Sp0rk's dashboard

Looks like we can now officially report spammers by sending an @reply to the @spam account on Twitter.

At least, that's what a recent update from Crystal in another thread says.

The recommended syntax seems to be:
@spam @spammerusername OptionalMsg

Yikes! This is a long thread. It is a good one though.

My suggestion is along the lines of many others here, but the details may be different:

Add the "Flag as" link to the profile pages. I suggest a generic "abuse" label, where flagging it would bring the end user to a form asking to select the type of abuse and allowing an explanation/comment. These would be tallied and the results sent to an employee tasked with investigating. The employee would work on the highest tally first and would have the option of clearing the abuse flags, suspending the account, or taking other appropriate action.

I like the @spam method, but it feels that a "Flag as Spam" button would be easier.

Also, there's a new Suspended Accounts help page (had not seen that one before today) that lists the various reasons why an account may be suspended, spam being one of them.

---- start of excerpt ----

What is Spam on Twitter?

Commercial or promotional use of Twitter is allowed. There are many companies who create valuable, opt-in relationships with users on Twitter who want to keep up to date with them.

However, if you are following other accounts in order to gain attention to your account or links therein, you may be considered spam.

If you are creating a series of accounts in order to promote the same thing, you may be considered spam.

If you are sending large numbers of @reply messages that are not genuine replies, you may be considered spam.

If you are creating updates in order to show up in search results, you may be considered spam.

If you are disguising links (i.e., writing about one thing but linking to another), you may be considered spam.

If a large number of users have blocked you (relative to those following you), you may be considered spam.

---- end of excerpt ----

Twitter just posted a new blogpost regarding their efforts to combat spam.

See "Turning up the heat on spam" on the Twitter blog

Actually, Kee, in this case it would - because the spam isn't spoofed headers, it's a spam account, created manually with the user signin process. So yes, you could ban the IP - because a) that would stop them from using that IP to sign up accounts, b) if they are using a compromised machine to manually register, the owner of that machine would be blocked unless he/she requested to be unblocked, in which case the answer is "secure your frickin' machine first" and c) the particular folks we're talking about here aren't exactly internet savvy - as they are simply initiating the account the same way time and again manually - if they had automated it or scripted it somehow, they'd be able to generate many more than the 3 dozen a day they manage to come up with.
So yeah, different form of spam and IP banning would impact the situation. – GeekMommy, on August 21, 2008 19:30

Too many of these suggestions pay no attention to how spam actually works.

You can't ban IPs, registrations almost certainly come from compromised user machines, of which there are literally millions to choose from.

Easy - ban the IPs that the lame spam accounts are registering from wholesale. If someone comes and complains because they're DHCP? You inform ISP of the abuse and unblock them only if they do something about it. – GeekMommy, on August 21, 2008 07:02

Ah, but they've gotten smarter! All the recent "6FigTm" (don't want to honor them w/ the ability to search & find me talking about them!) accounts I've blocked actually DON'T put the URL in their profile. They avoid putting almost any info in the profile & simply make 1 tweet mentioning their URL. I had the same thought as you, but once I noticed that it made me realize we can't put an auto-spam trigger on anyone that even TWEETS that URL. Hence, my suggestion... I agree with you completely- if there were any way to shut them down & not let those 6Fig folks register another Twitter account ever again, I would kiss the Twitter staffer who figured that one out! (Hope it's Crystal & not a guy, tho. hehe) Hey, what is a geekMOMMY doing up at this hour, anyway? ;D – @ggroovin, on August 21, 2008 06:48

Can't we just automatically count any profile that puts the6figureteam.com in it's url as spam? Seriously - I blocked over 2 dozen of those yesterday alone... this is annoying:
http://tinyurl.com/5cklaz how many accounts do they have to spam with before their IPs are banned? – GeekMommy, on August 21, 2008 06:39

Crystal started this discussion 4 months ago offering a solution many of us have supported: simply put a "Report as spam" button on the profile page like Gmail has. That hasn't happened. Why? I suspect because Twitter doesn't have the staff to deal with even more people reporting spam!

For this reason, I'll suggest something slightly different...

How about an automated system whereby once the # of people Blocking an account exceeds the # of followers of that account, it is automatically reported as spam?

The issue I have is that it's relatively easy to block a spam account, but it takes at least 2x the time & effort to go copy the account name, hit the Help button, click on Submit a Request, choose spam request, paste the account name into the field, and scroll down & press the Send button. This is OBVIOUSLY a pain in the butt, and it likely hasn't been changed because it's not in Twitter's favor to overburden their staff by making it easy for us to report spam. I do it for every damned spammer, but that's cuz spammers suck & I'm not gonna let 'em get away with it. Still, some days (like today) I spend easily 20-30 minutes doing all the steps above for every spam account that follows my accounts!

So... IF WE'RE NOT GOING TO GET A "REPORT AS SPAM" BUTTON, CAN WE AT LEAST GET SOMETHING BETTER than the current process???

The advantage of the idea I suggest above is that it wouldn't require any of us having to report an account as spam if we don't want to. Eventually, a true spam account will have more people blocking it than following it. A particularly annoying spammer should be able to reach this quite quickly. To be on the safe side, a bottom limit could be set before this process would be triggered: for example, only when an account is blocked by at least 100 different twitter accounts would this process come into play. This would protect an individual who is not a spammer but might upset some people at some point. The second protection, of course, is that once the # of blockers exceeds the # of followers it only REPORTS that account as likely spam. This would not automatically set any account as spam, but would simply put into play the same action as if any one of us were to go submit a 'spam request' in the convoluted process mentioned above.

Long enough. But I'm sick & tired of those damned 6figureteam, beta.goofy2.com, & petpals of the world wasting my time on Twitter. Thanks for listening. (is this thing on?)

Cheers,

@ggroovin

I'd favor this be tempered with internal metrics at Twitter. I've describe the idea here http://gsfn.us/t/khp but having a feedback loop for items that fall outside the normal automation process is critical. So, I'm in favor of a "report" function of some manifestation.

Maybe have a button similar to the block one under the block button called "Report Violations" and then have a set of options for different TOS violations, SPAM being one and then have it display on a screen and/or intranet at Twitter HQ.

Maybe have a button similar to the block one under the block button called "Report Violations" and then have a set of options for different TOS violations, SPAM being one and then have it display on a screen and/or intranet at Twitter HQ.

"...that feature you all keep asking for already exists." Well that's nifty. What would be even niftier is if Twitter posted official responses to these complaints/requests in an easily viewable form, i.e. updated their FAQ to include this information so we don't have to waste our time filling out forms to report spam because the FAQ tells us to and we don't know how else it will get reported.

I looked into if there was a way to pull the blocklist via API, and I also found that twitter does watch block counts to determine if someone is a spammer, so that feature you all keep asking for already exists.

Also, I found a site, My Tweeple, whose goal it is is to have you manage your following there, so that when you block someone it hits the front page as a 'ding'. However, since I don't think this is super popular (some of the huge spammers, even the ones already deleted, only have 20 or so dings), it is probably not very effective as it's not well known.

I looked, saw this has been requested it seems. – Thomas, on August 20, 2008 23:12

I would like a way to pull the user's blocklist via the API so that external sites can manage spam reports in this manner.

Yes vote for "spam" button on profiles. Alternately (may be suggested already, haven't read/searched posts), admins should be automatically alerted when any user is blocked repeatedly, likely indicating a spammer, so as to take action before user is specifically reported as a spammer.

Please.