It's not only Twitter's Trending Topics that attracts spam. I mentioned the word 'grammar' in one Tweet and within a few minutes I was being 'followed' by all sorts of encyclopaedia salesmen. Spam will always be with us, no matter what we do.
I believe in acts of kindness. So when Mr Olewayju-Browne wanted to send me $1,000,000 for merely helping with a cash transfer, and Olga from Vladivostok said she was looking for a kind and gentle man to love and support her and two pet guppies, I simply introduced them: she needed the money most.
So how do we avoid spam? Go off-line? Then check your real mail box: supermarket offers, pizza prices, election garbage from right and left.
Spam is like athlete's foot: never really cured, but you learn to live with it.
Whoops, should not have said that. Now let's see if I get bombarded with offers of lotions, oils, meditational books to combat that damn......
terrydane
· 6 months ago
ok, nothing to share.. enjoyed the post..enlightening really...
and your comment cracked me up.. hahaha
Sheamus
· 7 months ago
I share your concerns somewhat but does anyone, especially the “casual Twitter user”, pay much attention to Twitter’s trending topics? The feature is a semi-useful barometer for what’s going on at that time on the network but it hardly moves one to action.
Indeed, I think the solution you are suggesting is further rendered immaterial simply because most folk don’t look at trending topics, but simply automatically respond to some of the popular hashtags they see their friends using within the Twitter stream. Rectifying any spam issues within trending topics, as important a step as that may well be, would do little to nothing to counter this. Even if Twitter blocked all spam and anything even remotely dubious from impacting on trends, it would only have a marginal impact on what I or others see in our network.
I propose, then, a blanket-ban on all hashtags, as the service is not only increasingly overused to a point #where #it #is #redundant, but is now evidently a menace to our very wellbeing, too.
Ben Parr
· 7 months ago
Even Google Trends can be manipulated, but at least you don't get spam when you go to one of them...
ChrisJStone
· 7 months ago
I've been doing the Porn Name joke with friends forever (admittedly mostly in person). I thought it was odd that the trending topic is #TWITTERpornnames, as the joke itself is NOTHING new. I think the information should be harmless if you know what you're doing. (Just don't post info like that unless you're sure it's not on file. Personally, I never take Security Questions seriously, since I either remember or write down the passwords anyway.)
Ohdoctah
· 7 months ago
You are right. Girls do this stuff all the time. If you were in porn what would your name be? people make up crazy stuff and they move on.
I mean honestly.. Mashable could have started the porn game to write a post on the manipulation of twitter. I mean really there are far worse scam and spammer moves going on on twitter. Now hop to it and save the world!!
samdiablo
· 7 months ago
girls? lol - 15 year old boys, maybe...and even then, they'd have to be very, very bored
other wise, in total agreement with Sheamus (plus, any-one stupid enough to not know they're being scammed & give out private info kind of deserves what they get)
Ohdoctah
· 6 months ago
did you not click the link and see all the 20-40+ year old people making up porn names? yeah take a look. Kids dont tweet, they txt. and if you can get someone personal info from making up a porn name the internet is over. Hope your having a good day.
Joe
· 7 months ago
There's limited slots. This is where you have actually use people to moderate these things. If it's decided a trend is spam, then remove it from the list.
Tiffany
· 7 months ago
Totally agree - as this thing spreads out and approaches the "utility" function Ev is so fond of projecting, Twitter needs to fix these types of things and the other spam that's becoming rampant on the site. Those of us who have been using Twitter for a while can already see the compromises that are happening - and I think now is the time for Twitter to act - and hopefully avoid the spam-haven-approved label MySpace developed.
Hagan
· 7 months ago
If spam is viral, it's still viral.
805Therapy
· 7 months ago
Good info. What is twitter doing to moderate scams and protect it's users?
Lucy
· 7 months ago
Shame about the loony posting mad rants on whatthetrend and getting rid of the useful info other people bother to put in, I've been trying to correct it (as have some others) but he's obviously doing it full time and is having an editing war with everyone else. Don't know why he's bothering, it's a shame because normally whatthetrend is really useful.
Lucy
· 7 months ago
I'm pleased to say that the Adwords loony on Whatthetrend seems to have stopped his editing war.
Bike Gamer
· 7 months ago
I was wondering the same about Porn Names Trend. I finally played along too but I gave fake name. But you're right, the trends too easy to manipulate and some jerks can take benefit out of it.
is it that trending is broken, or that we shouldn't underestimate the stupidity of people in large numbers? That sounds harsh, but I picked it up from a demotivator somewhere.
Nickd
· 7 months ago
This is a classic "garbage in, garbage out" problem. 140 characters, voluntary hashtags and no voting make for easy tweeting and a big user base, but the data generated are mostly gargage. There's a way to fix it (more structured input) to make the trends more credible, but it would leave Twitter with many fewer users. Interesting dilemma for Twitter the business. http://blog.vanno.com/index.php/2009/05/10/meas...
Jason
· 7 months ago
Agreed!! I've been noticing this more and more lately. It's getting out of control fast.
I agree: the trending topics are not 100% reliable at this point; however, when the playoffs were on for Basketball and Hockey on May 11 2009, 7 of the 10 trending topics related to sports teams. Also, when the hockey game was over, the Canucks and Hawks, two hockey teams, these trending topics were climbing the latter with the Canucks remaining in second place for a while and with their goalie, Luongo, showing up at the 9th topic - most comments related to fans saying what they were going to do now that the playoffs are over and the fact that they may want to switch to the greatest team ever, the Toronto Maple Leafs :) lol. There is a great presence in Western Canada, British Columbia province, that use social media, blog, and twitter - this was evident yesterday in the trending topics and is also relevant when searching Google Trends (North Vancouver blogs religiously). Therefore, as a whole, we cant let some bad apples spoil the whole bunch. For the most part, trending topics are still a reliable measure - scamming twitter is a trending topic right now!
