My biggest pet peve about twitter is those clowns who twitter all the trending topics. I click on the trending topic to see why and all i get is a list of the trending topics... that totally defeats the purpose
Chuck Lasker
· 3 months ago
How about the auto-DMer? There should be some block for DMs too soon after a follow. But of course auto-DM systems would just implement a delay. Sigh. I just don't believe automation has a place in social networks. It defeats the purpose.
Maybe Twitter should have a simple rule - any automated system must have an opt-out feature or Twitter will block their system.
CathyWebSavvyPR
· 3 months ago
Great Idea! - all automated systems must require an opt-out system. However, there are already some spammy "get lots of followers" programs that purport to have an opt-out for those signing up to use them but don't easily allow for quitting the program. But including your suggestion in developer terms of service would allow Twitter to bar the third party systems in violation from being used.
Chuck Lasker
· 3 months ago
Thanks, Cathy! Maybe we can start a movement, use hashtag #AutomatedOptOut.
It would be nice to go after that "Britney" offensive pic spammer that doesn't get the message after being blocked dozens of time.
NOT Seth Rogen
· 3 months ago
Much ado about nothing...this is just making formal their long-practiced habits. There is very little NEW here.
Lynns Decor
· 3 months ago
1. The Impersonator and 7. The Hashtag Spammer are the two that I am very happy to see.
Justin Parks
· 3 months ago
The one major thing here is not so much what the rules mean as the fact that Twitter recognise the problems related to them and are making efforts to address them officially. A good foundation in my eyes and long overdue.
How effective the rules will be remains to be seen and is a separate issue.
lahondaknitter
· 3 months ago
I object to the porn spam the most, especially those with graphic photos, which I still get! The rest are just annoying.
xeduarda
· 3 months ago
Thanks for sharing TOS implications, guess not too many are reading them, less giving them the 'now what will happen' view ;-) Sad to see Verified Accounts is still working only for a small number of people eventhough they have large numbers of followers. Would have been nice to see in TOS a regulated process reaching out everyone, now we have the 'verified' and some sort of 'the bunch'... :(
Nicole
· 3 months ago
I think having the Verified Accounts for celebrities is helpful. I'll admit I started my account after hearing of a few members of bands and athletes I'm a fan of. For about a month or so I realized I was following a fake Jay Cutler before I found his actual Verified account.
That said, having a verification process through Twitter would be a plus for us "regular people" too, but since I don't know the details on how Twitter actually verifies celebrity accounts I'm not sure if it would be feasible for them to do so.
Bob Butler
· 3 months ago
Our company ReallyWho.com offers ID Verification for everyone on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, WordPress, Blogger, and more. It makes perfect sense for Twitter to protect use of their own Celebrity ID Verification logo, but it will be interesting to see if they use this term of service to stop legitimate independent providers of ID verification.
Also, relying on Twitter to enforce terms against scamming and spamming is not the only approach if ID verification catches on. Since people rarely scam or spam using their real names, the situation could be dramatically improved by letting users have a setting to only interact with ID verified users.
BullishChina
· 3 months ago
not sure if new rules works, but sure there must be new spammers in new ways
CantonDog
· 3 months ago
I'd love it for Twitter to crack down on the sales people that are just trying to get you to buy their worthless marketing crap. Gamers seem to always be one step ahead of the system though. There's just too many of "them" to not come up with something different each time the TOS changes. I hope I'm wrong though.
brenda
· 2 months ago
Can we add one more to the list...the twitterers that send you a message with a link and they are not following you. They are just selling their junk. That drives me CRAZY!
Rita
· 3 months ago
I hate spam accounts, and I especially hate porn accounts. I wish they'd stop following me. I hope Twitter does another sweep and deletes as many of these accounts as possible.
Shaneice Richardson
· 3 months ago
I hate the salesman & the naked chick. Definitely those need to be taken care of.
Name
· 3 months ago
What bothers me the most on twitter? PeOpLe whO tAlK LyKe DiSs.
Marie
· 3 months ago
What about Brittney F'd Videos....so tired of it!
MsTwinda
· 3 months ago
All those people who are pretending they are Michael Jackson's kids are so annoying to me.
artpredator
· 3 months ago
Great article--I retweeted it too.
Overall, this makes me a bit nervous, especially since I just followed about 600 new people in the wine business to follow this year's harvest... I just hope whoever is doing the vetting will be careful to weed out the people abusing the system.
pattypoor
· 3 months ago
Wish people would take their self promoting smut over to another site, I try to keep a pg rated page and have to clean out the r and x rated posts everymorning when I sign on.
wolf29
· 3 months ago
Since spammers live on quantity, not quality, they always differentiate themselves from people offering solid info or services or whatever. I don't believe the "40% are useless chaff" story, when you get away from the spammers. I think the number of actually useful stuff is far lower than that. Useful being defined as "of use to the current reader," even if the post has merit, it may not be what a given reader can use right now.
Steve Keys
· 3 months ago
I really hope they enforce the squatter policy.
Michael Joseph Hraba
· 3 months ago
The bot thing will be really complex, and it is too slippery a slope to enforce appropriately. I dig that they are attempting to legitimize the conversation, and take out some of the fluff and dregs.... but I think there will always be some RSS feeds that people want to follow, and enjoy. It does seem incredible about benchmarking the human interaction aspect.... talk about rooting yourself in legitimacy. Yay.
The thing I hate the most is the trending topics.... they are so meaningless. Half are spam, the other half are "why is this trending?". They need to categorize them.... allow me to look at science and world news trends rather than famous people, sports, and gossip. Ugh....
Brooke
· 3 months ago
I'm glad about all the pornstars being gone!
@liquidzor
· 3 months ago
About the 8th rule: suppose u want to retweet something that a frew people have already retweeted, iand if u do a RT then u pass the 140 characters limit, who should get priority? whos name do i delete? how can i not break the rule?
dez
· 3 months ago
The original poster should get the credit. The person you are following tht RT'd it gave them credit.
@liquidzor
· 3 months ago
thanks :)
facebook-1329780505
· 3 months ago
What if you end up being unable to even include that OP's name due to the character limit?
Amy
· 3 months ago
I start editing out extra letters (you --> u, that sort of thing), then out goes words like "the" that don't necessarily need to be there. Luckily it hasn't been an issue too much (and I pretty much RT friends that I know IRL, so they're not going to come after me!).
Guest
· 3 months ago
Or I use ellipses where appropriate, so I can include the OP's full Twitter username.
Kathy Hogeveen
· 3 months ago
Thankfully Twitter realizes that just like email spamming, controls are necessary to keep the medium professional. Building followers involves building relationships because we are not robots.
Saul Henvey
· 3 months ago
It's great to see twitter refining their proposition.
Bbox
· 3 months ago
Someone might want to let Kirsty Alley know about this - I've seen her stomping all over number 9.
UDD
· 3 months ago
I agree with that. I think she sometimes means well, but her constant ALL CAPS posts and angry psycho-tweets about people gets really annoying. She's generally a very loud and energetic person in real life and that comes across in her tweets. I've seen her post up someone's phone number and actively encouraging users to harass people who she doesn't like.
Alan López
· 3 months ago
Very nice post! Everybody must be warned #fb
For me to know :)
· 3 months ago
Yes indeed, I personally have experienced with all of them but seems like Twitter is trying to take care of it.
