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Can any of the new product folk at Twitter do something to prioritize anti-spam measures? The feebleness of Twitter's spam efforts, relative to the simplicity a

Can any of the new product folk at Twitter do something to prioritize anti-spam measures? The feebleness of Twitter's spam efforts, relative to the simplicity and tenacity of the spammers, borders on contempt for the user experience. Go on and tweet "iPhone" or "iPad." Often you'll get a couple spam tweets within a minute. Almost guaranteed within a couple hours.

zackattack 15y ago
The most obvious move (pun intended) would be to hire a bunch of top scientists who study emotional and social signaling. It will be independent startups and amateur dilettantes are going to discover these technologies, because their financial interests are most aligned. So I suspect the internet marketers are going to be the ones to profit. Of course spamming is short sighted... the smart ones have yet to reveal their strategies. Find the influential nodes on the network; cater to their interests; profit. Figure out who influences the influencers; cater to their interests; profit. Bubble all the way down. Trace the inner circles of influence until you can find cost-effective points of entry. If anyone else is thinking similarly please get in touch...there's got to be some linear algebra to collapse this into an effective system. Or maybe it's a non-linear system. Dunno. I got to study up on Neural Networks; I prepaid my tutor for a session.
djb_hackernews 15y ago
They have 30 people dedicated to fighting spam and other abuse[1] as of April. Pretty easy to identify a lot of spammers, there is a clear pattern if you watch any trending topics. [1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/apr/07/twitter-internet http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/apr/07/twitter-int...
sudonim 15y ago
Is spam primarily an issue in search? I get maybe 1 - 2 @reply spam tweets a week. I occasionally search for stuff and see spam in there. However, I've never felt "OMG SPAM!" about twitter's experience.

zackattack 15y ago

The most obvious move (pun intended) would be to hire a bunch of top scientists who study emotional and social signaling. It will be independent startups and amateur dilettantes are going to discover these technologies, because their financial interests are most aligned. So I suspect the internet marketers are going to be the ones to profit. Of course spamming is short sighted... the smart ones have yet to reveal their strategies. Find the influential nodes on the network; cater to their interests; profit. Figure out who influences the influencers; cater to their interests; profit. Bubble all the way down. Trace the inner circles of influence until you can find cost-effective points of entry. If anyone else is thinking similarly please get in touch...there's got to be some linear algebra to collapse this into an effective system. Or maybe it's a non-linear system. Dunno. I got to study up on Neural Networks; I prepaid my tutor for a session.

djb_hackernews 15y ago

They have 30 people dedicated to fighting spam and other abuse[1] as of April. Pretty easy to identify a lot of spammers, there is a clear pattern if you watch any trending topics. [1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/apr/07/twitter-internet http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/apr/07/twitter-int...

sudonim 15y ago

Is spam primarily an issue in search? I get maybe 1 - 2 @reply spam tweets a week. I occasionally search for stuff and see spam in there. However, I've never felt "OMG SPAM!" about twitter's experience.