@itbay
Aurora
· 7 months ago
Hey. Just to clear up whatever confusion might be here I'm the one who wrote the PC World article. First off Community Voices is not even written by anyone who gets a dime from any ad revenue. Secondly, PC World to my knowledge has never used Google Adsense that's really for personal websites.
Also guys keep in mind I wrote the article to alert people so they wouldn't be going off and posting their mothers maiden name etc. There are plenty of other twitter scams that are out there fake links on users that have a lot of people they are following and not a lot of followers can lead to links via bios or single links on the page, I'm sure you have all seen them. That can lead to anything from malware to pishing pages and more.
If you would like to find out your own proof my suggestion is to go and search twitter porn names in the past before the article was written. It was the trending topic at the time, and people were playing it before it was posted this morning. Yes though it does seem odd how fast twitter's reaction time is.
Benoit Tremblay
· 7 months ago
I don't think it's twitter's problem. If #TwitterPornNames is a trending topic then it is a trending topic. Now there's concern because it is some sort of scam, but sometimes you can't protect the users against themselves...
It's a scam, but still...it got popular. Not every spam attempt will end up in the trending topics.
James Hofheins
· 7 months ago
I had no idea that such an innocent sounding game could result in a form of identity theft. I really need to be more careful.
I begining to wonder about bigger problems re; virus' attacking our iphones, B'berry, etc. for the benefit of an example - A virus or hacker has invaded "Tweep_??'s phone and because I follow him/her - I innocently click on some tiny URL on a tweet, (ie like opening an email) thinking its safe to do so? I use an iPhone and I dont even know I have the worm/trogan - until I connect my phone to my desktop to synch - I have AV but is there a 'GOOD" possibility of this happening?
TroyJMorris
· 7 months ago
I did not see this article before I attempted to make #icecreamtaco a trending topic. I'm fascinated by trending topics on twitter for a desire to understand it's tipping point. As far as a I can tell, most trending topics come into the top levels by people tweeting things like "what is [trending topic term]?"
Now I'm just creeped out you folks wrote on this the same day I thought to try it. :(
tom
· 6 months ago
indeed
Roger
· 6 months ago
Good to bring this up. I have posted a detailed evaluation of three ways in which Twitter Trending Topics can be abused with use of hashtags. http://tinyurl.com/qhe2ba
Elaine Allison
· 6 months ago
A company called Pramana (spin out of Georgia Tech Technical Labs) can fix this problem.
CaptainJack63
· 6 months ago
I'm hearing this is growing to exponential proportions and even morphing into other types of attacks. I have a friend that is getting like over a 1,000 @replies with the a duplicate link from the last @reply. If this is not controlled quickly the twitter wheels will come to a screeching halt. People will scatter to other forms of social networking apps.
All Comments
I believe in acts of kindness. So when Mr Olewayju-Browne wanted to send me $1,000,000 for merely helping with a cash transfer, and Olga from Vladivostok said she was looking for a kind and gentle man to love and support her and two pet guppies, I simply introduced them: she needed the money most.
So how do we avoid spam? Go off-line? Then check your real mail box: supermarket offers, pizza prices, election garbage from right and left.
Spam is like athlete's foot: never really cured, but you learn to live with it.
Whoops, should not have said that. Now let's see if I get bombarded with offers of lotions, oils, meditational books to combat that damn......
and your comment cracked me up.. hahaha
Indeed, I think the solution you are suggesting is further rendered immaterial simply because most folk don’t look at trending topics, but simply automatically respond to some of the popular hashtags they see their friends using within the Twitter stream. Rectifying any spam issues within trending topics, as important a step as that may well be, would do little to nothing to counter this. Even if Twitter blocked all spam and anything even remotely dubious from impacting on trends, it would only have a marginal impact on what I or others see in our network.
I propose, then, a blanket-ban on all hashtags, as the service is not only increasingly overused to a point #where #it #is #redundant, but is now evidently a menace to our very wellbeing, too.
I mean honestly.. Mashable could have started the porn game to write a post on the manipulation of twitter. I mean really there are far worse scam and spammer moves going on on twitter. Now hop to it and save the world!!
other wise, in total agreement with Sheamus (plus, any-one stupid enough to not know they're being scammed & give out private info kind of deserves what they get)
@itbay
Also guys keep in mind I wrote the article to alert people so they wouldn't be going off and posting their mothers maiden name etc. There are plenty of other twitter scams that are out there fake links on users that have a lot of people they are following and not a lot of followers can lead to links via bios or single links on the page, I'm sure you have all seen them. That can lead to anything from malware to pishing pages and more.
If you would like to find out your own proof my suggestion is to go and search twitter porn names in the past before the article was written. It was the trending topic at the time, and people were playing it before it was posted this morning. Yes though it does seem odd how fast twitter's reaction time is.
It's a scam, but still...it got popular. Not every spam attempt will end up in the trending topics.
James Hofheins http://twitter.com/jwhof
Operation Kindness
http://jameshofheins.blogspot.com/
Now I'm just creeped out you folks wrote on this the same day I thought to try it. :(