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Akismet-like Spam Repository for Twitter
Lately, I've been getting spam profiles following me nearly daily. It's getting rather annoying and someone needs to do something about it.
To help solve the problem, I believe we need to have some sort of spam repository.
If someone flags another profile (not just blocking them), anyone after that the flagee follows has the flagee automatically added to a list of potential problem profiles to be confirmed. Once the flagee was confirmed enough times, they're automatically taken out of the repository until someone else adds them. You wouldn't have to call it a Spam or anything, keep it vague to make sure no one feels singled out.
Just an idea. I'd love to work with getting this setup. Something like Akismet (blog comment spam blocker; http://akismet.com/) for Twitter would be amazing and pretty easy to impliment.
To help solve the problem, I believe we need to have some sort of spam repository.
If someone flags another profile (not just blocking them), anyone after that the flagee follows has the flagee automatically added to a list of potential problem profiles to be confirmed. Once the flagee was confirmed enough times, they're automatically taken out of the repository until someone else adds them. You wouldn't have to call it a Spam or anything, keep it vague to make sure no one feels singled out.
Just an idea. I'd love to work with getting this setup. Something like Akismet (blog comment spam blocker; http://akismet.com/) for Twitter would be amazing and pretty easy to impliment.
I’m disappointed
3 people like this idea
I like this idea!
Tell me when this idea gets some attention.
The more people who like this idea, the more it gets noticed.
The more people who like this idea, the more it gets noticed.
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Inappropriate?A friend of mine is working on a neat project like this, and his current complaint is he can't check blocklists via the API. While I think it won't take him long to put together a good working system, he's in the process of moving and such, so there are delays. But if there's a couple different spam blocking services, they'll all suck. Akismet works because everyone contributes back information on if the service is working or not, so if there's some mad dash to make a couple, most will probably suck.
(My theory, though, if there's a block API there might be a way for a user to use multiple services, although Defensio requires you disable akismet to work, so that might not be so good of an idea) -
Inappropriate?That's awesome! Let him know if he needs any help, I'm here. Especially with hosting and such. I'm still perfecting my programming skills. Haha.
But I was reading on the http://getsatisfaction.com/twitter/to... topic and I liked the idea of @reportspam flagee (except being sent to the name of the application). They'd only need basic API access... *shrugs*
All it really needs to do is notify a user of potential spam. I don't know. The API may need to be revamped or something.
I’m happy and excited knowing someone else is working to make things right!
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This is one of the best points
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The best part about your reply is that you use your e-mail address with 0 obfuscation. Spambots crawling this page will see it and add you to their list of e-mails to spam. By posting that you do not want spam using your actual e-mail address, you are increasing the amount of spam you are likely to receive. -
Inappropriate?Thomas,
I disagree with what you say, look here I am entering my email
:
bobwatson1789@yahoo.com
and NOTHING will happen! Spambots do not exist, they are a myth,
Robert Watson -
Inappropriate?bob: Go to your Yahoo account, and open the SPAM folder. That's not a folder full of myth, now is it?
That spam got there because there are spammers who carpet bomb Yahoo with every possible permutation, and because there ARE email address harvesting bots in the wild. How you can say they're a myth boggles my mind. There are tens of thousands of different variants of spambots too. They're like insects. Most are just spiders like Google, but they only collect email addresses, not links. Some are malware that harvest email addresses from your email client.
1 person thinks
this is one of the best points
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Inappropriate?Fwiw, http://twitspam.org monitors the Twitter public timeline for tweets that have the hashtag #twitspam or #twitterspam. When the blog admins see the tweet, they make a new blogpost so other people can block the spammers easily.
For example, you can see from this link that @stopthespam uses the #twitspam hashtag everytime they see and block a new spammer
Addition to the blog is not automated (imho, it shouldn't be anyway since some human judgment should be exercised), but the links make blocking easy.
Also, there *is* an API call to Block an account afaik. Here's a link to the relevant section of the API documentation
