Mashable - The Social Media Guide - Latest Comments in Twitter Spam Invades Trending Topics

Re: Twitter Spam Invades Trending Topics

jdavies — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 02:22:45 -0000

They can institute a "digg-up/digg-down" feature on searches to rate relevance!

Re: Twitter Spam Invades Trending Topics

jansegers — Wed, 20 May 2009 17:03:32 -0000

I believe to have been banned from Twitter (rather suspended) due to a link to this article; like they give very few explanation, I guess this because it was the last tweet I was able to post...

I've had it with Twitter... - http://cli.gs/Asm9UD

The Twitter censure is in place ? Ok, they're important, I keep telling that to my students, colleagues and friends, but they aren't irreplaceable yet...

Re: Twitter Spam Invades Trending Topics

pyrmontvillage — Tue, 12 May 2009 21:15:25 -0000

Tell me about it. Some channels are just inundated with automated Spam and when you notify twitter the do nothing. For example the #Sydney channel which is slowly growing is being hammered by automated Pet store Spammer who is also running a baby store. Unlike the spammers in the story above, this type of ebay like automation is easily stopped. Twitter have been notified a few times yet they do nothing.

Yet I have noticed that legitimate Optin sports update services have been shut down. So Tweeter would rather you Spam It then grow/build/facilitate newer business models, within its ecosystem....BIZ Stone You ROck....ROFL

Re: Twitter Spam Invades Trending Topics

Mike Taylor — Mon, 11 May 2009 23:57:29 -0000

Magpie is offering 'top Tweeters' payoffs for allowing their ID to be used to push ads. I guess it one way to see how much your reputation is worth...

Re: Twitter Spam Invades Trending Topics

Bob Lewis — Mon, 11 May 2009 23:12:45 -0000

Oh No! This is yet another over-reaction to spam by someone who probably should know better and learn how to FILTER their searches.

1. There are NOT loads of spammers in this particular example - there is just ONE - @TrevBusiness

2. Using the right tool for the job (e.g. TweetDeck) would easily enable the complete removal of any and all traces of this berk from one's search.

3. To implement such a filter with TweetDeck takes roughly 10 seconds (or less)

4. REPORT the spammers immediately to Twitter - don't bleat & whine (but otherwise do nothing)

Just out of curiosity I did a search for apple shampoo and out of 100 replies from the timeline just 4 were from @TrevBusiness and just one other spam re: stock that I could see. Even without TweetDeck's excellent filter capabilities this is hardly the level of problem faced by Tweeple searching for Metal Detecting where out of 100 replies from the timeline around 85 were from ONE spammer with another 12 from other spammers (in reality the SAME message though so also easily filtered) leaving just THREE actual user tweets. However even that ludicrous amount of spam is easily removed with appropriate filter usage in TweetDeck.

PLEASE! Rather than carp on about the obvious exploitation by spammers that is bound to occur, can we have some more considered thoughts, training & advice offered about how to completely negate the pratts' pathetic, puerile, promotional practices so easily that they will soon learn not to bother.

Spammers win not by virtue of THEIR acts but by the naivety of OURS; i.e. those who click their links and worse BUY their trash.

No Clicks = No Sales; No Sales = No ROI; No ROI = No spammers. Just DON'T subscribe, DON'T re-tweet and guess what? Very soon no more (commercial) spammers. It won't stop the spoilsport idiots, but fortunately TweetDeck at least should be able to handle them.

I wish filtering email spam were as simple, reliable and easy as it is to remove Twitter spam from my searches.

Best regards, Bob Lewis.
Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/boblewis

Re: Twitter Spam Invades Trending Topics

janasullivan — Mon, 11 May 2009 18:51:19 -0000

immaculate infatuation is the next apple shampoo. the kids love the catch phrases... www.immaculateinfatuation.com - That Stang kid is hot.

Re: Twitter Spam Invades Trending Topics

Chris — Mon, 11 May 2009 17:38:11 -0000

Totally agree. I was also surprised to find there wasn't a "report abuse" button on a member's homepage. Seems like an obvious first step.

Re: Twitter Spam Invades Trending Topics

Phoenix_Advertising — Mon, 11 May 2009 16:39:39 -0000

Unfortunately, it was only a matter of time.

Re: Twitter Spam Invades Trending Topics

Adam Ostrow — Mon, 11 May 2009 16:14:39 -0000

yikes

Re: Twitter Spam Invades Trending Topics

Guest — Mon, 11 May 2009 15:51:34 -0000

That's nothing! Check out this screenshot I took on my iPhone while I was searching the trend SNL last Saturday night.

http://twitpic.com/4wp9d

Re: Twitter Spam Invades Trending Topics

warbrain — Mon, 11 May 2009 15:49:53 -0000

Yes, they need to kill it. I've noticed that there are numerous people who are just posting the trending topics and nothing else because they want to use it for nothing but popularity.

Re: Twitter Spam Invades Trending Topics

dacort — Mon, 11 May 2009 15:46:34 -0000

Stuff like this isn't too challenging, actually. In this case it's a few accounts posting the same spammy domain over and over again. I posted about similar issues twitter was having a year ago.
http://dcortesi.com/2008/04...

