Photo: Iman Credit: Ehsan Namavar

Last week I wrote a post discussing a study which provocatively concluded that 40% of new Twitter accounts are spam.  The point of my post was to say that “spam” had to be used in the broadest possible sense for that to be true, but people went nuts on Twitter agreeing with the 40% figure.

It made me think about how broadly the term “spam” is used.  It used to describe a method of cheaply delivering email of nominal value, but it has become synonymous with anything we don’t want to read.  I had a girl tweet me “Spam, much?”  when ifttt accidentally double tweeted one of my posts.  For her, reading the same tweet twice was tantamount to spam.  I’ve also been accused of spamming people who follow me by sending them a shout-out.  For them, “following” is purposed to generate a number and not to interact.

By Twitter’s terms of service, almost anything could be categorized as spam (Facebook simply avoids defining it at all):

• If you have followed a large amount of users in a short amount of time;
• If you have followed and unfollowed people in a short time period, particularly by automated means (aggressive follower churn);
• If you repeatedly follow and unfollow people, whether to build followers or to garner more attention for your profile;
• If you have a small number of followers compared to the amount of people you are following;
• If your updates consist mainly of links, and not personal updates;
• If you post misleading links;
• If a large number of people are blocking you;
• The number of spam complaints that have been filed against you;
• If you post duplicate content over multiple accounts or multiple duplicate updates on one account;
• If you post multiple unrelated updates to a topic using #;
• If you post multiple unrelated updates to a trending or popular topic;
• If you send large numbers of duplicate @replies or mentions;
• If you send large numbers of unsolicited @replies or mentions in an attempt to spam a service or link;
• If you add a large number of unrelated users to lists in an attempt to spam a service or link;
• If you repeatedly post other users’ Tweets as your own;
• If you have attempted to “sell” followers, particularly through tactics considered aggressive following or follower churn;
• Creating or purchasing accounts in order to gain followers;
• Using or promoting third-party sites that claim to get you more followers (such as follower trains, sites promising “more followers fast,” or any other site that offers to automatically add followers to your account);
• If you create false or misleading Points of Interest;
• If you create Points of Interest to namesquat or spam.

And as I hear people frustrated with the amount of spam they are receiving (whatever that means to them personally), I’m reminded of the man who called AAA because the battery ran out in his fob and he couldn’t unlock his car.  The technician showed up and unlocked it with his key.

We all possess the ultimate spam filter – ourselves.  We can ignore people, we can disconnect from people, we can block or report people.  Because spam is now such a subjective and personal term – it would be impossible for any social network to tailor our experience exactly the way we prefer it.  Not only would it be impossible to know what we want at any given moment, but it would alienate and penalize other users.

When I was researching about Guy Kawasaki I read a blog post from a few years ago arguing that Guy Kawasaki was “ruining Twitter.”  The author’s objection was at the frequency of his posts and his lack of interaction.  I read it mystified that this person wouldn’t just solve his own problem and unfollow Kawasaki.  He concluded that Twitter had to crack down on Guy for these transgressions.  Yet Guy gets retweets and favorites of every tweet he sends out, so what is spam to some is valuable to others.

The ultimate spam filter is your capability to weed out content you don’t want to consume and find the stuff you do want to consume.  It’s super easy to do.  But if you insist on waiting for (your preferred social network’s name here) to filter all of the unwanted noise out of your social stream, do so with the understanding that you will be waiting for a long time.
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Jim Dougherty

Writer and chief of miscellany at leaderswest.com

I aspire to give people something to think about rather than tell them what to do. My favorite Google Alert is “social media research,” I am increasingly compelled by Gen Z, and I appreciate good writers agnostic of where they write. At one time I was Kred’s 12th most influential social media blogger and Klout’s most influential person on the topic of David Hasselhoff. Transplant from Seattle living in Cincinnati. Haven’t entirely adopted the local sports teams yet.

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Latest posts by Jim Dougherty (see all)

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