Spam

Is spam really a problem? In minutes I was able to get rid of about a hundred spam messages from my inbox this morning. The email set up I have doesn’t send things to a “spam box”, but it does mark the spam messages very clearly. I’m sure there is a way to do this, but honestly I have kind of got used to it all being in one place. This let’s me know if any legit messages are being marked as spam. I have had a few very important contacts marked as spam before. Because press agents send a ton of bulk messages, they get marked as spam often. So I have everything go into the main inbox and deal with it there. As I said, it takes me just minutes to go through and clean out the spam. It doesn’t bother me much at all.

Once I take a minute or two to clean out the spam messages, it takes me several hours to take care of the legit email. I think that it is that long daily trek through legit email that makes people hate email. Then they need a scape goat to blame and spam is one easy target. It’s junk mail and is unwanted, so it is easy to blame. But if people were being honest they would admit that spam is nothing in the grand scheme of things.

So what is the solution? Well Google Wave tried to solve this, but it was a total flop. People treated it as a social network, added everyone they are connected with through Twitter and Facebook, and then found it to be a productivity killer instead of a help. Now if I had the money to hire a programmer I could automate most of my email. Each press agent has their own strange little quirks. So the program would have to treat each contact differently. So if the inbox got a message from Dude@fakepressagent.com it would look for the text “FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE” and post everything from that to “###” on my website as news. But when hottie@notrealpressagent.net sent a message it would just have to post everything until “For more info”.

Of course there would have to be some major formatting to clean up everyone’s horrid html emails (I despise html email), but that would be in the backend. Then there would have to be a way for me to preview the news pages and reject or make live the posts before the public is able to see them, but I already have that. The problem is that I (along with 99.9% of the people out there) don’t have the resources to automate email in this way. So until then I think we should just say we hate email. Spam is not the issue. It’s the legit email that creates work and work sucks. Sorry Monty Python. I still love ya!

Twitter Fails Again

So it seems that the Twitter gods do not even understand their own site. This shouldn’t shock me as these are the same people who had thought it was ok for a staff member to pick “happiness” as their password. These people obviously know jack squat about security and stopping spammers.

So what have they done now? It seems that they have asked SocialToo to discontinue their “auto-unfollow” feature. This lets a person automatically un-follow anyone that unfollows them. A great trick of spammers is to set a bot to follow several thousand accounts, wait for those people to follow them back, and then un-follow those people. This makes the spammer look like they have this massive following they don’t deserve. Then those parasites can trick people into all kinds of nefarious things. This can lead to hacked accounts, stolen identities, and any number of other things. All because the spammer was made to look more legit than they should. Setting an auto-unfollow through a great service like SocialToo helps keep that problem in check.

So if SocialToo is the one that will discontinue the service why not revolt against them? Well, SocialToo is pretty much held hostage by the fact that their entire service lives within the Twitter system. If Twitter does not approve them, they die. Although Jesse is too nice of a guy to come out and say it, Twitter is pretty much forcing him at gun point to kill this great service. It is not at all his fault, his choice, or his decision really. He provides a service to Twitter users, so Twitter has all the power.

So who will join me in trying to save Auto-unfollow? On Tuesday Jan 19th at 12:00 pacific can everyone send out a message that says “Tell Twitter to save auto-unfollow because it helps stop spam! #saveautounfollow” If we can make this a trending topic more people will know about this oversight and maybe Twitter will actually think about this stupid mistake.

However, if they are actually a dirty spammer this let’s everyone else know not to trust the account. Now there are several other things you can do to help stop spam on Twitter if the person gets out of control.

1. Forward the message to @spam on Twitter

2. Go to their profile and click the link on the right side of the screen that says “Block” or “report for spam”. This is in the “action” section of the side panel.

