Mashable - The Social Media Guide - Latest Comments in Twitter Spam: 3 Ways Scammers are Filling Twitter With Junk

Re: Twitter Spam: 3 Ways Scammers are Filling Twitter With Junk

Rochester Painting Contractors — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:18:48 -0000

I hope Twitter solves this soon. I am loving the service and don't want to have to make my account private, but the annoying spammers are making it almost impossible!

Re: Twitter Spam: 3 Ways Scammers are Filling Twitter With Junk

BigFrank — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 10:28:26 -0000

oh so, your saying it actually is good for self-awareness and more straight forward then their tactics? k gotchya. i'm out. have a nice day.

Re: Twitter Spam: 3 Ways Scammers are Filling Twitter With Junk

BigFrank — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 10:25:42 -0000

come on now frank. you know they cannot afford it. this could be a potential problem to their millions!! "potential"

Re: Twitter Spam: 3 Ways Scammers are Filling Twitter With Junk

BigFrank — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 10:23:55 -0000

oh wait. so the only company its affecting is the website's owner who isn't a multi-millionaire or even hundred millionaire? G willigers! and they aren't virally spreading their website all over the web , radio and tv?? man, let's fight for twitter and their millions!

Re: Twitter Spam: 3 Ways Scammers are Filling Twitter With Junk

BigFrank — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 10:20:51 -0000

ahh yes frank and those ads on the social media sites aren't the slightest bit enticing or tricky but they don't involve having them opt-in their email:password

nice imaginations. silly humans.

Re: Twitter Spam: 3 Ways Scammers are Filling Twitter With Junk

Chris — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 10:10:31 -0000

Whenever you get an unsolicited email, that is obviously a scam, created by a lowlife scumbag who wants to steal you livelihood and hard earned money

Do this

Reply back with Forward

Copy EvilVoodooCurse@gmail.com

Put "You will be cursed" in the subject line

Forward this along to 5 friends

Re: Twitter Spam: 3 Ways Scammers are Filling Twitter With Junk

BigFrank — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 10:10:12 -0000

Yes. i have received some spam from generated profiles. I'm surprised nobody is spamming them with collecting login credentials and virally marketing to their members. I did some research, with enough accounts/followers you can easily hit 4 figures a day sometimes 5 figures a day.
So some of these online marketers must be filthy rich.. i mean their is an imaginary "ethic" because it appears as the tweet isnt on the same page where on most socials would be the ads, it's just in a section called "tweets" and also a free public website.

Re: Twitter Spam: 3 Ways Scammers are Filling Twitter With Junk

Cheryl — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 23:54:14 -0000

Er...didn't that guy above just spam his blog?

I've noticed that some spammers now throw in a few mundane comments before they suck up to your account like a leech. That way they look like a regular person until you visit their twitter page. Also, dead giveaway is someone who is following 1,500 people has 100+ following them and 3 posts.

Re: Twitter Spam: 3 Ways Scammers are Filling Twitter With Junk

Kevin — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 00:13:25 -0000

I am getting a lot of spammers following me too. I even get the same DM from the same follower 2 or 3 times. I am just glad that there are so many people making plugins and other free tools to help me clean out my account of the bozos.

Re: Twitter Spam: 3 Ways Scammers are Filling Twitter With Junk

Wayne John — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 01:48:30 -0000

No doubt that Twitter could do much to clean up some of those accounts, I don't like them either. It's also too easy to create an account on Twitter. Once they implement some level of user verification, you'll see a huge drop in spam I suspect.

Jennifer, you're not asked to do anything, you choose to. And being that we both know that spammers are always first on the scene of the latest, hippest thing, they're going to be there. Look what happened to MySpace like Bernard pointed out, it's out of control. Hopefully that won't happen with Twitter as I myself am working on a few Twitter-centric projects and hope Twitter makes the right moves.

So, back to spammers, If they follow you, so what right? You simply ignore them. It's "they" that can see your tweets. You have to follow them back to see what they spew forth...all I'm saying is that if you use an auto-follow tool, you're asking for it and are deserving of the spam.

I routinely unfollow those I've auto-followed in error. It's a choice I made, and I can undo it.

You don't have to deal with it though.

