Twitterspam

I just started tagging twitterspammers.

http://del.icio.us/OliverG/twitterspammer

Why?

In general I think the net is something that does not connect computers but people, persons, individuals.

It is a world of ends.

This is also the basis of netiquette.

Netiquette takes care of several points

– be polite

– respect others

– don’t send stuff other people do not want to see (noise)

– send stuff in a way that makes sense

Twitter is powerful tool to communicate with people.

Some people use it in a way that I find abusive:

They follow masses of people (usually 1000+, sometimes as many as 5.000 or I think I have seen 15.000 or even 50.000) in the hope that some of those follow them back. Then they spread their messages (or just provoke clicks to their page URL) and URLs to the networks of those who follow them.

I consider this ‘noise’ in an otherwise useful channel.

I find twitter extremely useful. I helped people in Twitter, I was helped, I got freelance jobs through twitter even. People who abuse it spoil this channel and I am not content with another ‘social channel’ being spammed.

Usenet was spammed, e-mail was spammed, Blogs and wikis are spammed and now Twitter.

I keep hearing from peple who are irritated at the persons following them. Not because they don’t know them but because their profiles are weird: They follow many and are followed by few.

Communication on the net is best, when it is as symmetrical as possible. Following 1000+ people that you know nothing about, amkes little sense. (OK, Robert Scoble follows all who follows him and seems to be a speed reader, this is great.)

Actually I tag twitterspammers because this is the only way to give them a second chance: I can check later if they provide useful information – then I can still follow them.

I am also working with someone to provide tools to filter twitterspammers from your already big reservoir of followed people.

And I am interested to hear your thoughts on the matter, of course.

Update: Minor typo fixed, and: soil -> spoil,