6 ms·

Looking at the account, I don't see why it would be a lie in this case, or why the account shouldn't have been suspended after manual review. It posted 75 twee

by jorams 4y ago

Looking at the account, I don't see why it would be a lie in this case, or why the account shouldn't have been suspended after manual review. It posted 75 tweets in 26 minutes, self-admittedly "from multiple locations around the world.". All of those tweets link to an external website. It's spam, so the account got suspended for posting spam. The fact that it was posted by Ben Thompson doesn't change the fact that it's spam. We can complain about automated moderation processes that make obvious mistakes all day, because it keeps happening, but this case doesn't look like an example of it.

lapcat 4y ago
Would you say https://twitter.com/daringfireball https://twitter.com/daringfireball or https://twitter.com/thetalkshow https://twitter.com/thetalkshow are spam? Should they be suspended too? The account did not violate Twitter rules in any way. It wasn't sending replies. It wasn't retweeting other accounts. It wasn't liking other accounts. It wasn't interacting with other accounts in any way. Should there be no accounts on Twitter that have a list of episodes of a program? People follow these accounts because they want to be notified of new episodes. It's not spam, it's a service. I tweet links to my blog posts on my Twitter account. Should I be suspended? What's wrong with external links?
- rchaud 4y ago
  The account in question posted 76 tweets in under 30 mins. Have you posted with this level of frequency, from different IPs? You may not need to worry if you have not.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    > Have you posted with this level of frequency, from different IPs? I don't know, maybe? I tend to tweet along with Apple keynotes, for example. My IP changes whenever I switch from wifi to cellular.
    - danso 4y ago
      In the thread, Ben alluded to automated, possibly distributed activity: > For the record, this is a new account that has posted a bunch of links (all Stratechery interviews) in a short amount of time, from multiple locations around the world. It seems obvious that the tweets were automated -- during some periods, it tweeted every ~10 seconds. If it were switching IPs at that same rate, especially if the IPs were in known AWS/Azure/etc ranges, then it's obviously not going to be authentic human activity. In your personal situation, even if you had IP changes between every tweet -- I assume your account has some tenure, and is more than just a few days old? Twitter keeps track of all the IPs you've ever logged in from, and for older known accounts, there's probably more tolerance for weird activity (e.g. bouncing between VPNs) than a days-old account that has done nothing but suspicious spam.
      - lapcat 4y ago
        > there's probably more tolerance for weird activity Well, my Twitter account has been suspended at least 4 times for dumb reasons or no apparent reason at all. > nothing but suspicious spam It was not spam. Tweeting is not spam. Tweeting a lot is not even spam. Unsolicited replies, for example, can be spam. Ben's account did not interact with anyone. There was no unsolicited interaction whatsoever. Also, there was no violation of Twitter rules.
        danso 4y ago
        Twitter has an "automation rules" [0] page which does indeed affirm that users are allowed to post "automated Tweets based on sources of outside information, such as an RSS feed, weather data, etc". But you're right, "spammy" isn't the right word since on the automation rules page and elsewhere, spam is generally understood by Twitter to be unsolicited interaction. But the point is moot for now since Ben (AFAIK) hasn't posted any more details about the suspension note. IIRC, the suspension email is supposed to list the alleged violations, and I don't think Ben has tweeted a screenshot of that email. [1] [0] https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-automation https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-autom... [1] https://twitter.com/hollandcourtney/status/1125571907187724289 https://twitter.com/hollandcourtney/status/11255719071877242...
- tshaddox 4y ago
  daringfireball has 30 tweets in the last 10 days. It's also a 15 year old account with 100k followers. It seems unlikely that any remotely competent spam detection algorithm or human review process would suspect it of being spam.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    This is missing the point, which is "The account did not violate Twitter rules in any way." If Gruber's accounts are not spam, then Thompson's account is not spam either. The age of the account and other statistics are irrelevant, because the same rules ought to apply to everyone. I think it ought to be uncontroversial that an account shouldn't be suspended if it hasn't violated the rules, but somehow many people in this thread are defending the punishment of the innocent. There's actually no rule against bots on Twitter. In fact there are some accounts now explicitly labeled "Automated". The goal ought to be not "detecting bots" but rather "detecting rule violations".
    - tshaddox 4y ago
      I'm not all that concerned with what Twitter's rules supposedly are. If the only complaint here is that Twitter should be more clear about their rules and/or more consistent in enforcing them, then sure, I can agree with that (although there are obvious reasons why you shouldn't be completely clear about what your exact thresholds are for spam detection). I'm just talking about what I think looks clearly like spam, and what I think reasonable spam policies would look like. That whole Twitter thread of accusations has now been deleted, so I'm not necessarily addressing the exact text of it. I'm just saying that one of those posting patterns looks very clearly like spam and the other very clearly does not appear to be spam.
      - lapcat 4y ago
        > I'm just saying that one of those posting patterns looks very clearly like spam and the other very clearly does not appear to be spam. I disagree. Tweeting links without interacting in any way with other accounts is to me clearly not spam.
jobs_throwaway 4y ago
what's your definition of spam? Are lots of links inherently spam?
- UncleMeat 4y ago
  Is an email announcing your Nigerian lottery winnings inherently spam? No. But that doesn’t stop us from making spam filters.
  - Dylan16807 4y ago
    And if a human reviews it they can see it's real.
glasshug 4y ago
I agree, and think we should remember that many Twitter users have chronological feeds. While I'm sure it was unintended, followers of @stratecheryint would find their feed unusable for the duration of the mistaken spamming. "Permanent" is harsh. Maybe a couple hours of cooldown and a "did you mean to start a thread or post these hourly?" message would be a nice alternative.
dangerface 4y ago
75 tweets in 26 minutes isn't a lot tbh thats less than 500 bytes a minute an upset teen could easily do double that.

