How To Report Twitter Spam

If you are like most regular Twitter users, you probably get your fair share of Followers who do nothing more than try to get you to click on a link you probably wouldn’t click on if your mother (or spouse or children) were sitting next to you or if you were at work with your boss sitting over your shoulder. Here are a couple of things you can do to help out the Twitter community when you get those Followers:

1. Block them from your personal account. You can do this by clicking through to their profile, clicking on the “Block” link on the right hand side, then confirming.
2. Follow Twitter’s Spam Watch account.
3. When you get one of these Follow requests, send a direct message to Twitter’s Spam Watch account with the user’s name, i.e. “D spam SpammerUserName” (just replace “SpammerUserName” with the actual user name of the abuser) (No, that is not an actual user name as I write this; I just checked, so hopefully nobody will take it…).
4. Take a look at the Spam Watch account profile page every once in a while. There’s usually some good information on it.

And here’s what you should not do:

1. Do not accept the Follow request (obviously).
2. Do NOT click on the link in any of their Tweets (there will usually be just one Tweet).
3. Do not reTweet (RT) their Tweet to the Spam Watch account. Instead, just send a Direct Message to Spam. You might accidentally get your account deleted if you do a reTweet because your account name will be in the message.
4. Don’t give your user name and password to anybody.

Now that last tip can be a bit controversial, especially in the Internet Marketing field, because lots of people are now using a marketing model whereby they’ll give you something of value if you reTweet a marketing message for them. Without giving my opinion of the model (other than to ask you if you’d enjoy receiving such a Tweet from your friends. In some cases, people Follow you with the expectation that they’ll get marketing messages, so as long as you’re clear about it when they Follow you, I think it’s OK to send those messages), many of these people won’t store your password and will only use it to reTweet the message. Many marketers would chase a dollar to the moon; that does not make them dishonest cheaters!

So should you do it? Should you give them your account name and password? Only you can decide if the potential gain is worth the risk of giving up your account information. People say one thing (like “I won’t store your password”) and do something different all the time. I recommend, as a general rule of thumb, that you not give up your password in these instances. If you really want what they are giving away, offer to buy a copy instead.

What does Twitter have to say about it? If you look at Twitter’s Terms of Service, Item 3 under their Basic Terms merely says this:

You are responsible for keeping your password secure.

Are you keeping your password secure when you fill out one of these forms to reTweet a marketing message in exchange for a freebie? Only you can answer that question.

And by all means, NEVER give up your account info to a site that promises to get you lots of followers quickly. Twitter’s Spam Watch profile page is full of Tweets about this. What usually happens is that you don’t get the followers; instead, THEY log in to your established account and send their garbage Tweets to your followers. Sounds like a great way to get labeled as a spammer and create headaches for yourself.

Please Tweet responsibly and always follow The Golden Rule when using Twitter — or any other Web 2.0 site. My mother (and boss) thank you in advance!

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