Comments on: An open letter to Twitter: stop the porn spam

By: Porn Spam on Twitter? I wouldn’t have believed it either. « Cupcakes and Plato

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:13:26 +0000

[...] It really hasn’t become a big issue for me personally (though it has for others). In fact, I was so amused by the event that I literally “laughed out loud”. However, the idea of this being a bigger and potentially more widespread problem on Twitter is kind of unnerving. Just ask Michelle V. Rafter. [...]

By: Michelle V. Rafter

Michelle V. Rafter — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 22:38:33 +0000

I wasn’t getting as much Twitter porn spam for a while there, then over the weekend while I was at a conference and adding a lot of new followers and vice versa I started getting a bunch of it again. Must be proportional to the number of followers you’re adding.

MvR

By: Jim Crabb

Jim Crabb — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 18:46:27 +0000

It is October 09 and on it goes. Seems like every now and then I comment on a picture or a video and a few minutes suddenly I have a half dozen new ‘friends’…and have to go about blocking them. So seems the first antivirus co. that can come up with a twitter filter “will” make some money (come on Norton). Anyway glad others are speaking out.
Jim

By: Michelle Rafter

Michelle Rafter — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 18:26:31 +0000

Agree on all points but one – Twitter isn’t making money yet, unless you count the $55 million in venture funds they’ve raised. Maybe if they were they’d have some $$ to sink into better anti-spam technology.

MVR

By: chaser4

chaser4 — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 17:21:33 +0000

I think you are probably right about the spam-bot randomly picking her out to follow but the age restriction being 13 doesn’t make me feel any better. I wouldn’t want my 13 year old seeing pornography either. If it is going to allow obscene material on the sight it needs to be an 18 and only website and require verification of age. My opinion is Twitter started the website, makes money off the site and it is their responsibility to keep it safe and clean.

By: Michelle Rafter

Michelle Rafter — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:43:18 +0000

Thanks for sharing this unfortunate story. I’m so sorry this happened, but it does point up one of the reasons why Twitter has age restrictions. I’m going to guess that your daughter’s account was followed by a spam-bot, so nobody actually looked at the photo in her profile, it was just a computer program following Twitter users at random. As Twitter continues to grow, execs there are going to have to figure out a better way to deal with porn.

Michelle

By: chaser4

chaser4 — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:38:16 +0000

Michelle, I had the same experience that you did. My daughter is 9 years old and is a gymnast. When we saw Shawn Johnson on Dancing with the Stars talking about her twitter account I allowed my daughter to go on twitter and sign up so she could follow Shawn Johnson, who is her idol. Even though Twitter says you must be 13 to use the sight I let her sign up with the understanding that I would supervise. A couple of weeks ago she got an email she wanted me to see. It was from Twitter telling her that LuluBarrett was now following her and showed the pornographic icon that was her picture. What makes me so made is that we put my daughter picture on her id so it was obvious that this was a CHILD that was using the sight and this nasty person still picked her out to follow her and she was sent this pornographic email from her. I immediately cancelled her twitter account because of this filthy fool that followed her. Its a shame that a few ridiculous idiots can ruin something good.

By: Steve Boese

Steve Boese — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 03:12:05 +0000

I agree Michelle that lately Twitter has gone way downhill. Several months ago I went on a big ‘following’ kick, and proactively sought out folks to follow on subjects of interest to me. I easily was following 200 or more folks than were following me. And in the last 2 months or so I have been followed by so many porn, MLM, and scammers (that I never follow back), that I am now about even in following/follower ratio. Basically in 2 months I have picked up about 200 worthless followers. It is a bit sad.

By: Michelle Rafter

Michelle Rafter — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:45:56 +0000

Lately, I’ve gotten pretty comfortable blocking people. Now if some new follower wants to talk to me about getting rich quick, boosting my Twitter follower numbers fast! or even has a suspicious looking Twitter account name, I do not give them the benefit of the doubt and just block them.

Since posting this earlier today, I’ve discovered this Twitter customer support forum – if you follow the link you’ll see there are lots of other people on it talking about how fed up they are with Twitter spam, especially porn spam.

Michelle

By: tewonawonga

tewonawonga — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:33:59 +0000

In one way, it’s proof that Twitter has made its mark on society—the presence of porn proves its permanence.

But, I have to agree, I’ve grown awfully tired of the spam twits, especially the bizarre porn spam twits. Twitter often pulls the plug on these accounts but their avatars still remain on your little iconic proof sheet of followers, just sitting there all smug and mostly naked, making you look like a pervert.

As more kiddos get active on Twitter (there’s no age restriction, right?) the company will need to find ways to create parental controls—lest your eight year old click on that link himself.