Mashable - The Social Media Guide - Latest Comments in Spam In Twitter Trends, Again (Update: Not Really Spam)

Re: Spam In Twitter Trends, Again (Update: Not Really Spam)

Sundaeg1rl — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 05:12:05 -0000

Well, I posted 3 times on the subject and nothing came up. So you're not allowed to say the word 'pussy' anymore at any time? I guess I won't be about to talk about my feline's visit to Buckingham Palace then!

I agree with the others - this is lazy journalism.

Re: Spam In Twitter Trends, Again (Update: Not Really Spam)

Dwight Stegall — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 02:00:14 -0000

Google General Public Newsgroup has been nothing but spam for many years and no one seems interested in removing it. I think their philosophy is if they don't remove it they don't have to do their job by answering anyone's questions.

Re: Spam In Twitter Trends, Again (Update: Not Really Spam)

anarchyintheuk — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 08:32:54 -0000

An interesting article I came across rearding Mashable and this story. Any lessons to be learned here?

http://www.gospelrhys.co.uk...

Re: Spam In Twitter Trends, Again (Update: Not Really Spam)

anarchyintheuk — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 08:31:51 -0000

An interesting article I came across rearding Mashable and this story. Any lessons to be learned here?

http://www.gospelrhys.co.uk...

Re: Spam In Twitter Trends, Again (Update: Not Really Spam)

David Moulton — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 07:45:17 -0000

You were quick to condem #MrsSlocombesPussy yesterday In the mean time #moonfruit number 1 in trends, yesterday and today, is a spammy attempt to give away a free laptop. Explain how come you are not on top of this?

Re: Spam In Twitter Trends, Again (Update: Not Really Spam)

wecandobiz — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 05:46:40 -0000

Poor excuse. Us international folk have to constantly read tweets about Shaq or whatever his name is, Lindsay Lohan, Miley Cyrus and a whole heap of people who aren't known for anything outside the US. Do we think write it off as spam because we don't know anything about the topics being discussed?

Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz

Re: Spam In Twitter Trends, Again (Update: Not Really Spam)

SocialSteve — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:21:29 -0000

I am beginning to get the sexually explicit "follows" that I experienced on both skype and MySpace. They ultimatley led to me using other tools. Hope Twitter does not run this course.

Social Steve
www.socialsteve.wordpress.com

Re: Spam In Twitter Trends, Again (Update: Not Really Spam)

jones — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:45:43 -0000

You have to read it again it's not spam.
http://www.dmr-bs750.org.uk

Re: Spam In Twitter Trends, Again (Update: Not Really Spam)

Digital Jedi — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:40:10 -0000

Yes, but what a great legacy. The double entendre caused one more misread after her death. I think she would have been amused.

Re: Spam In Twitter Trends, Again (Update: Not Really Spam)

Ron B — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:06:36 -0000

Well that is what happens when you copy + paste stories from other websites, you then have to copy+paste the retraction/updates as well.

Re: Spam In Twitter Trends, Again (Update: Not Really Spam)

Joh — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 10:59:38 -0000

This is why blogs aren't taken seriously. They constantly forgo research to be breaking.

Re: Spam In Twitter Trends, Again (Update: Not Really Spam)

Jack Yan — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 10:55:31 -0000

The interesting thing is that one can still search for #pussy as a hashtag, just not Mrs Slocombe’s. What a shame for her worldwide fans.

Re: Spam In Twitter Trends, Again (Update: Not Really Spam)

Guest — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:56:47 -0000

Hashtags longer than 15 characters typically don't work with the # at the front. I see this all the time on wthashtag.com where longer hashtags don't return results. Simply dropping the tag will yield results, however. It's something Twitter needs to fix. No spam, no hacks, just a bug.

Re: Spam In Twitter Trends, Again (Update: Not Really Spam)

Jenny Fletcher — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:47:06 -0000

Very obviously Twitter has blocked some sincere tributes to dear Molly Sugden who gave us so many harmless giggles in Are You Being Served Hopefully they will take another look at how their filters work in cases like this, so what seems to be rather vulgar but isn't can actually be legitimately tweeted.

Something else to remember is that in other cases, is what one person considers to be spam is someone else's perfectly honest and decent advertising message. It's sad that some people will use links to be malicious, but there are other people - including myself - for whom Twitter is a legitimate and useful way to get our business message out. The network marketing gurus are telling everyone that Twitter SHOULD be used in this way. So who can blame us for taking notice and doing it.