Starbucks Melody
· 3 months ago
That's a great article. I hadn't really thought carefully about whom the new TOS were targeted at. What a relief it would be to see disappear the many profiles of women not wearing nearly enough clothing. And I've been followed by Shelly Ryan a million times. Though I have been quite guilty of playing around with hashtags to gain a little more visibility. #starbucks is in an astonishing large number of my tweets.
Let's hope it works!
CathyWebSavvyPR
· 3 months ago
The only thing I like about the suggestively-dressed/undressed profile images, it that it makes it easy to weed those spammers out of my followers. I've already seen a shift over to legitimate-looking photos (some with a dad and kid in arms) on SPAM accounts, with real-looking bios, but the tweets are automated and spammy. It makes it harder to decide who is a spammer, and whom to block automatically.
jrdixey
· 3 months ago
I agree -- I use those photos (along with the really obvious porn-twitter ID's like alexis798 or whatever) to weed out p0rn-spam without having to read the tweets (which are also, sometimes, pornographic enough to offend me and/or make me laugh, depending).
abutterflyloves
· 3 months ago
I would be happy to get rid of the The Serial Abuser. Twice a day I block that blonde picture..lol
Batman
· 3 months ago
Well, I don't fall into any of those categories, so, I'm good to go :)
jhadleyconrad
· 3 months ago
Thank You Lords Of Twitter!!!!
KathleenRake
· 3 months ago
Thanks for all the plain English and pictures...thanks for helping make Twitter's new TOS crystal clear.
Graham
· 3 months ago
In principle I agree with number 7. The multiple spamming using the hash tag is very annoying. But on the other hand I have used the hash tag trending topic myslef to diseminate my thoughts on the subject and I have added a link to my blog at the end and othertimes I have shared my blog through twitter and added a hash tag trending topic. This has increased my followers and also increased traffic to my blog. Mostly my tweets would be on topic of the hash tag trending topic. I don't think I am braking any rules so some clarification would be helpful.
I have to say it is a mystery how anyone can get tens of thousands of followers unless they are already a celebrity. I have 46 followers and some of those want me to look at their recent pictures. Others just want me to follow them and then there are people selling stuff and just the weird. I follow those recommended and who have interesting tweets but if I follow too many I just get swamped by too many tweets (particularly from one source) and miss some interesting ones.
I was looking into writing my own bot to help me tweet, blog and update in multiple places and to pick up interesting stuff from blogs and feeds and databases so that my follwers get more interesting stuff to see. To have to manually enter all these tweets will be a pain and frankly too time consuming. So number 2 gets the thumbs down from me.
facebook-1329780505
· 3 months ago
Regarding the "how people can get lots of followers without being a celebrity" point, there seem to be bots that make accounts for the sole purpose of following a specific user, so that it appears as if that user has lots of followers.
lenorasearcy
· 3 months ago
Well Im flattered
Dave Linabury
· 3 months ago
You are fast on your way to being blocked Graham, and if you build a bot for tweeting, I personally hope you do get banned. What's so hard about tweeting real content? "To have to manually enter all these tweets will be a pain and frankly too time consuming." Really? It takes seconds to tweet. You probably only have 46 followers because you have nothing interesting to write about. I have 1,300 that i got legitimately: by writing interesting things. It's about content, not automatic publishing.
samtaylor
· 3 months ago
Some people love Twitter, but some don’t. In fact, Twitter is virtually unknown outside of your little social media echo chamber. All I’m saying is don’t follow the herd and you might just come up with something cool. There are vast numbers of people online that can become part of your audience, but if you are drinking too much Twitter kool-aid (for example) you might make an incorrect assumption about what “normal” people want or prefer.
Can you also point me at something interesting that you said. I just looked at your last 100 or so tweets and couldn't find anything.
CathyWebSavvyPR
· 3 months ago
One thing you may find surprising, is that once you follow a few more people, say you get over a hundred or so, those accounts that tweet frequently and seem to fill up you stream, will become more tolerable, as their tweets will be spread out between the tweets of others. However, I do wish, in some ways that I had followed fewer people in return, as I have had to resort to Seesmic and TRweetdeck (third-party programs) so I don't miss the tweets of those I really enjoy.
The way to make twitter work is to find and tweet interesting content, retweet interesting content, and interact with others. Connecting one by one is tough, but a good way to go. you can use Alltop or Google alerts to find good content to tweet, and programs like Hootsuite to automate a small segment of your Twitter account can work in moderation, but avoid "doing the robot" ;)
stephmcdonald
· 3 months ago
The only things you need to get followers is to FOLLOW people, and have GREAT content! It's a conversation. Pick your audience and tweet things that are relevant to them. I promise you'll have 100 followers by month end if you do that.
LizzHarmon
· 3 months ago
I think there are two things you may be overlooking here...
1) Is that Twitter is a dialogue, not a monologue, so you've got to engage your followers, not just pump out information. Only a person, not a robot, can do that.
2) I have been on Twitter almost a year, and have 16,000+ followers. The reality is that you can't catch every tweet. I reply to all my @ messages and all my DMs, and for my first 10 months every follower got a personalized "thank you for following me" message from me. I don't use bots, except for very few things (such as my weekday PR tips that are tweeted twice daily) that are scheduled through HootSuite to ensure they go out at their set times.
Twitter is work, as is business, as is life, as are all meaningful relationships. You get out what you put in. Yes it's time consuming to tweet interesting and relevant content, but don't you need to know that content yourself anyway? If you're not learning it so you can tweet it, where's your value to your followers? If you're a bot churning out tweets with info you've not digested, why should they listen?
The good and the bad news are one in the same: to be a success on Twitter you have to be real.
Nathan Noland
· 3 months ago
I have been a pretty dedicated Twitter user for over a year now, and I have to say I'm not one to pay much attention to trending topics, etc. to try and attract more attention to myself - I just like being able to comment on what's going on around me in short form. The one thing that does irritate me, however, are the countless fake and marketing accounts that drift in and out of my followers list. I'm often interested when I get an email announcing a new follower, only to be disappointed to see it's porn bot or a salesperson hawking crap and "follows" 3000 other people. I'll be curious to see how they will clamp down on this though, given the amount of users they have to contend with.
facebook-1329780505
· 3 months ago
CAPTCHAs required when creating the account? (And for current users, a one-time deal where they have to fill out a CAPTCHA properly before they can continue using Twitter.)
Jonathan Nelson
· 3 months ago
great to see sites like http://tweetblocker.com that allow users to proactively report and remove spammers from their account.
Tim Whitlock
· 3 months ago
Oh c'mon, at least own up that tweetblocker is your app. That's a bit spammy now isn't it! "Serial Abuser" screen grab above is from http://twitblock.org/ .. yes, my app, I confess.
tweetamar
· 3 months ago
It'll be really interesting to see how this is enforeced!
NielDLR
· 3 months ago
The new TOS is good, but the The Bot one is little vague. What if I have accounts that only use Twitterfeed to post my blog posts? Or to be a bot, must it be interaction with other users?
Technically then, @Mashable and many other services would then be classified as bots. I'm confused.
Marlooz
· 3 months ago
What if I'm reading the same article as one of my followers and we post the link at the same time without eachothers knowledge? Will one of us be accused of plagiarism?
David G Shrock
· 3 months ago
Write something about the article in your own style. If discovering an article from someone's tweet, it's polite to attribute even with unique comment. Similar posts happen. I assume the policy covers flagrant plagiarism.
TwtrCoach
· 3 months ago
Great article!
I still receive mention spams. Where someone send a tweet with and affiliate link, and mention my username. This can indicate that I support this program.
