Spam expands to fill all corners, Twitter being no exception. We now have a confirmed example, via my Twitter account, of spam lists being created to promote a single user, the propagator of those lists.
Here is the spam list, not very subtle:
Here is the list of lists made by the user, notice a trend? [more pics after the jump]
And finally, the user herself!
Twitter needs to implement a “report list as spam” feature right away. In fact, combine the two, and have a “report list and spam and block user” button. Ah, Twitter, I love you, but you and spam have been trysting for just too long.
Anyone else seeing this?
Jeezz .. my two most recent posts at The Inqisitr (http://clicky.me/d6) and Shooting at Bubbles (http://clicky.me/d7) almost seem prophetic eh :)
This is exactly why non-celebrity users shouldn’t take the number of Lists they are on as an indication of popularity.
There is always a way to manipulate a system and creating bogus accounts & putting yourself on their Lists is just another pointless technique to draw attention to yourself that, hopefully, won’t be duplicated by non-spam users.
Thanks for the report.
I don’t think that spam *necessarily* expands to “fill all corners”, though… it just expands where it can, and more quickly where it’s more easy. It’s like ants, mice, or cockroaches… they’ll go where the rewards are high, the costs and risks are low.
The folks at Twitter, bless their hearts, haven’t shown much skill at architecting organic processes… they don’t seem to ask “And what happens next? How will people respond to this feature, how will they understand it, poweruse it, abuse it?” There’s no real word in English for planning evolutionary design, where intelligent actors react to the rules themselves and try to game the system.
(No shame on Twitter staff here… politicians get paid a lot more and they persistently fail in seeing how people will actually react to noble gestures. It’s an unusual mental condition, trying to visualize answers to “And what happens next…?”)
tx, jd/adobe
I must be dense because I don’t see how this constitutes spam? Spam is “unsolicited commercial email” or an unrequested email sellling a product or service. What is being sold here? Where are the money requests? I’m not trying to shoot you down or flame you, but I don’t think you’ve made a convincing argument. I hope you’ll take the time to elaborate further.
Actually twitter has done a pretty decent job (IMO) apparently as indicated by an email that I rec’d the other day from the creator of a ‘twitter oriented’ NING site of which I am a member. He went on a rant about twitter suspending accounts “just for posting an affiliate link” and how he just can’t be held hostage…he depends on twitter for marketing the 53 accts that he manages(!) blah blah blah (so he’s creating his own microblogging site! good luck w/that!). In any case, now knowing his intentions (read:spammer) I immediately pulled my membership, AND couldn’t help but think “Go twitter! They must be doing something right!” (read:driving spammers away).
I do agree that having a ‘report list & block feature’ will be necessary perhaps. But I don’t really see what the point is for a spammer to create a list w/themselves as you showed here. Do they think someone will follow it? Really? :|
i wish people would stop doing this type of thing!
Twitter users should be able to remove themselves from lists others created. RT @nPost et al
es un traba el de la foto !
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Yeah, sure. You are looking at spam in the email context: get an email, get pitched, make a sale. Now spam has several steps. First, get my attention. Then get me to follow you. Only then can you pitch me something.
This is the start of the spam funnel, if you will.
Nah, spam isn’t limited to email. In many people’s minds, spam is now “any marketing message you don’t want to hear and is rudely disguised as something legit.” Meaning, junk mail in the mailbox from some list you didn’t sign up for. You get a phone call solicitation: spam. You’re talking to a person and they launch into a sigh-inducing pitch for Mona Vie: spam.
There’s just too much uncalled for advertising in this world and advertisers need to know their place.
Haha, yes! Great posts, by the way.
Well put Webomatica.
This lack of asking `What happens next..` seems to be a common malady of Web 2.0 and social media. I have written about this before but it boils down to a simple fact. All these new and wonderful warm and fuzzy web services seem to neglect an integral part of the chain of human interaction – not everyone out there is a nice person.
Especially – or so it seems – in social media the proponents of the new way of doing things (freenomics etc) have lofty ideals which on the face of is nice to have but when you forget to account for all kinds of human nature you are going to get bit on the ass.
Just as it is human nature to investigate things, to strive for better things, to break things it is also human nature to try and manipulate things to our personal gain. If you don`t account for all these aspect from the very first day you plan *anything* that requires human interaction you are asking for trouble.