From the category archives:

Twitter Spam

Have Millions of Fake Accounts Fooled Twitter?

October 13, 2012

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo has mentioned several times that millions of people use Twitter only for reading information, and rarely if ever tweet themselves. But how much does he know? Fake Twitter Accounts Companies that sell followers create fake Twitter accounts that rarely tweet, and just have them follow people for money. So the fact that [...]

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How Do Spammers Work?

April 27, 2012

We get a lot of questions about how spammers work on Twitter as well as on the internet in general. I thought I’d provide an overview of general internet techniques spammers use (not specifically about Twitter spam), particularly those techniques used to make more people find their websites in Google search. I found an infographic from [...]

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Hackers creating fake apps as fast as Twitter can block them

March 12, 2012

Note: If affected by a bad app, revoke it at http://bit.ly/YourTwitterApps …although Twitter will often suspend them quickly If you see one of the many variations of “Wanna see who viewed your Twitter profile?” do NOT click. There is NOT nor has there EVER been an app that can show you who views your Twitter profile. Most of the time [...]

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The Incredibly Annoying Twitter Porn Spam Attack of Late Winter, 2012

March 6, 2012

Tip: Read part 5 of “What Can You Do About Twitter Spam? What EVERY User Must Know” for more information on how spammers work. From mid January through March, 2012, many more spam tweets than usual about porn were sent in several waves as @mentions to users on Twitter. Spammers had created an enormous number [...]

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What Can You Do About Twitter Spam? What EVERY User Must Know

March 6, 2012

A five-step plan for fighting Twitter spam: 1. Fight It Don’t EVER only block spammers. Reporting them for spam (http://bit.ly/ReportTwitSpam) automatically blocks them, so actually, do NOT block them at all, report them instead. The next best thing to do is ignore spammers. They will either unfollow you or be suspended soon. If you don’t [...]

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C’mon Twitter! Quit Leaving Direct Messages Vulnerable To Spam

January 21, 2012

Spam is probably Twitter’s biggest problem.  But as it is now, instead of making it easy to identify the more spammy type of Twitter accounts, Twitter is actually hiding that information from you! Hey, Twitter: Quit Protecting Spammers! Wouldn’t you want to know before following someone if they spammed everyone that follows them with an advertising message? [...]

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Twitter Suspending New Spammers Faster Than Ever

January 19, 2012

In 2012, changes made to Twitter’s spam account identification algorithm have been catching and suspending some new Twitter spam accounts more rapidly—sometimes much more rapidly—than in 2011.   More users than ever before are reporting that as fast as they can check new accounts that appear to be spam they have already been suspended. This sometimes [...]

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New Twitter Spam Network Driving People Nuts

November 16, 2011

There has been a new wave of spam these last few days, so I thought I’d again talk a bit about the tactics spammers use on Twitter. Why is that many Twitter users see lots of spam come in over 3-7 days or longer and then mostly disappear? This is because spammers try to send [...]

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How to report someone for spam on Twitter

September 2, 2011

Do it impersonally. Give them no more thought than you do when close a door behind you. (If you want to read Twitter’s how-to page on spam reporting, go here.) Why be impersonal? Because you shouldn’t let Twitter bots and jerks mess with your attitude. If you feel all righteous about it, you’re getting into rant [...]

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What to do when you see a hijacked account alert

August 27, 2011

You’ve probably seen one of these kind of messages before: Here is a list of all the most recent #Alerts about hijacked accounts. So, what happened? Why are these tweets being sent out? What should you do? Someone you follow had their account hijacked When you receive one of these tweets or DMs, it is from [...]

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