Most of the times when I check their profile this appears to be a trend. Then I block and report spam.
I am glad Twitter in some ways are working on making their TOS more strict.
Great work here Team Mashable to stay on top of these issues. Maybe once in the future Twitter and other Social Media will have very limited access for spammers.
Cheers.. Are
user99
· 3 months ago
who needs twitter any way? i`m a happy no-twitter user.. there are so many ways to communicate...
nigellegg
· 3 months ago
The thing they missed out is malicious use of others accounts, as is currently happening with the DMs and other messages sent out, without any warning or cosent, by Mobsterwars. The new rules do not have anything to say on this kind of activity.
Name
· 3 months ago
SO what does RT MEAN.
CharArch
· 3 months ago
it means re-tweet :)
Ian Oliver
· 3 months ago
It stands for Retweet. Say you read a tweet you like and want to pass it on. Then you tweet "RT @Author'sName message". That way, other people who read your tweet will know who originally wrote it. They may also be more likely to pass it on again.
lahondaknitter
· 3 months ago
I object to the graphic porn bots the most, which I still get. The rest are just annoying.
balqan
· 3 months ago
"if your updates consist mainly of links, and not personal updates." This means that the NYT, WSJ, CNN and all the other news organizations will be blocked out? I would hate to see that happen.
facebook-1329780505
· 3 months ago
I see what they're trying to get at (spambots), but they shouldn't be dictating how the actual people use Twitter.
app
· 3 months ago
There is a guy that has his washer connected to twitter and it sends tweets when his clothes are done & ready for the dryer. That is clearly a bot, but this is something personally useful for him, since he gets alerts to remind him to go attend to his laundry. He doesn't follow other people with his account and the people subscribed to that account, besides himself, are only subscribed for the 'weird factor". I don't think this guy's washing machine should be banned from Twitter. It would be a real shame if it was.
jaypicklo
· 3 months ago
I find that people making scheduled comments annoying. You know they're not there and they still keep tweeting. If you can't tweet you can't tweet and should have to wait until your around a computer and can tweet live. This will level the playing field.
phylliskhare
· 3 months ago
YEA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ben Lang
· 3 months ago
This is actually quite scary. Seems that twittering will be 100 times harder than before.. Great post though, thanks!
whollygirl
· 3 months ago
That is good news!
ShellyKramer
· 3 months ago
I say "Amen" to this. Now if only it will be enforced........
Connor
· 3 months ago
I have bots which re-tweet content. Like the one which re-tweets whenever you write in "Egypt". Or, the ones which use RSS feeds to import other's feeds
Ru Hill
· 3 months ago
What if you're using an app like Twollow (http://twollow.com/) to automatically find people who may be of interest to you.
Matt
· 3 months ago
I created a few automated accounts a while back that are a sort of Daylife/Twitter mashup to automatically post news links on various topics such as politics, wildlife conservation, energy, etc. They definitely aren't spamming, and the continuously growing number of followers suggests people find them useful. I wonder if those accounts will fall foul of the new rules.
Michael Joseph Hraba
· 3 months ago
That is what I am talking about... I had one for robots, as well as @foodbevfeed or @thehotelshotel. Industry people really like it, and tell me they sit down with a cup of coffee in the morning and read the trade news from those streams. I think it's useful. Just remember... don't cross the streams. That's very bad, Egon.
LindaButterfly
· 3 months ago
Good oh. I daily have to block many spammers, and it is irritating.
joanneschiffbauer
· 3 months ago
I am very new to "twitter." It's been an eye opener; finding out just how many people have an "agenda," whether it be Political, religious, sexual or whatever product or cause they are promoting. I have been approched by quite a few who want to "follow" me, but thank goodness you make it easy for me to "block" them. I don't know if "Twitter" is my cup of tea...time will tell!
G Morataya
· 3 months ago
The Hashtag Spammer. I was part of the #Supernatural hash tag activity and I never thought something like that could be possible, I mean, someone using Trending Topics to advertise himself? Wise and annoying.
nationwideclass
· 3 months ago
It will be good to see, but if they remove all these accounts...who will be left? LOL Id say these accounts support about 80% of twitter users. I know this as I have been removing and blocking such accounts for the last month. Especially those using Twitterfeed, API, HootSuite, TwitRobot, RSSTwitter, and on and on and on. All of whom use these auto programs to spout their spam. Wouldnt it just be easier to stop allowing all these Twitter API apps?
Name
· 3 months ago
Being on twitter... thats what annoys me the most. I have to kill people on twitter.
Murali Kumar
· 3 months ago
Today i unfollowed and blocked many bots. Here is the list: @Jen_Chau @cashgalaxy @Pitras24 @alisonmorgantw @Ana0o7q @Amber6k3k @Vanessa9s9x @GirlyDaniels @Erin0n37 @Patricia6b10 @Julie3h3r @lesliewsmith10 @Tammy_H_Harriet @DUPLIMONEX @KellyAugustinA @MelissaGraf4 @xaviermedia
I hate bots and i will do anything to kill them.
none
· 3 months ago
I personally can't stand the teen-oriented trending topics. Every week it's Miley or wishing happy birthday to one of those Jonas brothers. What's worse are the ones with the stupid opinions: #uknowublackwhen #goodsex #badpussy
none
· 3 months ago
I personally can't stand the teen-oriented trending topics. Every week it's Miley or wishing happy birthday to one of those Jonas brothers. What's worse are the ones with the stupid opinions: #uknowublackwhen #goodsex #badpussy
Andrea Kuhn
· 3 months ago
..and twitter continues happily ever after? #iwish! let's see what the spammers, squatters and other freaks will come up with next...
GinySassenach
· 3 months ago
I'm so glad you are doing this, I'm tired of twitting something just to see it twitter again by someone else with out the RT. Thanks for all your hard work clearing up celeb that are not really who they say they are. And people who enter contest and then win by spamming names to get followers.
GinySassenach
· 3 months ago
I'm so glad Twitter is doing this, I'm tired of obscene pictures and when I twitter something someone twitting the same thing but not RT. Also during contest when people use spamming to when contest that 's not fair to the honest people getting followers. thanks Twitter and keep up the good work!
Andrea
· 3 months ago
Fantastic go Twitter excellent,
Evan
· 3 months ago
If this means I can get my name back, great. My first name/last name combo has been squatted on for ages, with no activity.
Lena
· 3 months ago
how do they know about the violators? do they have someone trolling the site looking for them? cuz there's a LOT!
Joseph Francis
· 3 months ago
How do you give attribution to a long chain of RT's in under 140 characters?
How do you not tweet links all the time and still say something worthwhile? 'Personal updates, ' the original concept behind twitter, are way more than 40% inane babble.
Ian Oliver
· 3 months ago
Just use the original author's name. The other people only passed it on.
I don't know if everyone does it this way, but when I pass on a tweet exactly as written, I precede it with "RT @Author'sName". When I add my own bit or paraphrase, I put "(via @Author'sName)" at the end.
lindano
· 3 months ago
Very good post,like all new fazes in media social sites twitter is trying to get rid of its dead wood, and undesirable accounts.which will benefit every user in one way or another and in my opinion sooner the better ,so users can enjoy twitter without the spammers and high drive sale pitches.
@SincereAve
· 3 months ago
How do you even get your account verified? @SincereAve *Im not looking for followers JUST an answer lol*
charlette miller
· 3 months ago
thank you, Twitter. keep up the good work.l
Radge
· 3 months ago
YAY at the end of name-squatters!! Now if only YouTube could reinforce the same policy, there are some perfectly good usernames there that have been inactive since the site opened...