Re: Spam In Twitter Trends, Again (Update: Not Really Spam)

maverickny — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:09:16 -0000

There's no excuse for poorly researched journalism, especially as 'Are You Being Served' seems to run ad nauseum on American tv channels.

Reminds why I stopped reading Mashable a long time ago.

Re: Spam In Twitter Trends, Again (Update: Not Really Spam)

Zack Kitzmiller — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:50:59 -0000

Man. You guys are horrible. This is why I don't read mashable.

What happened to real journalism, ya know, when you vetted things, or maybe researched a LITTLE?

Re: Spam In Twitter Trends, Again (Update: Not Really Spam)

empireofno — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:48:12 -0000

Twitter need to get their act togeher and realise that not everyone lives in north america. It would also help if they got some halfway decent spam filters in-place. My account has been blocked from being indexed even though I have over 800 followers and have never ever spammed anyone; meanwhile any number of spambots litter my follower list trying to push porn or some ponzi get rich quick scheme on me. Wake up twitter: stop allowing your service to become a cesspit of pyramid marketing schemes and sleazy porn - and get sone decent software that doesn't penalise real users who have been online on Twitter for over a year. Otherwise expect to lose traffic as Facebook wakes up to how to use the realtime stream.

Re: Spam In Twitter Trends, Again (Update: Not Really Spam)

Neil Fraser — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:38:37 -0000

You were very quick to tweet this poorly researched article, but you don’t seem to be as quick to tweet a correction. Given the amount that the original post was retweeted don’t you think it warrants one?

Re: Spam In Twitter Trends, Again (Update: Not Really Spam)

Steve Berry — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:32:19 -0000

Anyone not familiar with the UK comedy Monty Python might have a hard time understanding your use of the word "spam" there... ;-)

Re: Spam In Twitter Trends, Again (Update: Not Really Spam)

Justin Parks — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:24:42 -0000

First of, fair play on the edit to the article, no one can ask for any more. Its clear that without specific local or regional knowledge that trending topic would look very dubious indeed but does go to show that we cant take everything at face value.

Lets not loose the point here though, for me its the spam on twitter and the amount that its infringing on the whole system. Its beginning to get totally out of control. I wrote a post just last night suggesting a way we could combat it but not in the trends, that seems to be a separate issue altogether and the worry is that it will make the trends obsolete.

Have a read of this and see what you think, maybe I'm mental but it sounds like a feasible idea to me. http://www.justinparks.com/...

Re: Spam In Twitter Trends, Again (Update: Not Really Spam)

mark nagurski — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:57:31 -0000

No probs - all good now anyway.

I'm actually not that worried about Twitter spam filters - without any filter there would be the potential for p0rn spam to clog up the trending topics. Simple human oversight solves the problem - presuming they can o'ride the filters.

I think the story is more, what are the trending topics for and how should we react to people and esp. companies 'gaming them'? It's foreseeable that as more companies use twitter to promote comps etc... that almost the entire trending topics list could be brand terms.

At that point it's no longer useful - unless you want to enter loads of competitions.

Re: Spam In Twitter Trends, Again (Update: Not Really Spam)

Paul — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:48:32 -0000

Do journalists not bother researching their stories anymore?

Re: Spam In Twitter Trends, Again (Update: Not Really Spam)

Stan_Schroeder — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:34:20 -0000

Here's some more background on the research part. Yes, it was a mistake not to properly research this particular hashtag and the background behind it. But honestly, my brain never, even for a second, considered that something in the form of "womannamepussy" can be legitimate. I'm so used to deleting spam from my inbox, for so many years, that something like this triggers my spam defense mechanisms immediately.

If the topic in case was #CheapViagra I would have probably done the same mistake (:. Again, not making excuses, the mistake is mine, just picking my brain to see why I never thought of googling that term (:

Re: Spam In Twitter Trends, Again (Update: Not Really Spam)

Your Name* — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:32:33 -0000

There was nothing innocent about the use of the word Pussy, it was a deliberately crude innuendo just as the character's name Mrs Slocombe is. Fortunately Twitter's imagination isn't good enough to recognise the latter!

Re: Spam In Twitter Trends, Again (Update: Not Really Spam)

Stan_Schroeder — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:29:36 -0000

Heh, quickly updating the text, screwed up the tags. Never removed that word, I just wanted to have it strikethrough.

There's an interesting story here, really, pity it'll get overshadowed by my mistake. Are certain (possibly) vulgar words allowed in Twitter trending topics? How should Twitter go about discerning whether something is spam or not? It's not an easy task, as you can see (;.