Twitter Spam: People Don't Get It
John Gruber quotes a pretty lame statement on his latest post:
Twitter spam. Really? Are you even paying
attention? I'll say it again, you choose who you follow. If you're
following a newsbot, you're going to get news spam. If you follow a
good friend who can't stop RTing, you're going to to get retweet spam,
but complaining about it is like standing the middle of a freeway
asking, "Why do these cars keep hitting me?"
All aboard! Clue Train! You can get Twitter spam without following anyone. It's called Replies. If you turn on a very useful feature in Twitter that allows you to see replies from people who you don't follow, spammers can and will utilize that. All they have to do is monitor certain keywords via Twitter search and then SPAM you with a reply to try or use their product. So, yes I am paying attention. I don't get to choose who replies to me, I can only block them. The solution is to cripple Twitter which is just dumb. Don't even go there.