HOLLOWAY-WHITE
· 3 months ago
The really foul language used by those who think Twitter is just to use as many dirty words as possible. I would LOVE to see swearing and offensive remarks moderated. Overuse should mean a ban or suspension.
Ryan Lalonde
· 3 months ago
Good! I hate seeing fake people or even just squatters. If you make a Twitter account it'd better be yours and you'd better use it!
chronage
· 3 months ago
I think its come at the right time twitter needs to crack down on these spammers and impersonators or it will just become one big spam machine
Trudy
· 3 months ago
I will believe it when I see it. I just finished blocking 3 more spammers. I have 631 blocked people so far and I found out using that UnTweeps site.
facebook-22411668
· 3 months ago
What a relief! Hopefully this will put a stop to some of the less than desirable followers i keep having to block and the obnoxious hash tag abuse.
nizejpodpisany
· 3 months ago
I'm a fiction writer and frequently share on Twitter a piece of fiction called #hashtagstory - a story told with a sequence of hashtags, among them trendy ones.
i dont think that anything will change. britney and shelley will continue spamming us without fear.
i think that all accounts should be verified.
Vanessa
· 3 months ago
Thanks for posting this! I didn't have a chance to read thru Twitter's new TOS, but this sums it up nicely. I'm especially grateful for #2, #4 and #7! But I agree that #8 might be hard to enforce. Unless you are posting a link to your very own blog, then should all of your links be attributed to someone else? I would think the original writer would appreciate the fact you are directing people to their page, despite the fact if you didn't mention them directly in your tweet.
tuesday
· 3 months ago
everyone's account should be verified then most of the other problems wouldn't exist.
Daniel Thomas Perez
· 3 months ago
What annoys me on Twitter are people who constantly post their music choices like anybody really cares who they're listening to!
JimD
· 3 months ago
Personally, I wish they would ban any user who puts the word SEO, social marketing, or evangelist in their profile.
Phoebe King
· 3 months ago
I am so glad to hear Twitter will be tightening up its TOS. Nonetheless, I'm quite disappointed to note that racist or otherwise objectionable hate content did not make the list. For insantce, I was reading Serena Williams tweets last night, trying to find links to a certain video & I came across some of the nastiest, most racist comments I've ever seen online: liberal use of the "N" word, among others. I was highly offended and blocked several accounts as a result. Why isn't abusive language like that being regulated, like it is on every other social media site I use?
redwall_hp
· 3 months ago
#1 has been in effect for a long time. Twitter has had rules against impersonators for quite some time. It hasn't stopped anyone though.
#2 is absolutely bogus. I like that there are automated Twitter accounts. I like being able to follow an account and receive automated updates on something. One great example of such a robot is the San Francisco BART profile, which I believe uses the trains' API to update Twitter based on train arrivals, departures and delays. And sometimes it's nice to be able to follow a website's updates via Twitter rather than subscribing to the RSS feed. (Feeds are for what I read every day, Twitter is for more passive stuff that I like to read, but don't need to see every single item.) Robots are part of why I like Twitter, and suffice to say I would not be happy with Twitter if they started taking actions against them.
chipkav7
· 3 months ago
Great I like the changes
Nicoleta
· 3 months ago
#2 and #8 are the ones I'm most happy about, bots are way too common on Twitter. I'm so far happy with the changes, hopefully it'll make Twitter more enjoyable.
fjfonseca
· 3 months ago
Regarding number 7. The Hashtag Spammer
My account was wrongfully suspended sometime ago under the accusation of "Spamming a trend Hashtag".
I got my account back but I didn't get any kind of apology from Twitter for committing a mistake.
I totally agree that Spamming Trend Hashtags should be on top of Twitter's concern, right along with Spam, but to just apply some kind of behavior algorithm to detect it, is only going to ensure that legitimate users and tweets will be caught on it.
Until Twitter doesn't understand that every case is a case and it has to be treated accordingly we will keep reading all over the legitimate complaints of those that get their accounts suspended for no reason.
Ru Hill
· 3 months ago
What about twollow users?
Scot Chisholm
· 3 months ago
Good post Jenn... if only I had read this before they suspended my account last week :) Just kidding.
Ryan Biddulph
· 3 months ago
So refreshing. The porn spam was getting out of control. People like to rail on twitter give them props for cracking down. RB
Who wrote those idiotic rules? a five year old??? Twitter is a lame company, and I hope it dies really soon. Long live Facebook!
sookietex
· 3 months ago
Thanks Jennifer, good and useful info. Also motivates me to NOT be so ready to follow someone simply because they are following me. as of this moment, if the content of the follow request reeks of nothing but sales pitch, i'm gonna take a pass.
Gigi
· 3 months ago
Great rules. Just make sure you don't use them in automation. Take @Dusel for instance, a kid whose followers tripled while he was in a 2 wk coma. Support for him and his mom poured in. To show appreciation, he started following back, as many as he could a day. What happened? Twitter suspended him and he lost his support network. So, pay attention to how you apply those rules. A quick look at his profile would show he's no spammer. In fact, he's my favorite Tweeter. #unsuspendDusel.
Trevor
· 3 months ago
This is something that is long over due. More sites need this verification system most people get on here and they dont even do more then spam all day and I know most of us are tired of the spam emails, and pop ups constantly everywhere and infections plague the net like crazy more security measures need to be put in place of a lot of these websites in order to assure a little more safety and less complications when on the net.
Steve_Dodd
· 3 months ago
I really like the way Twitter is attacking abuse to keep the system clean. Facebook could learn a few lessons here. These are crucial issues. Enforcing them could be a challenge but at least they are being identified. However, I would like to see more focus specifically on URL shortening services and their ability to hide bad content (worms, viruses, bots etc.). Even though it is addressed somewhat in the rules about bots and spam, by the time the bad users are caught and eliminated, the damage is already done. These services should be forced to provide virus checking inherently in the service so that sites are checked before shortening occurs. This would protect users from aggressive and very troublesome behaviors.
chadengle
· 3 months ago
9. The Über Oversharer ??
Doesn't this fall under the "don't follow them if they annoy you" policy?
I am excited about the rest but the oversharer seems a bit extreme. So if someone wants to tweet all day everyday. Isn't it for them to decide if they want to and the rest of us to follow/unfollow if we don't like it? 9/10 This: "40% of tweets are pointless babble" is "personal" updates. I am in the hallway, in the car. Milk is spoiled. I like cheese. Those are all personal and are garbage unless thats how you tweet but again its for the end user to decide how personal or how many links they share or how frequent they update IMO.
pariah
· 3 months ago
what's twitter?
laryssaheaveninthehome
· 3 months ago
Really glad about the naked chick being taken out. I was really close to shutting down my twitter account because of all the nasty follows.
@mike_wood
· 3 months ago
That sounds like a huge improvement. All those seem like great ideas - though the attribution thing will be tough. If someone writes something brilliant/important/etc in 133 characters and the RT goes to 144 with their name, it needs editing. either you edit their words or their name. Would you get in trouble now for compressing their post?
Phil
· 3 months ago
I have contacted Twitter a few times on behalf of my emplyer to complain about the misuse of my employers trade name and I have never even got a response. I don't know if they're ignoring me or just not bothering!!