by jorams 4y ago

lapcat 4y ago

Would you say https://twitter.com/daringfireball https://twitter.com/daringfireball or https://twitter.com/thetalkshow https://twitter.com/thetalkshow are spam? Should they be suspended too? The account did not violate Twitter rules in any way. It wasn't sending replies. It wasn't retweeting other accounts. It wasn't liking other accounts. It wasn't interacting with other accounts in any way. Should there be no accounts on Twitter that have a list of episodes of a program? People follow these accounts because they want to be notified of new episodes. It's not spam, it's a service. I tweet links to my blog posts on my Twitter account. Should I be suspended? What's wrong with external links?

rchaud 4y ago
The account in question posted 76 tweets in under 30 mins. Have you posted with this level of frequency, from different IPs? You may not need to worry if you have not.
- lapcat 4y ago
  > Have you posted with this level of frequency, from different IPs? I don't know, maybe? I tend to tweet along with Apple keynotes, for example. My IP changes whenever I switch from wifi to cellular.
  - danso 4y ago
    In the thread, Ben alluded to automated, possibly distributed activity: > For the record, this is a new account that has posted a bunch of links (all Stratechery interviews) in a short amount of time, from multiple locations around the world. It seems obvious that the tweets were automated -- during some periods, it tweeted every ~10 seconds. If it were switching IPs at that same rate, especially if the IPs were in known AWS/Azure/etc ranges, then it's obviously not going to be authentic human activity. In your personal situation, even if you had IP changes between every tweet -- I assume your account has some tenure, and is more than just a few days old? Twitter keeps track of all the IPs you've ever logged in from, and for older known accounts, there's probably more tolerance for weird activity (e.g. bouncing between VPNs) than a days-old account that has done nothing but suspicious spam.
    - lapcat 4y ago
      > there's probably more tolerance for weird activity Well, my Twitter account has been suspended at least 4 times for dumb reasons or no apparent reason at all. > nothing but suspicious spam It was not spam. Tweeting is not spam. Tweeting a lot is not even spam. Unsolicited replies, for example, can be spam. Ben's account did not interact with anyone. There was no unsolicited interaction whatsoever. Also, there was no violation of Twitter rules.
      - danso 4y ago
        Twitter has an "automation rules" [0] page which does indeed affirm that users are allowed to post "automated Tweets based on sources of outside information, such as an RSS feed, weather data, etc". But you're right, "spammy" isn't the right word since on the automation rules page and elsewhere, spam is generally understood by Twitter to be unsolicited interaction. But the point is moot for now since Ben (AFAIK) hasn't posted any more details about the suspension note. IIRC, the suspension email is supposed to list the alleged violations, and I don't think Ben has tweeted a screenshot of that email. [1] [0] https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-automation https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-autom... [1] https://twitter.com/hollandcourtney/status/1125571907187724289 https://twitter.com/hollandcourtney/status/11255719071877242...
tshaddox 4y ago
daringfireball has 30 tweets in the last 10 days. It's also a 15 year old account with 100k followers. It seems unlikely that any remotely competent spam detection algorithm or human review process would suspect it of being spam.
- lapcat 4y ago
  This is missing the point, which is "The account did not violate Twitter rules in any way." If Gruber's accounts are not spam, then Thompson's account is not spam either. The age of the account and other statistics are irrelevant, because the same rules ought to apply to everyone. I think it ought to be uncontroversial that an account shouldn't be suspended if it hasn't violated the rules, but somehow many people in this thread are defending the punishment of the innocent. There's actually no rule against bots on Twitter. In fact there are some accounts now explicitly labeled "Automated". The goal ought to be not "detecting bots" but rather "detecting rule violations".
  - tshaddox 4y ago
    I'm not all that concerned with what Twitter's rules supposedly are. If the only complaint here is that Twitter should be more clear about their rules and/or more consistent in enforcing them, then sure, I can agree with that (although there are obvious reasons why you shouldn't be completely clear about what your exact thresholds are for spam detection). I'm just talking about what I think looks clearly like spam, and what I think reasonable spam policies would look like. That whole Twitter thread of accusations has now been deleted, so I'm not necessarily addressing the exact text of it. I'm just saying that one of those posting patterns looks very clearly like spam and the other very clearly does not appear to be spam.
    - lapcat 4y ago
      > I'm just saying that one of those posting patterns looks very clearly like spam and the other very clearly does not appear to be spam. I disagree. Tweeting links without interacting in any way with other accounts is to me clearly not spam.

jobs_throwaway 4y ago

what's your definition of spam? Are lots of links inherently spam?

UncleMeat 4y ago
Is an email announcing your Nigerian lottery winnings inherently spam? No. But that doesn’t stop us from making spam filters.
- Dylan16807 4y ago
  And if a human reviews it they can see it's real.

glasshug 4y ago

I agree, and think we should remember that many Twitter users have chronological feeds. While I'm sure it was unintended, followers of @stratecheryint would find their feed unusable for the duration of the mistaken spamming. "Permanent" is harsh. Maybe a couple hours of cooldown and a "did you mean to start a thread or post these hourly?" message would be a nice alternative.

dangerface 4y ago

75 tweets in 26 minutes isn't a lot tbh thats less than 500 bytes a minute an upset teen could easily do double that.