Re: Twitter Spam: 3 Ways Scammers are Filling Twitter With Junk

Kenneth Santucci — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 21:20:46 -0000

I have been using the TruTwit service with great success! If you can't take the time to fill out the captcha form and verify that you are a real person then you don't get to follow me!

"Twitter spam is a drag. What if you could know for sure that your followers are truly human, and not some cyborg? TrueTwit is designed to help you:

* Verify people from robots
* Avoid Twitter spam
* Save time managing your followers

By signing up now for free, all of your new followers will get a validation notice. If they too are TrueTwit users or pass the CAPTCHA test, you get an email indicating they are a TrueTwit validated human!"

http://www.truetwit.com/tru...

Re: Twitter Spam: 3 Ways Scammers are Filling Twitter With Junk

Jennifer — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 18:00:53 -0000

Why should I be asked to spend at least 50% of my twitter time managing spam when I have better things to do and then tweet about doing? Why is that required of me - the user - instead of twitter and/or apps that I can program and implement to take care of it for me?
Neither unfollowing nor blocking controls spam. It keeps coming and coming with new profiles and accounts created by robots programed and implemented to do that. If I tweet that I don't want porn-bots in my inbox, I get 20 of them in my inbox within hours because they search on the word "porn" and auto-follow? How is that wanted?
Only people who are themselves hurting other people with spam insult people who are hurt by spam by calling them "dead-brain users". Clearly you value winning over losing instead of kindness over meanness or even right over wrong. How does that help you really? Why should I buy anything you are selling or saying?

Re: Twitter Spam: 3 Ways Scammers are Filling Twitter With Junk

Jennifer — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 17:42:03 -0000

Hi, Debbie.
Can you explain what an "unbiased opinion" is? Someone who is neither hurting people with spam nor being hurt by it? Good luck.
Businesses that flood places like twitter with advertising are wanting something for nothing. That is not how capitalism works. If you want to advertise, you should pay for it out of your ADVERTISING BUDGET and do so on spaces designated for that purpose. It may be that someday, twitter will have ad banners and sidebars like all the rest of the social media spaces that are surviving, and that's your cue to get in line and buy one of their spots. My inboxes are like "personal space", no matter how many times people repeat the opposite opinion, and should not be subject to this kind of invasion. Period.
NOW: I purchased about $75 worth of product from someone I began following because she was a real person and she did not spam anyone - ever. Under her "Name" and "Location" was her "Web" link. And one day, I tweeted about having a certain need which her business actually supplied in an unique and ironically specific way. She wasn't slick or fake-friendly. She was just as astonished as I was that I was looking for exactly what she made and she told me about it with the appropriate irony. I made a mental note and when I had money, I went there and did the deed. I don't have money very often. It was my tax refund and once it was spent, it was gone. I love on $400/month. I gave her a non-renewable resource (for me) in exchange for what she created and sold and I'm glad I did. That's a big deal.
I would NEVER EVER do that for anyone who is spamming on twitter in an advertising capacity. NEVER!!!!! On principle! Even if I had a bazillion dollars and I wanted what they seemed to be selling. I refuse to support that kind of predatory behavior.

Re: Twitter Spam: 3 Ways Scammers are Filling Twitter With Junk

Jonathan — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 16:30:33 -0000

If you're sick of Twitter spam please check out Tweet Blocker at http://tweetblocker.com and say good bye to spam once and for all. Use our easy to use bookmarklet to report spam with one click from your browser anytime!

Re: Twitter Spam: 3 Ways Scammers are Filling Twitter With Junk

StopScam — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 11:38:28 -0000

Follow me to get this and other info about scams and cons! We can stop it. At least to some degree. :)

Re: Twitter Spam: 3 Ways Scammers are Filling Twitter With Junk

lodan — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 08:44:56 -0000

Spammers are now a serious concern especially when it comes to the trending topics. I find this section of Twitter very useful myself. I keep checking it throughout the day to keep up to date. But lately (in fact for a while now) I find it takes too much time to get to the bottom of what the topic actually means because of all the unrelated and outright spam that fills these them.
I just wrote an article on this very issue. Check it out here - http://bit.ly/11dXAe