Websalad
· 3 months ago
I love this! I hate the spammers that forge RT's on behalf of you or your company... If only is away to cut them all out of the Twitterverse for good!
Name
· 3 months ago
is twit.rev - twit revenue part of twitter, this program promises to pay you 1 cent or more for each post you send out that gets looked at.
Tamara Crabtree
· 3 months ago
Great Information
macwest
· 3 months ago
Ok, so its still not ok to do business using Twitter? RT and such is worse than telling people what you had for lunch? And as far as being creative in the use of Twitter that is out the door as talking to a "live" person is not available. I also am not sure why "donuts" would be a problem, if you sell donuts...oh wait that's right no sales allowed..still waiting on a few more rules...
G
· 3 months ago
New policy makes their job easier. What about ours?
I'd still like to see a "Flag This Account" button on every Twitter page. It's more accurate than forcing people to befriend the mystery @spam account just so they can send a DM to it about a dirty spammer, and it would be a thousand times more convenient.
alternativeoff
· 3 months ago
Good to hear that Twitter is taking action. I see people RT'ing some of my posts and I don't know them, don't follow them and they don't follow me...
iJoomla
· 3 months ago
Great article. What about that person who promotes his illegal activities? For example, I see more and more tweets pointing to illegal distribution of our software on file sharing sites.
Omar Mohamed
· 3 months ago
( 2. The Bot ) if i used TwitterFeed with RSS from my blog i'll take banned from twitter ?
lahondaknitter
· 3 months ago
Take me off your email list NOW. I just got 84 emails that I didn't ask for. Isn't that called SPAM!!!
kenwooi
· 3 months ago
interesting =)
dowelltaggart
· 3 months ago
Hopefully this will clean up Twitter.
eagle
· 3 months ago
wtfc... about twitter and this 10 percent of useres who actually produce every day the written trash on it. 90 percent are just followers or just dead accounts, so dont be that important about the new web2 sms kindergarden type called twitter.
i dont follow any on twitter because i just have a job, friends and spare time. i dont have the time to spent my day following some people which horizon cannot produce more then smal comments on their own life.
and here comes my shot comment on this: " today i fart twice and then i read this article about twitter and i just thought... who the f. cares about. its the same like 2nd life, it will be just a smal fart in the future internet"
mitchmahoney
· 3 months ago
hmm. some of these would be reeeally hard to detect. i would like to see the spammers and squatters get deleted! then i'd be able to acquire a 'certain' twitter name also :)
follow me on twitter @mitchmahoney
aneesh nair
· 3 months ago
twitter rules seems to be interesting .. hope now i dont get any spam reply and naughty aunts following me :P
Hussein Nasser
· 3 months ago
Death to the Spammers!
Yaarik
· 3 months ago
good!
proftherese
· 3 months ago
I may still consider myself "new" at twitter.com; albeit I have already posted nearly 200 tweets (less one tweet). I give credit to where credit is due. When I cite a person's remark, I make sure that such is enclosed in an "open" and "closed" quotation. Hopefully, I do not fall into any of the twitter pitfalls. Incidentally, I am baffled by a twitter with over 4,000 followers - the reason being is that the user speaks of only one dominant topic: a skin-care product! Common sense tells me that the twitter is a marketing rep! Oh well, what's to be done? Ignore, right? Or would you suggest any course of action?
Winnie M. Peric
· 3 months ago
Two more that should be gone are those that send DM Invites to Join their Mafia Wars & some kind of Take this QUIZ Site???
That was just from my last two DM's ...
Grego
· 3 months ago
I liked everything up until I saw #10. This is ridiculous. They are trying to show us that we aren't worth anything compared to the "celebrities".
Even if we regular people have people who have made fake pages of us, we can't have a verified symbol on our pictures? That's crazy. We're real, so treat us like we are.
Suzanne Grala
· 3 months ago
Really useful stuff. Good to see they are actively exploring how to keep it a user friendly platform!
Sean Dent
· 3 months ago
Dear Twitter, Any chance you can fix the "remember me" thing so that it remembers me and I don't have to sign in every single time. thx
rajagiri4
· 3 months ago
i agree with this, its very nice post and i personally thank you.
Uh oh, am I going to have to give up my "globes"? @MaraBG
sea888
· 3 months ago
well done twitter!
prakash_bhargav
· 3 months ago
Are you sure twitter is spammers-proof.
Baka
· 3 months ago
Like anything else the wild west must end BUT if it makes it too "police state like" many will leave to the new "twitter like" sites and that means revenue lost for Twitter. I hope they use their common sense in creating those policies or they may shot themselves in the FOOT.
BrianHealy
· 3 months ago
Despite several requests I'm still waiting on Twitter to even contact me regarding a name squatter and competitor using the name of my friend's business. The bogus account has been dormant for over a year, but I think I stand a better chance of getting it on with Megan Fox than I do of ever getting a reply from Twitter support.
Apart from that, I'm happy that Twitter seem to be actively trying to combat the growing spam problem.
jimi jones
· 3 months ago
Great post!
Damn spammers should be banned from the net - period! No sense of how to politely conduct biz. My "Mentions" column has a constant parade of these clowns, not one of which has even said hello. It's all about them.
Thanks for this article :-)
Malu
· 3 months ago
so glad that twitter cares about us
Fixhotep
· 3 months ago
I'd like to take issue with your use and definition of "domain squatting." You simply labeled all domainers as squatters, which can't be further from the truth. This misuse of the word on popular sites such as this helps spread the misinformation.
A squatter is one who registers in bad faith. Most of them intend to make money off of trademarks.
"Domain name squatting has long been practiced by those looking to make money by snapping up desirable names in the hopes of later flipping them for a profit to interested buyers." This is the definition of a legitimate domainer participating in a legal business. Buying and selling domain names is absolutely no different than buying and selling real estate, or any other product.
Most domainers are not squatters. In fact, most domainers will blacklist squatters. Squatters are a minority, but given their high profile cases they tend to get all the press.
Truth of the matter is, every industry has a minority practicing illegal or immoral tactics. Domaining is no different. There are corrupt lawyers, real estate agents, business managers, cashiers, delivery drivers, etc.
You don't know how frustrating it is that your industry constantly gets a bad rap for such a minority of its participants.
philafication
· 3 months ago
Retweet responsibly.
Senderok Allen
· 3 months ago
Really good advice: Twitter is not really designed for you to try to follow only a few people whose tweets you want to see in the timeline if you also want a large following of high quality readers. Get a separate account to read and follow only a few people. Your main account needs to follow almost everyone back. You have no choice.
The laws of mathematics relating to Twitter policy say that you must follow back everyone whom you may want to keep as a follower who themselves follow close to 2000 people themselves. This is because you will box them in if you fail to follow back: they will not be allowed to follow anymore people who might actually show interest in what they have to say.
I would say 30% of people who use Twitter, including huge numbers of "experts" and other prima donnas who often have 50,000+ followers, fail to understand this simple fact.
As a result, the prima donnas with 50,000+ followers tend to lose their highest quality followers (including those most likely to RT) who are forced to unfollow them (because of lack of follow back) while keeping the neophytes and ne'er do wells who don't know how to use Twitter, don't know how to RT, and thus will never have to worry about being boxed in at the 2000 follow limit.
My advice to anyone is to especially follow back someone who RTs as long as it wasn't a bot doing the RT and, as a general rule, follow back anyone whom you would rather not lose as a reader.
Do this once per week. No need to do it more often because spammers delete themselves after 2 days and save you a lot of work that way.
