling into timelines like an oil spill. Enthusiastic retweets and shares killed key Endgame moments in a flash, and now, hours later, the landscape is even more dangerous.

Though Marvel and Endgame directors Joe and Anthony Russo would not comment on the leak, they did drop this note on Twitter on the heels of the footage reveal.

In theory, trust should be the force that binds Avengers fans. But how can purists put their heads down in the age of social media algorithms and auto-populating videos broadcast by leak-fueled talking heads? It’s a chore, but here are a few recommendations for anyone navigating the increasingly tricky spoiler minefield.

How to mute Twitter phrases

Anyone fearing leaked Endgame plot points should wield Twitter’s mute function like an Infinity Gauntlet. Not only can you hard-mute any potential spoiler-slinging follows off your timeline, but keyword targeting makes it easy to wipe out the pre-release talk.

To snap your fingers, log onto Twitter and click on your profile. Select “settings and privacy” from the dropdown menu, and then click on the “muted accounts” tab to the left. From there, you can input certain terms, phrases, and individual words you don’t want to see on your timeline.

avengers muted on twitter Twitter/Polygon

If, for example, you don’t want to know anything about Thanos until Endgame, your muted terms page could look something like:

  • Thanos
  • Avengers: Endgame
  • Avengers
  • gauntlet
  • infinity

To take the silence to the next level, consider muting one-word hashtags (“#AvengersEndgame”), emoji (a hammer in place of Thor’s name), and blanket terms (“footage,” “trailer”) until you’ve really ended the game, so to speak.

What to avoid on Reddit

There are handful of subreddits that will be busting out the spoilers before Endgame’s release, and trolls will code spoilers using unrelated tags (as we documented around Infinity War, subreddits like r/ImGoingToHellForThis were filled with Star Wars: The Last Jedi posts that actually straight-up spoiled the Avengers threequel). Currently on the radar and known for past infractions:

  • r/4chan
  • r/BeautyGuruChatter
  • r/boxoffice
  • r/freefolk
  • r/ImGoingToHellForThis
  • r/MarvelStudiosSpoilers
  • r/classic4chan
  • r/greentext
  • r/SquaredCircle

To mute these channels from appearing in your feed, find the “filter” button on r/all and add the names of the subreddits.

Filtering tags on Tumblr

To filter tags on Tumblr, navigate to “Account Settings” by clicking the little human icon at the top right of the screen and selecting “Settings” from the drop-down menu. “Filtering” will be the fifth option. Type the phrases and words you want to block (“Avengers,” “Endgame,” for instance) and select add.

Users can also install the Tumblr Savior extension to create a blacklist of keywords and phrases. If you follow accounts likely to share Marvel images, GIFs, and videos, you can also censor them using the magnifying glass icon on mobile, finding an account name, and using the Follow drop-down to find the “block” option.

Tumblr/Polygon

If you’re a mobile user, click the human icon to navigate to your blog page. Once you’re there, click the settings icon at the top right. Tap “general settings.” The last option before the “Uploading & Downloading” section will be “Filtering.” Tapping that will lead you to a nearly blank page, where you’ll hit the “+New” button in order to add tags.

Tumblr/Polygon

Unlike desktop, there is no remove button, so to remove a tag from your filter list, just tap the word again. A pop-up will appear and ask you if you want to remove the tag.

All this being said, not every Tumblr user tags their posts! Be warned as you venture forth, and perhaps begin to tag your own reblogs.

Avoiding spoilers on Facebook

As on Tumblr, minimizing spoiler interactions on Facebook becomes a curation game. There’s no dedicated mute tool, so users should either hard-mute or snooze precarious accounts in anticipation of leak sharing, or install the Social Fixer extension to mute preloaded keywords and phrases. Our best practice suggestion: Stop reading the comments, and maybe pick a fight with every hyper-political relative you have at your disposal to clog your feed with unrelated posts. What a life!

Keyword Blocker Rik Harink/Keyword Blocker

Hiding spoilery videos on YouTube

Simply opening the video site/app is a recipe for spoiler disaster — if you’ve watched Marvel or Marvel-adjacent videos in the past, there’s a very strong chance that someone’s leak reactions or spoiler dissection videos will be auto-populating your recommendations bar.

To mass-block on desktop, try the Keyword Blocker or Video Blocker Chrome extensions, which can mute pages or keywords with the tap of a few keys. uBlock Origin is another handy app, which can be rewired from an ad-blocker to be a spoiler blocker (and Reddit’s most cautious users are happy to walk you through how).

Need a nuclear option? Strip down your internet usage to the bare essentials using Block Site. Mostly used for productivity rehab, the tool can block just about any leak/spoiler source for the next 10 days.

Be safe, be wary, and most importantly, be spoiler-free.

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