Twitter Spam
Twitter Spam is getting worse and worse these days. If you use Twitter like I do, and follow everyone who follows you, then you’ve probably seen a lot of crap like the above tweet.
Of course Twitter has never really had great spam reporting tools. Most users don’t even know the best way to report spam (umm I think the only?) is to send a direct msg to @spam. You include the offending username or tweet. At some point they may or may not doing something about it.
I can tell you, having seen the exact same marketing movement on Myspace, this problem is only going to get worse. MySpace was slow to react (although their spam filters are MUCH better these days) and it cost them a lot of users. I really hope the same doesn’t happen for Twitter.
Loic of Seesmic wants to help, so he included spam reporting tools in the latest version of Seesmic Desktop. I must say, there is something very satisfying about using this feature. As you can see in the below image, it auto-crafts the spam complaint for you. TAKE THAT CAMWHORE!
I think Loic should start collecting this data and build a “Akismet for Twitter” right into his desktop client. That way the community can help build the algorithm for detecting spam and identify the worst users. You could then hide those Tweets in the client, or auto-collapse them in the timeline.
Twitter would probably acquire any company who could help them better filter spam. If you make it happen I only ask for %10 of the acquisition price for the inspiration. 
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May 23rd, 2009 at 4:48 am
MySpace kind of invited it with their crappy ads. I would log in and there would be an ad with a girl trying to seduce me to click her, even though my profile said I was married.
I like your solution. Twitter could easily change ‘Block’ to ‘Report Abuse’, too.
May 23rd, 2009 at 6:32 am
Isn’t another way to just block them? I thought if enough blocked, they’d suspend the account also? Or is the @spam better?
May 23rd, 2009 at 6:36 am
Blocking has never made sense to me because of Search; everything is always in the public timeline anyway.
May 23rd, 2009 at 6:42 am
Very true Sean!
Twitter is getting more and more spam. What I also observed: I have more company accounts following me on Twitter than normal people accounts.
May 23rd, 2009 at 7:50 pm
I agree 100%, it is getting really annoying. When someone follows, I always go to their page and check it out 1st. The other day, my 8 yr old son was looking over my shoulder as I opened a page—porn, full of naked woman. Try explaining that….Made me really angry though! Twitter needs to make a move now, to keep it to a minimum.
Thanks for a great article. Now we just need Twitter to pay attention.
May 28th, 2009 at 7:36 am
Heck, I don’t even use MySpace any more (too much spam)…
In regards to Twitter, I don’t pay attention to DM’s any more either. There’s a tool (I forget what it’s called) that allows you to delete all of your DM’s in bulk (it’s pretty cool actually; I’ll have to look for it though).
In any case, I wasn’t aware of that feature on the new Seesmic Desktop as I’ve only started using it but sounds resourceful!
August 14th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
[...] Twitter Spam | Sean Percival’s Blog [...]
November 4th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
3 steps to Get Rid of Twitter Spam http://bit.ly/1DXJ6g