3. Send a public message to the person that this is being done. Why public? Because the person may not see it, but their friends might. Imagine one musician getting a text message from a friend letting them know their account is being used for sending out spam. Artist then calls person in charge of account and spew fire. You did them a favor. Also, if they are a true dirty spammer they need to be flogged publicly.

Now of course there will always be a debate on what is spam. I send messages promoting interviews, reviews, and photos I post online. Some follow me because of those messages and some think of it as spam.

A few of the messages in the screen shot above are from people playing Twitter games. This is a pet peeve of mine and I hate it. It gets in the way of why I sign up for Twitter. I only want conversation and have major issues with these games and what funds them. The entire funding structure that supports these types of games on Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace is to trick people out of their money. That’s dirty. So to me it is spam, but people that enjoy them have no clue it is looked on by most as very slimy. There are options on most of these games to NOT send out messages to people you follow. If you play games like this please check these options or you risk really pissing people off.

The last type of spammer listed in the screenshot above is barely a spammer at all. It’s just annoying. This is the person who sends a DM to thank you for following them. Again, this floods the persons inbox with messages that get in the way of conversation. I understand that this is the most innocent of all the douchey things people do on Twitter. So this is more of a warning that it is NOT something you should do. Many find it annoying and it will get them to unfollow you or even report you as a spammer.

No hard feelings if you are on the screenshot above. Just a public request to stop doing it. I will soon be unfollowing these people and deleting their messages from my DM inbox so I can get back to just conversation. But hopefully I don’t have to do this. My hope is that they came by this with honest intentions and just stop doing this. Please re-tweet this if you hate Twitter spam like I do. Thanks.

UPDATE: This just in. Just seconds before this blog post was to go live, @radiochick1620 sent me a message letting me know she was hacked, her password has been changed, and I again recommend you follow her. Since this is the whole point of this post I claim victory! This is how it is done people. This is how you kill Twitter spam. Let people know!

The list below is of my followers with the most likely spam accounts at the top. It was scored based on common characteristics of junk, by a service called TwitBlock. Now I think the name shows a lack of research due to the fact that “Twit” has nothing to do with Twitter. Other than that it is a great service.

I am asking my followers to look over the list (use the ctrl +f function to make it take two seconds) and make sure they are not on the list. If you are on the list and are not some lame spam bot (spam is not done by humans), please let me know so I can vote “not spam” and of course not block you. If you are on the list and want to know what might be getting you on this list please ask me and I will help you figure out how to look less like a spammer. Thanks. Together we can stop spam!

@ZNdqLa
@vyghnggmvhxw
@Rafn0145
@freefreebies5
@purebreeze
@TracyLewis79
@amazongoldenbox
@08Taste244
@clencher11k
@1644webdesign
@health777
@mikepowell01
@jhollyhu89
@bella9968
@wampyr
@mistakepunk
@yobird
@she0foreclosure
@lessthanlaura
@VicmesClothing
@svarogg
@YolandaBolducY
@ilovepartyingg
@gbeautig
@Tweetreferrals
@drivingpoints
@italian4you
@monatwt
@dinusha
@aaataa
@pmband
@suit_sunlighta
@Sexylady1999
@teamnastymerch
@Grasternal
@xiaopan1
@osen
@oeg572
@xhanne_mizz
@Y2Yqlg
@Pseudorant
@shortyawards
@jon_getmuscle
@DeathTollRecs
@herIKE
@1000000
@DannyEdwards
@LizzyG1984
@ThirteenPills
@CodeRad
@FDR666
@hannh78
@Uragany
@mrachievement
@klaAz0r
@Nukenband
@tlawmusic
@BestDJSets
@sxswtweets3
@48hourprinting
@kiara_white
@pdxfreelancers
@OutletThruNoise
@AptHunt
@cutiebootygirl
@millionfollower
@06ceasefire
@mediamavens
@minervaband
@CorsetPrincess
@1stChurchOfTwee
@DestinyWW
@ubmerch
@Radioblogger
@soremfamchiro
@garygover06