Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Twitter Asks For Your Help Fighting Spammers

Spam is a constant problem on Twitter. Now, they are asking for your help to stamp it out. Instead of just blocking a profile you think is a spammer, you can flag them as a spammer. The Twitter Team will then take a look to determine if they are, and then take the appropriate action. I am skeptical to how well it will work. They may be able to take down spamming accounts marginally faster, but it is very easy to just make a new account. Much of the more annoying spam comes in the form of 'hashtag ("#") jacking' which does not require building up a following. I do think it will help, but it is certainly not a magic bullet by any stretch of the imagination.

http://blog.twitter.com/2009/10/help-us-nail-spammers.html

"Today we've added another tool to our spam fighting toolbox that will give users the ability to flag bad accounts on Twitter.

Folks can now help us conquer spam by calling our attention to a profile they find questionable. Click the “Report as spam” button under the Actions section of a profile’s sidebar and our Trust and Safety team will check it out to see what needs to be done. No automated action will be taken as a result of reporting a user as spam (in other words, it can't be used to incite an angry mob against an account you don't like.) And once you report a profile it will automatically be blocked from following or replying to you. You nailed it!
"

2 comments:

  1. As much as I want to say that this newest feature is a nice thing, I can already see the potential for it to be abused and used as a weapon against others. Especially using it as a weapon to silence opposition or one's own opinion.

    One has to wonder what took Twitter so long to [attempt to] do something about the spam robots? I don't think it will stop the spam drones. Spammers always manage to get around filtering obstacles. It's like trying to get rid of a roach nest.

    ReplyDelete
  2. @cb on bonanzle - there is always potential for abuse. They say that there is nothing automated regarding being officially labeled as a spammer and presumably banned. That should alleviate some fears.

    What do you think they should / can do?

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts with Thumbnails

Like what you read; Subscribe/Fan/Follow