Comments on: Stop the Twitter bots stop the spam

By: Microsoft Guy

Microsoft Guy — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:29:04 +0000

Sorry about that Loel…
Seems like Twitter needs to clamp down on the bots, because I do think that there are just too much. The automated messages are really the biggest nuisance to me.

By: Lee Doel

Lee Doel — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 09:37:37 +0000

I see this is an issue for many and as mentioned you can block bots but only after they have sent you something. This is usually fine but in some case like in my example i would of preferred not o have gotten the tweet in the first place.

I would never use an auto follower as it will just make you follow all the spam as well.

By: Sheryl Loch

Sheryl Loch — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 19:10:52 +0000

I don’t autofollow anyone so I think that helps cut down spam in my main stream.

I also use Tweetdeck so an @’s are placed in 1 column & can easily be spotted. Then if it is junk from a bot, I click to block & report right then. I’m done & move on with my day.

I just don’t let the garbage bother me, it’s so easy to just block or unfollow. Out of all the social sites online Twitter is one of the easiest to avoid spam (IMHO).

By: Joseph

Joseph — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 17:59:21 +0000

Well put – you might not be able to stop ALL spammers from trying, but we would be stupid not to try. My email account gets filled up with spam all the time, but luckily I have an incredible spam filter that prevents me from seeing most of it. Twitter should be coming out with something like this soon.

By: David Anderson

David Anderson — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 16:09:27 +0000

You can report spam to Twitter by following @spam and sending them a direct message with the @name of the spammer.

By: Suzanne

Suzanne — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 14:55:53 +0000

I haven’t had much spam … but I haven’t been as active on Twitter as I once was … I’m about to be on it more and I’ll definitely be blocking any spammers that come my way. Thanks for the “heads up” *SmiLes* Suzanne

By: Brian D. Hawkins

Brian D. Hawkins — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 14:55:38 +0000

The spam that kills me are all the people that setup an account and never interact with anyone. Every single tweet is a sales pitch and they seem to tweet every couple of seconds. It may not be considered spam but it can quickly fill your entire page with just that single user’s tweets. I unfollow them of course. I’ve also learned not to follow those using automated systems like TwitterFeed unless there is actual conversation on the first page of their profile. Very annoying.

BTW, am I missing something or does Twitter have no way of reporting abuse?

By: B. Durant

B. Durant — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 14:02:52 +0000

I keeping getting spammed with “I just become a member of this AWESOME site that gets you TONS of followers” and then it links an address. Driving me nuts. I signed up for one of what I thought was an auto-follow service (when someone follows me I auto follow them) but it turned out to be a train. Now I’m having to go through 150+ followers one at a time and unfollow whoever seems to have come from that train.

Honestly I’ve never been a huge fan of twitter and now I’m seeing more clearly why I’m not a fan of it. The spam is just outrageous.

By: Pradeep Singh

Pradeep Singh — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 13:33:55 +0000

I am adding comment just because i also felt some serious type of spams present in twitter lately.
First there are various people or may be bots that follow many people randomly just thinking that we could follow them in return or simply what you say to get noticed. Having a lot followers in twitter is not a bad thing but if they are not genuine and serious followers, its not even a great thing.
And the most hating thing about that is, they spam more by sending short links which are meant to get to their spam site.
Its time for Twitter to take some serious and effective steps to control the growing spam.

By: jonathan

jonathan — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 10:56:39 +0000

If I receive completely pointless spam like that I go and block the user. I figure it stops that particular account spamming me again and I also hope that if enough people do the same, it will come to twitter’s attention.

By: Lee Doel

Lee Doel — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 10:40:02 +0000

Ye it was probably just bad timing but i was not happy with it. I wouldn’t want to block my tweets as i like the fact you get random people commenting on your tweets now and then and you get more followers in doing so. As i have mentioned in comments above i wish there were some way of restricting the bots. As they must be using the api there must be some way to monitor them?

By: Lee Doel

Lee Doel — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 10:37:23 +0000

Yes sadly i think you are right but i believe we should have the tools to help us stop it. Someone is always going to exploit the system but we need to think about this more when we create such things as twitter.

By: Lee Doel

Lee Doel — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 10:36:14 +0000

I agree some could be useful so maybe there should be a way to have an option to have such messages or to have the option to block them. right now we don’t have a choice and that is the frustrating bit.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 10:22:41 +0000

The two types of auto bots I hate on twitter are those that retweet you when you’ve made a specific comment, annoyingly they tend to retweet several times as I don’t think they work too well, and then those that automatically follow you on certain keywords.

I can understand how annoying it is to receive spam comments based on your rant. It may have just been the timing but it doesn’t forgive the spam. It’s stuff like that which then makes you wonder if it’s worth protecting your tweets and prevent your account receiving replies from people you don’t follow. Just a shame that you lose the community feel/spirit from doing so.

By: Wallace

Wallace — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 01:43:03 +0000

IMO we cannot stop the spammers even Google the giant company is still still trying to on its search engine.