Stop Twitter Spam

ZDnet reported earlier today that a number of Twitter power users aren’t able to add new followers because of the new limits that Twitter has been put in place to discourage spammers. Pandora Community Manager Lucia Willow is one of the people who was caught up in this. She recently stated her case on the Get Satisfaction site. If you think Twitter needs to modify their algorithm for flagging spammers you should leave a comment on this topic on Get Satisfaction. I’m all for Twitter taking action against spammers before they become a problem, but the target should be the obvious spammers, not the respected power users.

Lucia is, without a doubt, not exhibiting “spammy” behavior on Twitter. In fact, I posted about her several months ago as an example of a business that is using Twitter effectively to communicate with their customers.

Here is the full text of Lucia’s post on Get Satisfaction:

Hi Crystal and Ev -

Thanks for posting on GSFN about this. I’m glad you’re putting limits in place to discourage spammers.

However, there are many of us who are using Twitter in a legitimate and respectful manner who are being blocked from following.
I didn’t receive any notification that I had reached any following limit. I got the “Something has gone wrong” message repeatedly until I surmised what was happening.

I’ll email Support to discuss this, but I wanted to point this out here since a discussion was already in place.

We have such a fun Pandora community going on via Twitter, I’d hate for it to be hampered. In terms of proving I’m not spammy, I’m happy to provide previously-twittered testimonials regarding how “useful” and/or “fun” my 2,000 twitter followers have found my twitterstream.

I’m very careful, as a Community Manager, about how I use Twitter. I hand-pick who to follow. My followed-following rate has always been close to 1-to-1. I only tweet a few times a day. I’ve repeatedly posted my personal email address in the stream, for conversations that require more than 140 characters.

Thanks very much for your attention, and for all your hard work!
I hope this gets sorted out soon. I’ve been enjoying the community of Pandora-lovers who have been bonding via your service.

Sincerely,
Lucia Willow
Pandora Community Manager

@pandora_radio on Twitter

Image courtesy of Christopher Penn, who is also facing this problem.

More Coverage:

• ZDNet: Twitter anti-spam efforts go overboard
• Christopher Penn: Twitter has Pulver-ized me. Time to move to Plurk?
• TwitterStars: New Twitter Policy Towards Aggressive Following
• Twittermaven: Do we hate spam that much?

GetSatisfaction Discussion:

• I’m not a spammer, I’ve got a 1-to-1 ratio, Let me Follow People Back Please!!!
• What happens if I hit a Twitter limit?

People are also leaving comments on the Twitter blog…

While I fully understand and approve of the desire to get rid of spammers (spitters?) we need to be very very sure these limitations do not adversely affect the experience for “real” regular users of Twitter. Unfortunately, they ARE affecting those users…. more (Vicky Brown)

By limiting the number of followers, now rumored to be set at 2500, you’re punishing people who have an almost equal followers/follow ratio… Essentially these are the people who have made Twitter as popular as it is to day. Sounds to me like you’re going to throw the baby out with the bathwater… more (Sharon McPherson)