John Smith
· 3 months ago
Twitter cracks down the spammers, bots and other bad behavior twitter users. Twitter has become a more effective and more responsible social network. It helps to have a perfect social issue discussions. Twitter is doing a great job. It would be very fine if all the social networks implement security policies like this.
Monica
· 3 months ago
I hate people who just ReTweet EVERYTHING! Something someone just tweeted gets RETWEETED instantly as if everything is so profound!
Kathleen Hanover
· 3 months ago
Most of these seem to make sense (die, spammers, die) but I have an issue with rule #2 (no bots).
I'm a Ron Paul fan, and I used to do a Google News search every day to catch up on news coverage of him and other libertarian issues. Then when I discovered that I could send an RSS feed to Twitter, I turned my daily Google News search into a feed and sent it to another Twitter account I created. Then I followed that account so I can see Ron Paul news in my twitter stream.
I have loved this feature of Twitter! It's incredibly convenient and useful to me. The interesting thing is that many other people seem to enjoy getting regular Ron Paul updates. I set the account up for my own personal convenience, but almost immediately, other people started following it--some of whom thought it was really Ron Paul. (Every time someone said something along those lines I DMed them with a correction, and after the first week I created a custom background with a disclaimer that it was not an official account. I also changed the Profile to identify the account as a news feed.)
I have done nothing to promote the account and I have never tried to impersonate Ron Paul. I've just created a service that a lot of other people enjoy. Now my Ron Paul account has well over 1,000 followers (even more than my own personal account!)
I count this as a Twitter success story, and it's a shame that the new rules will essentially put this account out of business.
@KathleenHanover
Sasha H. Muradali
· 3 months ago
If it'll help get rid of spammers, then more power to the TOS and Twitter :)
Mark Bailey
· 3 months ago
There are still accounts there with these characteristics but it looks like Twitter does a good job keeping them to a minimum.
seemsArtless
· 3 months ago
Good that they are cleaning things up. They really shouldn't have let the Twitter name Squatting go on so long. What are they going to do with all those reserved names that have lots of people following them but 0 updates? Like http://twitter.com/computer
Might be a good way to raise money for charity? Auction them off over a couple of weeks and donate the money.
Terry Holliday
· 3 months ago
Thank you for the article. Porn is my main annoyance. I was wondering why twitter was allowing it to happen. Glad they will be working on making twitter better.
Meg
· 3 months ago
Hm... I still get a lot of naked girl new followers, but they've starting giving themselves first name-last name-number account names instead of the really filthy names.
thepetset
· 3 months ago
I'm very thankful Twitter has given this so much thought. I might add that I've seen a couple of inappropriate messages from male adults to young (under age) women.
kye
· 3 months ago
About time! great updates. Although I can see a lot of 'automated' and 'accidental' account deletions of innocent users on the horizon..
Lisa Lomas
· 3 months ago
This is a great what a breath of fresh air on twitter that will be. the spamming has built up and I am glad this has happened. Its good to have it spelt out as I read the rules but it took the writer of this article to help me realise what it meant, so thankyou writer.
The FlyDuo
· 3 months ago
Porn, and naked pictures is the most annoying problem on twitter...
And Fake Followers: I think using your own twitter account to make sales pitches is perfectly fine - I do it myself, but when you follow someone only in order to try and sell them something, that's pushing it.
Twitter has a lot of potential for individuals as well as businesses... glad to see that they are lookin' out.
Keys Treasures
· 3 months ago
I'm hearing loud barking but won't believe Twitter until there is some biting.
larrybla
· 3 months ago
I think the more Twitter tightens up its rules the better for hte rest of us who want to truly communicate pr share good information.
lizurds
· 3 months ago
I hate Trump.
Hardip Singh
· 3 months ago
What will this rule mean for those that auto-tweet job links to #jobs and other twitter job boards?
* If your updates consist mainly of links, and not personal updates;
Name
· 3 months ago
website for self absorbed nobodies
Lindsay Davies
· 3 months ago
Interesting to see how Twitter can manage enforcing Rule #8 - how will it distinguish from ripped off comments and 'Share This' links found at the bottom of many blog posts? I'm assuming that Share This populated tweets are encoded differently for reporting and tracking, even though the content on public view is the same.
Name
· 3 months ago
Such a sad little world... tweeters
stephmcdonald
· 3 months ago
Funny that I got a "slimy salesman" ad when I clicked a link to this site. Hmmmm..Mashable, drink thy twitter koolaid, please!
Cyn
· 3 months ago
It's my hunch that 90% of the naked chicks are actually guys thinking they can cash in on the "I'm single again any single guys out there?" form of sex-sells advertising from the 50s. Annoying, boring, repulsive, sad.
kevinx326
· 3 months ago
Twitter is full of trash these days. I have not seen any value so far
Doesn't Number #9 conflict with Twitter's plans to start incorporating geolocation? Sure, I'm not allowed to broadcast Alice's address, but if tweet "I'm at Alice's house" while Twitter is attaching GPS coordinates to updates, it's effectively the same thing.
stu
· 3 months ago
Did they suspend http://twitter.com/Danny_DiVito for #10? I'm all for getting rid of spammers and protecting people from malicious activity, but I wonder if the crackdown is going to drive away a lot of people. The "plagerizer" rule is very difficult to deal with - I'm sure there is a huge overlap in what is said in only 140 characters...
buttercup
· 3 months ago
I just created a Twitter page and two minutes later I had three chicks following me. How the hell do they find you so quick? It's like moving into a new neighborhood and the guy down the street starts stalking you before the moving guys show up! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p-Hu3FkAGU
Nightshift
· 3 months ago
"International users agree to comply with all local laws regarding online conduct and acceptable content."
China and Iran will be very happy to hear this.
tsotis25
· 3 months ago
How is Twitter going to be able to detect plagiarism-- given the character limit, added commentary to a RT, someone stumbling upon a tweet one day from the secondary sharer, not the first. Innocence could be assumed guilty, and then we have another orange suit on our hands who didn't deserve to be barred from the system.
twitter guest
· 3 months ago
What about the spammers who look legit at first, posting conversational talk such as "Wow" "Really?" and "OMG" but occasionally post a spam link and/or have a spam link in their web or bio line? Here's an example: http://twitter.com/3ge3ge
beverlyminardi
· 3 months ago
This is a great set of guidelines. I got a direct tweet from one guy that sent me to some socialmoo or something like that site where i can sign up for a monthly fee to learn how to send these annoying auto responder Twitters. I would love to see none of that. While I admit to want to have people follow me and maybe use my services I would never think of tricking them to do so. Please keep up the good work
K Stew
· 3 months ago
Like much of the internet, Twitter is rife with sexual sites. Why are private sites on Twitter allowed to talk about homosexual bfs in terms of "baby" etc? Such terms are obviously private and have no place on a social internet site open and widely used by underaged youth. Some of the Avatars are obviously sexual, both homo as well as hetro, some even showing oral and anal genital sex (although I do notice that the gay sites seem to predominate, xxxgayporn, TGZ, to name a few). Why are these things not culled out? Ans: They produce money.
BoomerHealth
· 3 months ago
My peeve pet might be a #2-#6 combo, I'm not sure if it's a bot or not -- but I'm really sick of marketers who tweet a bunch of names (like a #FF, but with little or no redeeming content) for the sole purpose of pitching a product. Guess what, spammers? I WON'T buy your product or even acknowledge the mention. Go 'way.
