Hey @Twitter, I Just Got Reply @Spam 41 Times At Once!
I’ve written previously about how the replies mechanism on Twitter isn’t afforded the same level of protection that is provided with the direct message system.
Here’s a great example why. A few moments ago, I was hit with dozens of @reply spam messages all at once. And I mean, literally all at once.
(click on the image above to see the full list – it’s too big for this page.)
I now have to manually block each of these accounts in turn, one-by-one, to prevent this from happening again. From these accounts. What’s to stop another load of spam accounts doing the same thing to me ten minutes from now? And every ten minutes after that?
What’s to stop them doing it to you? Using this method, how easy would it be to ruin Twitter for somebody? For everybody? We can unfollow people so they can’t do this to us via a direct message, but replies are fair game. Block one account, and another one is right there to take its place. And another one. And another one.
They’ve even got Tom from Myspace involved (see the pic). This is not just broken, it’s totally fubared.
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Oh my that certainly is a lot of @ spam. I’ve never received more than 2 at a time really. Maybe you’re following some bot? What are the numbers at the end of the tweets about? Some sort of counter maybe?
It does expose a big problem in the @ system. The whole nature of Twitter means that you can communicate with anyone and everyone, and that’s brilliant. While that’s great for the normal Joe Soap, it’s also a spammers heaven! Some sort of limits need to be applied. But how to do that without ruining the fun of Twitter is a different thing.
Unless somebody has changed their previously-valid account into a bot, I don’t think it’s that. And it doesn’t really matter who you are following, really – that’s essentially the point. As you note, the open nature of Twitter is great… except when things like this happen. Anyone can @reply anybody else.
We really need spam filters, and/or a facility to opt out of replies from people who we aren’t following and/or who meet a certain criteria.
Sheamus, I am glad you are bringing this to everyone’s attention
It is ruining my twitter experience.
A day doesn’t pass that I don’t have to block a half dozen or so.
I hope this is read by Twitter
And something is done.
.-= ZuDfunck´s last blog ..Ian Pfaff’s MotherF@#%ing Demo Reel CULTURE BUZZ This may… =-.
Hmm. I’ve had a few spammy @ replies. I think everyone has.
I’m not sure what the solution is. Taking away the ability to @ reply to anyone on Twitter would pretty much be against what Twitter IS, so that’s not a reasonable solution. Twitter definitely needs better anti-spam to prevent these accounts from being created and used in the first place, but other than that I’m at a loss as to how to prevent spam in @ replies without changing the way Twitter works. At least on the Twitter site itself. Some apps obviously already do change the way Twitter works, and that’s fine.
Do some apps already allow filters? Filtering @ replies containing the phrase “my vid*” would cut down on at least 50% of spam immediately. It would be nice to have categories like “@ replies from people I follow,” “@ replies from people I’ve flagged as not spam but don’t follow,” and “possible spam,” the last of which would be configured to catch everything that isn’t specifically filtered out by filters for “my vid*” and so on, but which may be spam based on criteria such as the account being less than 30 days old or having a wonky follow/follower ratio.
Oh, and I still think that people we actually ban should be completely disallowed from using our Twitter name, whether in an @ reply or just in a tweet.
(If I can be cheeky and re-use a comment I just posted elsewhere.
)
Because Twitter is an open network and works somewhat similar to email in the way that we can be approached without permission, I think what may well be necessary in the future is a spam inbox, that we can then configure to our own liking. It would work similar to Gmail’s spam filter and/or Askimet initially, and the security protocols can then be raised or lowered according to the whims of the user.
An ability to mark tweets as spam, as well as accounts, would help considerably, too. And as you suggest, a filter system that automatically removes certain kinds of tweet from your stream would provide further protection.
TweetDeck allow you to filter colums. You can include or exclude words of choice. Haven’t used it much but it looks like a nifty feature!
Banning someone from your name in a tweet sounds too much of a Big Brother approach to me really but I see where you’re coming from.
The TweetDeck filters are temporary and only filter out tweets from your stream – they don’t actually remove them or file them away somewhere. They also have to be reactivated each time you open TD. They’re nice for a quick filter but not much else.
I’d like to see proper filters that work on Twitter’s end. For example, I could set Twitter so that I never saw any messages that contained a certain URL or keyword. Once activated, this would be a permanent change. (I could always remove and/or tweak it.)
Not sure what you mean by ‘banning someone from your name in a tweet’!
I’d settle for not seeing the tweet if someone I’ve banned uses my name. The problem is that even if I ban someone, they can keep harassing me because if they mention my name their tweet shows up in my @ replies. I run a pretty popular forum, so we do get some trolls (which is why I keep two separate Twitter accounts, with one being just for forum stuff). I can ban them to keep them from following me and I can set my tweets to private to keep them from reading, but I can’t keep myself from being forced to see their tweets. Therein lies the problem.
I am making twossers.com at the moment which’ll allow you to add and or block all the people in it’s database, currently around 530. You can also add your entire block list to the database on top of who are already there. Twitter’s spam can be very annoying. I get particularly aggrieved by the trend hijackers! heh
If you want a key (to enable the blocking part – which I’m still testing) you can have one.
btk
.-= billythekid´s last blog ..Webgeekery =-.