When it'll get really annoying is when numerous accounts get registered and they each post to the trending topics with a different URL shortener, or otherwise obfuscated link.

This would also disappear if I could limit trending topics to my own stream. Now that would actually be useful to me.

Re: Twitter Spam Invades Trending Topics

Feydakin — Mon, 11 May 2009 15:23:57 -0000

Follow #nascar on any given raceday.. Plenty of spam there and it gets old trying to report it all using DMs..

Re: Twitter Spam Invades Trending Topics

Adam Ostrow — Mon, 11 May 2009 13:20:46 -0000

Agreed ... should be as easy as possible to report offenders. @Spam doesn't reach nearly enough people as it is to be effective across the whole system.

Re: Twitter Spam Invades Trending Topics

Socialbees — Mon, 11 May 2009 13:12:13 -0000

I don't understand why we can't simply flag Tweets right next to them on the thread. It would make it so much easier and therefore more likely that people would do it. It would take a lot for my to bother to send something to @spam, but I'd use a 1 click flagging system all day long.

Re: Twitter Spam Invades Trending Topics

Jason Wagner — Mon, 11 May 2009 13:08:16 -0000

Good post. I actually wrote a nearly identical post yesterday evening investigating some of the areas on Twitter in which spammers have started to penetrate. I think you'll find some of the points interesting! Check it out if you have time: http://plzkthxbai.com

Re: Twitter Spam Invades Trending Topics

MayankDhingra — Mon, 11 May 2009 13:03:51 -0000

It had to happen, I too wrote about it a couple of days back. http://mayank.name/2009/05/... . Twitter was quick to clear spam accounts. Next in line would be spam @replies to screw people's happinesses. A spam message containing multiple random @replies

Re: Twitter Spam Invades Trending Topics

Chad — Mon, 11 May 2009 12:45:17 -0000

You should research before you write an article. Mark Hoppus asked on one of his tweets "Josie or Apple Shampoo?" referring to songs off of Blink 182's 1998 release "Dude Ranch", not new songs, and he asked on sunday night which had nothing to do with musicmonday.

Re: Twitter Spam Invades Trending Topics

Sophie Guellard — Mon, 11 May 2009 12:33:04 -0000

I agree with "atul"'s comment (above) that Twitter should do something along the lines of adding a "Report Spam" button next to "Reply" and "View Tweet" in the search results.

Spammers by their very nature are devious types (much like hackers), so regardless of whatever filters Twitter implements to combat the current problem, the spammers will come up with increasingly ingenious ways to submit polluted Tweets. "Genuine" Twitter users, however, simply will not tolerate spam. Twitter should use this fact to its advantage and ally with its core users to control the problem.

Whilst there is no substitute for Twitter getting a handle on the issue itself, by taking advantage of its own "community" spirit, Twitter has the opportunity to detect spam across all topics with the ultimate common goal of making Twitter better for everyone.

Re: Twitter Spam Invades Trending Topics

arif — Mon, 11 May 2009 12:24:53 -0000

Not only that but they will also have to counter people who are unethically playing with the system. The other day I noticed a RT by someone referring to Demi Moore saying Wanda Sykes sucks (or something to that effect). I checked to see that Demi Moore's Twitter account never said such a thing. One can imagine the havoc such type of RTs could wreck or the possibility of it.

Is this where Twitter willing to go for the sake of popularity? People are living in the Utopian world when it comes to internet.

Re: Twitter Spam Invades Trending Topics

SelfMadeCelo — Mon, 11 May 2009 12:23:50 -0000

Apple Shampoo isn't a new song. It was released on the Dude Ranch album in 1997. Just thought I'd throw that out there. And yes, down with spam.

Re: Twitter Spam Invades Trending Topics

Miguel — Mon, 11 May 2009 12:19:33 -0000

Damn spammers and their automated systems!!! I hate them so much :( Twitter users should start something like "cleanup friday" where we just look for spammers and report them.

Re: Twitter Spam Invades Trending Topics

Brian — Mon, 11 May 2009 12:13:40 -0000

FYI, Apple Shampoo was brought up by Blink 182 guitarist Mark Hoppus, @MarkHoppus this morning. He is still tweeting how happy he is that Apple Shampoo is trending, apparently he has no idea that its spam related.

Re: Twitter Spam Invades Trending Topics

Nickd — Mon, 11 May 2009 12:02:57 -0000

This is why Twitter want a user reputation ranking system. But adding one will forever change the simple, unstructured input scheme that helped grow the user base so quickly. It's a fact of online life that a large user base generates lots of tempting data to mine, exploit and game, which ultimately surfaces credibility issues that require more constraints on users. http://blog.vanno.com/index...

Re: Twitter Spam Invades Trending Topics

PastExpiry — Mon, 11 May 2009 11:55:25 -0000

A Mother's day cartoon that surely describes someone's mother...
http://pastexpiry.blogspot....

*CARTOON*