A couple of days ago we reported on a new tool to scan your existing Followers for spammers. Since that initial version @Carlo has made some major enhancements:
Great work Carlo!
The Twitter Blacklist has a wonderfully simple API with a yes/no response. Just call http://twitterblacklist.com/api?username where ‘username’ is the id of the suspected spammer. If the response is ‘yes’, it’s a spammer.
Update:
There is already a very cool Greasemonkey script (created by @chimeric) that uses Twitter Blacklist to alert you when you view a spammer’s profile page. Look out spammers!
unwanted email = spam. I WANT the emails that say “your friend has finally found twitter and is following you!” I DON’T WANT the emails that say “spammer/jerk with 15,000 follows is following you too!” I don’t care if they can read my tweets, can see me in the public feed, are selling snake oil- but it’s the email that drives me up the wall. The extra time it takes for me to visit twitter and go “ok, nvm, spammer” annoys me. If added info was in the email, then it would rock. The email wouldn’t be annoying.
- Comment left on Get Satisfaction: How would you prefer to report Twitter spam?
I was happy to see this email from Twitter Support updating me on a recent spam report against @nonifruit.
Hi,
Thanks for the heads up. We’ve determined that this account is spam. We have:
- removed it from the public timeline
- suspending all update capability
- suspended all follow/remove privileges
This is proof that these spam reports really do work. You can create a spam report on this page. Select ’spam request’ form the drop-down box.
…a long term defense will have to come from the developers at Twitter. They will have to implement a solution that requires you to approve followers before they can show up in your list, or they will have to implement a timed follow limit that will prevent people from following more than five people in a twenty minute period. That way it would be a pain for would be Twitter spammers to follow people by the thousands.
- Open Source Marketer: How To Fight Twitter Spam (04/24/08)
