Stop Twitter Spam

This is from an interesting interview with the founder of What the Trend, a site that provides explanations for the top trends on Twitter.

Media Guy: Let’s talk for a moment about twam, or Twitter spam — the way that spammers and scammers have been inserting trending terms into their tweets so that when people search on those trends, they’re exposed to off-topic spammy tweets. What should Twitter be doing to address that?

Mr. Mayer: What the Trend has recently also become the target of spam attacks. I recently spent 30 minutes, after a spam attack, hacking together an administrative tool to allow me to revert spam posting more easily. When my tool was ready, I went to delete the spam — and it had already gone! Confused, I checked the logs. Other visitors had already manually replaced the spam with more useful explanations. It’s the Wikipedia Effect at work. Provided you make it easy for the “good guys” to clean up after any “bad guys,” the community can work together to minimize the effect of spam. Now that Twitter trends have a more prominent position in the Twitter interface, the temptation to spammers grows. Twitter needs to find some way to leverage community feedback to not only quickly remove trends which are identified as spam, but also display more relevant tweets when people search on a trend.

- Advertising Age: The Twuth About Twitter Twends