The earthquake that killed Twitter? Spam makes the utility useless

Re:The earthquake that killed Twitter? Spam makes the utilit... by chc on Monday June 13, 2011 @04:13AM (#2648452)

I cannot think of a single non-spam case where somebody would @-tweet the same link to a hundred people. That won't capture all spam, but it's a pretty easy low-pass filter.

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Re:The earthquake that killed Twitter? Spam makes the utilit... by yuvadam on Monday June 13, 2011 @04:27AM (#2648469)

True. @-tweeting the same message is indeed low hanging fruit. But spam gets sophisticated as the arms race continues.

My assertion is that after a certain point (which we are not far from), Twitter as a platform will have a problem making a distinction between "spam" and "legitimate content".

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Re:The earthquake that killed Twitter? Spam makes the utilit... by hopeless on Monday June 13, 2011 @06:45AM (#2648630)

I think there's definitely potential for an arms-race here (just like there was with email spam) but I don't think it's a reason for twitter to not enter the battle at all.

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Re:The earthquake that killed Twitter? Spam makes the utilit... by joshfinnie on Monday June 13, 2011 @10:32AM (#2649125)

Also, the @-tweeting is easy to ignore. Yes, you have to check who is replying to you a few more times than you would have, but it's not the end of Twitter.

Where you can see the real problem is when there are trending hashtags that spammers get a hold of... spammers grab hold onto a hashtag and keep it artifically trending long past its relevance.

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