Re: Twitter Spam: 3 Ways Scammers are Filling Twitter With Junk

Trudy — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 13:16:52 -0000

I cannot express the raging annoyance that I feel with Twitter's block/remove issues. Spammers follow you and I don't want to see those idiots with their filthy avatars in my followers list. I block those users, yet they still appear in my followers list. I use the page for biz so I shouldn't have to make my page private...Twitter should do something about the spam problem. At least make sure the block feature works so that someone can be blocked and will not appear in my followers list and the number of followers I have has accuracy, although I don't care about the number...I simply want the trash I am speaking of OFF of my followers list and I want the BLOCK feature to WORK. I email @spam, I email the support email address, I submit tickets through the help link and nothing is ever done.

Re: Twitter Spam: 3 Ways Scammers are Filling Twitter With Junk

Kevin — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 22:03:16 -0000

Hopefuly the new rules about mass following and unfollowing should help control some of the spam on Twitter. It is a great tool that can be used in very professional ways, and I would hate to have to leave because of the level of spam. MySpace became pointless to check because not only were my friend requests only from random females wanting me to check out their "other" site, the comments became nothing by SPAM as well. The one thing Twitter has going for it though is, besides the email you choose to get when someone follows you, you can really continue on with your business without ever really knowing who is following you, and you certainly do not have to follow everyone who follows you. If you never acknowledge the spammers, they can't affect your Twiter stream...

Re: Twitter Spam: 3 Ways Scammers are Filling Twitter With Junk

Krishna — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:53:50 -0000

Ban Spammers !!

Re: Twitter Spam: 3 Ways Scammers are Filling Twitter With Junk

Wayne — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:23:07 -0000

I will add that those of you who auto-follow are asking for it anyway and deserve every bit of spam you get.

Again, don't want spam? Unfollow. Problem solved. Don't be brain-dead users, think for a change.

Re: Twitter Spam: 3 Ways Scammers are Filling Twitter With Junk

Wayne — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:18:15 -0000

Methinks Google Wave will overtake Twitter anyway, so some part of me has already said goodbye to Twitter.

Note on your title. Not all of these are scams btw, nor are they really spam. Spam is unwanted and uncontrolled. However, Twitter users have the ability to control that by unfollowing. Don't like what someone goes on and on about? Unfollow them. Simple, yet people still don't seem to get that.

Amazing.

Re: Twitter Spam: 3 Ways Scammers are Filling Twitter With Junk

Yair Olmert — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:53:24 -0000

There are too many spammers but also impersonators - Twitter is not doing enough - I can't get any response from Twitter so here I publish - (Hoping to get to Twitter through Mashable):

Dear Twitter - @inspectorsarit is a phony personality tweeting & distributing slander about me. As a well known Lawyer in Israel & member of the world wide known Olmert family I here and now demand that you check up this phony impersonator and block it immediately. I will not aply another time and next time you will have to meet Skadden, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom !!! Sory but ignoring my apply pushed me to take this step. Tnx
Adv. Yair Olmert -

Re: Twitter Spam: 3 Ways Scammers are Filling Twitter With Junk

Debbie Ducker — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:51:07 -0000

Bernard, Very interesting post. I guess I am guilty of posting "Twitomercials". I went into twitter with my business mind turned on in full. With that said I would like to hear your opinion of what you consider a proper use of Twitter? I know that this kind of thing turning bad can break businesses that are trying to use this type of medium for more exposure. Would be interesting you hear an unbiased opinion. Thanks, Debbie Ducker

Re: Twitter Spam: 3 Ways Scammers are Filling Twitter With Junk

Tschai — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 17:02:47 -0000

A good illustration:
I've created a twitter account some weeks ago and have not tweeted once, but 'someone'/Jessica yesterday started following me!

PS: the spam account seems to be suspended: good work twitter!

Re: Twitter Spam: 3 Ways Scammers are Filling Twitter With Junk

Jocar — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 15:19:36 -0000

I like spam and chips with tomatoe kechup Spam makes agreat meal also in a bread bun
When the first blue and yellow cans came off the production line in 1937, the world was forever changed. No one would have guessed back then, but the revolutionary new product became a war hero, a pop culture icon and an American institution. Long Live Spam