Arfan Chaudhry
· 3 months ago
The Rules are great however I just got my Twitter account suspended this greatly sucks where I was not spamming nor was I a bot probably was done mistakenly
ChrisStigson
· 3 months ago
Thanks for this post =) It's great to know that you might be in jeapordy when you don't follow the rules... Although many Twitter guides right now will tell you the opposite (to actually go and "follow/unfollow" a lot, etc to build a Twitter list fast.
- Chris
Laura
· 3 months ago
What bugs me are people who look for followers and then when you do follow them they later remove you from their list so that they show having tons of followers but they don't actually follow my posts in return.
Good post which is usefull for TRUE twitters like me.
I have been into tweeting recently , but I enjoy & excite using it.
But I have a request to Twitter , will there be an option for a member to have 2 twitter names assigned to single a/c ? Because I'm an internet entrepreuner , I develop sites & I want to make sure no one else uses my sitename as their twitter a/c name , so how do I go abt this?
TheConsumerJournal
· 3 months ago
Wow!!! This article rocks and sheds light on a myriad of questionable conduct. Thanks so much -- for this info. We'll link to this article for our readers. Also, remember to tell your audience to beware of who they tweet. Certain illicit people troll social media sites to commandeer personal information for the purposes of ID theft.
mizipzor
· 3 months ago
It would without doubt be the hashtag spammers. And the ones that keeps following me and directly after un-follow. It fills my inbox with notifications! And they are never any interesting :( so much spam on twitter in general... meh
Rick Swift
· 3 months ago
I like this a lot, and try not to do any of these, with the exception of hash tags, I thought that was part of twitter - woah nelly!
facebook-737256205
· 3 months ago
Here is my question - If you own 30 domains and on godaddy the have the link that reads, reserve your twitter account - so you do and get suspended... I am human, trying to develop a business that needs separate domains I have bought - I cannot get them un-suspended and feel my rights have been violated too.
jolene1020
· 2 months ago
I'll br glad when these are actually enforced. I am still seeing alot of these things going on
micheleinplaya
· 2 months ago
Great article. I had read something abou this before but not in such detail. Not guilty of any of the above but I have sure seen it. Good to know that Twitter is paying attention to the long term.
Elaine Spitz
· 2 months ago
It's not really annoyance, because for me it is manageable, but the young lovely avatars that appear to be representing "special services" and the spammers are the two types I can really do without.
I believe that this shows Twitter maturing as a medium and these sort of changes indicate that it will be here to stay. So I welcome all of the changes... They sound pretty straight-forward to me. Cheers, Chris
All Comments
Maybe Twitter should have a simple rule - any automated system must have an opt-out feature or Twitter will block their system.
http://bit.ly/13B1BM
How effective the rules will be remains to be seen and is a separate issue.
Sad to see Verified Accounts is still working only for a small number of people eventhough they have large numbers of followers. Would have been nice to see in TOS a regulated process reaching out everyone, now we have the 'verified' and some sort of 'the bunch'... :(
That said, having a verification process through Twitter would be a plus for us "regular people" too, but since I don't know the details on how Twitter actually verifies celebrity accounts I'm not sure if it would be feasible for them to do so.
Also, relying on Twitter to enforce terms against scamming and spamming is not the only approach if ID verification catches on. Since people rarely scam or spam using their real names, the situation could be dramatically improved by letting users have a setting to only interact with ID verified users.
Overall, this makes me a bit nervous, especially since I just followed about 600 new people in the wine business to follow this year's harvest... I just hope whoever is doing the vetting will be careful to weed out the people abusing the system.
The thing I hate the most is the trending topics.... they are so meaningless. Half are spam, the other half are "why is this trending?". They need to categorize them.... allow me to look at science and world news trends rather than famous people, sports, and gossip. Ugh....
Let's hope it works!
I have to say it is a mystery how anyone can get tens of thousands of followers unless they are already a celebrity. I have 46 followers and some of those want me to look at their recent pictures. Others just want me to follow them and then there are people selling stuff and just the weird. I follow those recommended and who have interesting tweets but if I follow too many I just get swamped by too many tweets (particularly from one source) and miss some interesting ones.
I was looking into writing my own bot to help me tweet, blog and update in multiple places and to pick up interesting stuff from blogs and feeds and databases so that my follwers get more interesting stuff to see. To have to manually enter all these tweets will be a pain and frankly too time consuming. So number 2 gets the thumbs down from me.
All I’m saying is don’t follow the herd and you might just come up with something cool. There are vast numbers of people online that can become part of your audience, but if you are drinking too much Twitter kool-aid (for example) you might make an incorrect assumption about what “normal” people want or prefer.
Can you also point me at something interesting that you said. I just looked at your last 100 or so tweets and couldn't find anything.
The way to make twitter work is to find and tweet interesting content, retweet interesting content, and interact with others. Connecting one by one is tough, but a good way to go. you can use Alltop or Google alerts to find good content to tweet, and programs like Hootsuite to automate a small segment of your Twitter account can work in moderation, but avoid "doing the robot" ;)
1) Is that Twitter is a dialogue, not a monologue, so you've got to engage your followers, not just pump out information. Only a person, not a robot, can do that.
2) I have been on Twitter almost a year, and have 16,000+ followers. The reality is that you can't catch every tweet. I reply to all my @ messages and all my DMs, and for my first 10 months every follower got a personalized "thank you for following me" message from me. I don't use bots, except for very few things (such as my weekday PR tips that are tweeted twice daily) that are scheduled through HootSuite to ensure they go out at their set times.
Twitter is work, as is business, as is life, as are all meaningful relationships. You get out what you put in. Yes it's time consuming to tweet interesting and relevant content, but don't you need to know that content yourself anyway? If you're not learning it so you can tweet it, where's your value to your followers? If you're a bot churning out tweets with info you've not digested, why should they listen?
The good and the bad news are one in the same: to be a success on Twitter you have to be real.
That's a bit spammy now isn't it!
"Serial Abuser" screen grab above is from http://twitblock.org/ .. yes, my app, I confess.
Technically then, @Mashable and many other services would then be classified as bots. I'm confused.
I still receive mention spams. Where someone send a tweet with and affiliate link, and mention my username. This can indicate that I support this program.
Most of the times when I check their profile this appears to be a trend. Then I block and report spam.
I am glad Twitter in some ways are working on making their TOS more strict.
Great work here Team Mashable to stay on top of these issues. Maybe once in the future Twitter and other Social Media will have very limited access for spammers.
Cheers.. Are
This means that the NYT, WSJ, CNN and all the other news organizations will be blocked out?
I would hate to see that happen.
Great post though, thanks!
Or, the ones which use RSS feeds to import other's feeds
an "agenda," whether it be Political, religious, sexual or whatever product or cause they are promoting. I have been approched by quite a few who want to "follow" me, but thank
goodness you make it easy for me to "block" them.
I don't know if "Twitter" is my cup of tea...time will tell!
Here is the list: @Jen_Chau
@cashgalaxy
@Pitras24
@alisonmorgantw
@Ana0o7q
@Amber6k3k
@Vanessa9s9x
@GirlyDaniels
@Erin0n37
@Patricia6b10
@Julie3h3r
@lesliewsmith10
@Tammy_H_Harriet
@DUPLIMONEX
@KellyAugustinA
@MelissaGraf4
@xaviermedia
I hate bots and i will do anything to kill them.
How do you not tweet links all the time and still say something worthwhile? 'Personal updates, ' the original concept behind twitter, are way more than 40% inane babble.
