About Twitter Spam on TechCrunch

TechCrunch has made today on Twitter Spam entitled Twitter Starts blacklisting spammers. I really think that the entry will confuse some people. It is mentioned Twitter The blacklist, which is not affiliated with Twitter, and a recent post on N Stay Alive, which covers a recent debate on Twitter Dev discussion group about how to detect users who have been "blacklisted" Twitter. They are two completely separate things.


If the speed of scanning TechCrunch article that could leave with the impression that TechCrunch is saying that the Twitter "blacklist" is what is being used by spammers to identify Twitter. If you read the article carefully you will see that in reality does not say that. But at least one person was away with that impression and I am sure that there are many others.


From what I can say this is the process that is using Twitter to identify and deal with spammers:


1) It is suspected that spammers were informed of this Twitter Help page. Another way that Twitter can be notified about an alleged spammer is a high volume of activity bloc against a specific account.


2) Someone Twitter comments from the account to determine whether the Terms of Service have been violated. It is important to note here that are looking mainly for people who are contributing to "Follow spam." This is where someone still thousands of people at once, giving rise to a new follower email. From what I can say, all these spam applications are reviewed by a real person and they are not just using a simple formula as follows: Followers of rationing to make the decision.


3) Once Twitter has determined that it is a spammer to take action against the account. I have received a number of spam messages on Twitter reports that he submitted. Click here to see an example. Some typical actions to be carried include: the elimination of their tweets public temporarily suspending the ability to upgrade, and the suspension of forward / unfollow privileges. Based on the N Stay Alive seems that Twitter will take stronger actions to move forward and complete account compared to only paralyze.


This type of coverage on Twitter Spam usually generates a lot of discussion. Here are some posts from people who question whether or not it is a question :


Daggle - Twitter Spam: myth or reality?

I'm not really a Geek - Spammers Twitter and FriendFeed: really a problem?

Take a look at TechMeme for more discussion on this topic. And, of course, has been much discussion about it on Twitter.