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Re:Twitter Should Shut Me Down by scrabble on Thursday April 25, 2013 @11:50AM (#5607888)
I disagree. These are people who are following accounts because the accounts favorite a tweet of theirs.

If you follow someone without looking into their profile and deciding if you are interested in their content then you get what you deserve.

Re:Twitter Should Shut Me Down by wpietri on Thursday April 25, 2013 @12:16PM (#5608037)
Ah, the "if the victim is that dumb, they deserve it" school of thought.

Note that you can substitute all sorts of adjectives for "dumb".

E.g., "those nerds are so unpopular they deserve to get beaten up". Or, "those people are poor enough that they deserve to live next to a toxic waste dump".

Basically, it's a way of taking whatever characteristic you pride yourself on and then making yourself feel even better about it by enjoying when shitty things happen to other people.

Re:Twitter Should Shut Me Down by mindcrime on Thursday April 25, 2013 @12:50PM (#5608290)
Ah, the "if the victim is that dumb, they deserve it" school of thought.

No, the "take responsibility for the outcome of your own actions" school of thought. Or do you think one should be able to wander through life, doing and saying anything one pleases, completely oblivious to your environment, and not expect bad things to happen sometimes?

Re:Twitter Should Shut Me Down by wpietri on Thursday April 25, 2013 @02:36PM (#5609032)
If the only thing you could imagine someone meaning is something obviously idiotic, you probably aren't imagining hard enough.
Re:Twitter Should Shut Me Down by mindcrime on Thursday April 25, 2013 @03:39PM (#5609388)
I could imagine a lot of things. I'm just trying to point out that you can't just absolve individuals from being responsible for the outcomes of their decisions. And that's not the same thing as saying "The victim was dumb, they got what they had coming to them".
Re:Twitter Should Shut Me Down by rxantos on Friday April 26, 2013 @09:49PM (#5616471)
Bad judgement on one individual doesn't justify bad actions of another individual.

A woman might choose to wear clothes that make her look sexy. But that doesn't justify a guy raping her.

I agree that people act dumb. But that doesn't justify predatory behaviour.

Re:Twitter Should Shut Me Down by mindcrime on Saturday April 27, 2013 @01:27AM (#5616916)
A woman might choose to wear clothes that make her look sexy. But that doesn't justify a guy raping her.

Nobody said it did, and that example is nothing like what we're talking about here.

Re:Twitter Should Shut Me Down by scrabble on Thursday April 25, 2013 @01:25PM (#5608559)
People do need to learn that their actions can have negative outcomes as well as positive.

This is also not something that is just happening to these people. They are taking an active part by deciding to follow someone.

I certainly don't belong to the school of thought that says you should never experience a negative outcome.

Re:Twitter Should Shut Me Down by jeremyarussell on Thursday April 25, 2013 @12:58PM (#5608342)
It takes a special kind of leap to go from "Socially engineered into doing something" to "deserves physical violence because of unpopularity" or "financially unable to get out of an unhealthy situation so isn't deserving of a better situation".

The key difference being that in the prior example the negative impact is you follow someone that may not be of interest to you, in which case you can always un-follow. While a nerd or the poor will find they can't literally click a button to undo the "damage" that was done.

I get what you are trying to say, I disagree that you can apply that to this specific example. It would be better aimed at a rich person who literally thinks everyone on food stamps is a lazy bum.

Re:Twitter Should Shut Me Down by unreal37 on Thursday April 25, 2013 @11:53AM (#5607909)
Just as if you click a link in an email without understanding who it's really from, you get what you deserve.

So, spam works. It still doesn't make it morally right to trick people into following you.

Re:Twitter Should Shut Me Down by AznHisoka on Thursday April 25, 2013 @11:54AM (#5607914)
So by your logic, you have no problem with email spammers because the people who fall for their spam get what they deserve?
Re:Twitter Should Shut Me Down by scrabble on Thursday April 25, 2013 @01:18PM (#5608506)
There's a big difference between being notified that someone favorited a tweet and an email spammer that is attempting to replicate an official email or is lying about a situation.

Favoriting a tweet has no connection with "Hey, I tweet about stuff that you are interested in so you should follow me." It's not even a request for someone to follow you.

Re:Twitter Should Shut Me Down by AznHisoka on Thursday April 25, 2013 @03:41PM (#5609403)
Is there a difference between a bot favoriting your tweet, and spam that claims to saw your facebook profile, and wanting to sell you something? Both are lies, and intended to get your attention.
Re:Twitter Should Shut Me Down by khafra on Thursday April 25, 2013 @12:17PM (#5608045)
Not quite. Following people is always opt-in.
Re:Twitter Should Shut Me Down by richardwhiuk on Thursday April 25, 2013 @12:29PM (#5608136)
So is clicking on an email link.
Re:Twitter Should Shut Me Down by nkorth on Thursday April 25, 2013 @12:41PM (#5608222)
which are decidedly different things. By definition, the bigger problem with spam is receiving it, not clicking on it.
Re:Twitter Should Shut Me Down by moskie on Thursday April 25, 2013 @01:33PM (#5608607)
"because the accounts favorite a tweet of theirs."

I think this is incorrect. The intended purpose of "Favorites" is to communicate that a living, breathing person (as opposed to an "account," as you describe) saw my tweet, enjoyed it, and liked it enough to Favorite it.

The OP's product fraudulently claims to Twitter users that the customers of this product are engaging in that action.

Re:Twitter Should Shut Me Down by vshade on Thursday April 25, 2013 @02:18PM (#5608919)
I use the favorites to mark something to read later, it means that I'm interested in some link that was posted but I wasn't in conditions to read at that time. The OP service is spammy but no one told me that the favorites should only be used in the way you describe.
Re:Twitter Should Shut Me Down by moskie on Thursday April 25, 2013 @02:25PM (#5608962)
The scenario you described sounds like exactly what I said, with different words. You, a living, breathing person, saw the tweet, enjoyed it to the point where you said you want to check it out later, enough such that you decided to favorite it.

edit: The main point being that the intended purpose is to communicate that an actual person actively read the tweet, and for whatever their reasons, actively decided to favorite the tweet.

Re:Twitter Should Shut Me Down by nobodysfool on Thursday April 25, 2013 @12:42PM (#5608231)
But the act of "looking into their profile" is valuable to the spammer. You get an ad when you do that. So, it doesn't matter if you follow them or not. If you do follow them, of course, it means they have direct access to send you ads. If you don't because you viewed their profile, you at least saw one of their ads.
Re:Twitter Should Shut Me Down by some1else on Thursday April 25, 2013 @08:35PM (#5610844)
"You get what you deserve"

Please don't use that rationale. Lots of people never get what they deserve, and pretty much nobody deserves the shit some people have to go through.

Either way, there are some people who don't just follow back, so they don't deserve the spam even by your definition. Most people here can automate follows, favorites and similar interactions, but don't. Some of us would like to keep those meaningful.