I don't know if everyone does it this way, but when I pass on a tweet exactly as written, I precede it with "RT @Author'sName". When I add my own bit or paraphrase, I put "(via @Author'sName)" at the end.
If you make a Twitter account it'd better be yours and you'd better use it!
Example:
#hashtagstory :: #iremember #inhighschool #crashlove #ashes #IAmAGrownUp
Does that mean that I'm a hashtag spammer?
i think that all accounts should be verified.
problems wouldn't exist.
#2 is absolutely bogus. I like that there are automated Twitter accounts. I like being able to follow an account and receive automated updates on something. One great example of such a robot is the San Francisco BART profile, which I believe uses the trains' API to update Twitter based on train arrivals, departures and delays. And sometimes it's nice to be able to follow a website's updates via Twitter rather than subscribing to the RSS feed. (Feeds are for what I read every day, Twitter is for more passive stuff that I like to read, but don't need to see every single item.) Robots are part of why I like Twitter, and suffice to say I would not be happy with Twitter if they started taking actions against them.
My account was wrongfully suspended sometime ago under the accusation of "Spamming a trend Hashtag".
You can see the whole story about this here:
http://thezargon.org/2009/07/the-ultimate-fail-...
I got my account back but I didn't get any kind of apology from Twitter for committing a mistake.
I totally agree that Spamming Trend Hashtags should be on top of Twitter's concern, right along with Spam, but to just apply some kind of behavior algorithm to detect it, is only going to ensure that legitimate users and tweets will be caught on it.
Until Twitter doesn't understand that every case is a case and it has to be treated accordingly we will keep reading all over the legitimate complaints of those that get their accounts suspended for no reason.
Twitter is a lame company, and I hope it dies really soon. Long live Facebook!
Doesn't this fall under the "don't follow them if they annoy you" policy?
I am excited about the rest but the oversharer seems a bit extreme. So if someone wants to tweet all day everyday. Isn't it for them to decide if they want to and the rest of us to follow/unfollow if we don't like it? 9/10 This: "40% of tweets are pointless babble" is "personal" updates. I am in the hallway, in the car. Milk is spoiled. I like cheese. Those are all personal and are garbage unless thats how you tweet but again its for the end user to decide how personal or how many links they share or how frequent they update IMO.
I'd still like to see a "Flag This Account" button on every Twitter page. It's more accurate than forcing people to befriend the mystery @spam account just so they can send a DM to it about a dirty spammer, and it would be a thousand times more convenient.
if i used TwitterFeed with RSS from my blog
i'll take banned from twitter ?
i dont follow any on twitter because i just have a job, friends and spare time. i dont have the time to spent my day following some people which horizon cannot produce more then smal comments on their own life.
and here comes my shot comment on this:
" today i fart twice and then i read this article about twitter and i just thought... who the f. cares about. its the same like 2nd life, it will be just a smal fart in the future internet"
i would like to see the spammers and squatters get deleted!
then i'd be able to acquire a 'certain' twitter name also :)
follow me on twitter @mitchmahoney
That was just from my last two DM's ...
This is ridiculous. They are trying to show us that we aren't worth anything compared to the "celebrities".
Even if we regular people have people who have made fake pages of us, we can't have a verified symbol on our pictures?
That's crazy. We're real, so treat us like we are.
http://www.seodoom.info
Apart from that, I'm happy that Twitter seem to be actively trying to combat the growing spam problem.
Damn spammers should be banned from the net - period! No sense of how to politely conduct biz. My "Mentions" column has a constant parade of these clowns, not one of which has even said hello. It's all about them.
Thanks for this article :-)
A squatter is one who registers in bad faith. Most of them intend to make money off of trademarks.
"Domain name squatting has long been practiced by those looking to make money by snapping up desirable names in the hopes of later flipping them for a profit to interested buyers." This is the definition of a legitimate domainer participating in a legal business. Buying and selling domain names is absolutely no different than buying and selling real estate, or any other product.
Most domainers are not squatters. In fact, most domainers will blacklist squatters. Squatters are a minority, but given their high profile cases they tend to get all the press.
Truth of the matter is, every industry has a minority practicing illegal or immoral tactics. Domaining is no different. There are corrupt lawyers, real estate agents, business managers, cashiers, delivery drivers, etc.
You don't know how frustrating it is that your industry constantly gets a bad rap for such a minority of its participants.
The laws of mathematics relating to Twitter policy say that you must follow back everyone whom you may want to keep as a follower who themselves follow close to 2000 people themselves. This is because you will box them in if you fail to follow back: they will not be allowed to follow anymore people who might actually show interest in what they have to say.
I would say 30% of people who use Twitter, including huge numbers of "experts" and other prima donnas who often have 50,000+ followers, fail to understand this simple fact.
As a result, the prima donnas with 50,000+ followers tend to lose their highest quality followers (including those most likely to RT) who are forced to unfollow them (because of lack of follow back) while keeping the neophytes and ne'er do wells who don't know how to use Twitter, don't know how to RT, and thus will never have to worry about being boxed in at the 2000 follow limit.
My advice to anyone is to especially follow back someone who RTs as long as it wasn't a bot doing the RT and, as a general rule, follow back anyone whom you would rather not lose as a reader.
Do this once per week. No need to do it more often because spammers delete themselves after 2 days and save you a lot of work that way.
I'm a Ron Paul fan, and I used to do a Google News search every day to catch up on news coverage of him and other libertarian issues. Then when I discovered that I could send an RSS feed to Twitter, I turned my daily Google News search into a feed and sent it to another Twitter account I created. Then I followed that account so I can see Ron Paul news in my twitter stream.
I have loved this feature of Twitter! It's incredibly convenient and useful to me. The interesting thing is that many other people seem to enjoy getting regular Ron Paul updates. I set the account up for my own personal convenience, but almost immediately, other people started following it--some of whom thought it was really Ron Paul. (Every time someone said something along those lines I DMed them with a correction, and after the first week I created a custom background with a disclaimer that it was not an official account. I also changed the Profile to identify the account as a news feed.)
I have done nothing to promote the account and I have never tried to impersonate Ron Paul. I've just created a service that a lot of other people enjoy. Now my Ron Paul account has well over 1,000 followers (even more than my own personal account!)
I count this as a Twitter success story, and it's a shame that the new rules will essentially put this account out of business.
@KathleenHanover
Might be a good way to raise money for charity? Auction them off over a couple of weeks and donate the money.
And Fake Followers: I think using your own twitter account to make sales pitches is perfectly fine - I do it myself, but when you follow someone only in order to try and sell them something, that's pushing it.
Twitter has a lot of potential for individuals as well as businesses... glad to see that they are lookin' out.
* If your updates consist mainly of links, and not personal updates;
Kevin
http://www.netcdp.com
It's like moving into a new neighborhood and the guy down the street starts stalking you before the moving guys show up!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p-Hu3FkAGU
China and Iran will be very happy to hear this.
- Chris
I have been into tweeting recently , but I enjoy & excite using it.
But I have a request to Twitter , will there be an option for a member to have 2 twitter names assigned to single a/c ?
Because I'm an internet entrepreuner , I develop sites & I want to make sure no one else uses my sitename as their twitter a/c name , so how do I go abt this?
I believe that this shows Twitter maturing as a medium and these sort of changes indicate that it will be here to stay. So I welcome all of the changes... They sound pretty straight-forward to me.
Cheers,
Chris
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNIaXpJNiQg