This afternoon, both my personal Twitter account and Stratepedia’s Twitter account became followed by another Twitter user. The usual warning signs were there:
- Our new follower’s username was “Britney” followed by a random number. Uh, yeah.
- Britney follows thousands of Twitter users, but you can count her followers on your fingers (and maybe your toes). Strike two.
- Britney’s posts are, uh, pretty direct, and always link to the same Tiny URL address. Sorry, Britney; you’re out.
In the past, all you could do was ignore “Britney” and her ilk, but no more. It’s pretty easy:
- Sign into your Twitter account.
- Go to @spam (that’s the “spam” account on Twitter) and follow it.
Now, when you receive a message from an obvious spammer such as our friend Britney above, just send a message to @spam, like:
@spam: @blah-blah-blah-suspicious-user-name-324234 is a spammer
The good folks who run Twitter will do the rest.
Reference: Fight Spam with a Direct Message to Twitter, TechCrunch, 10/6/08–this provides a few additional options for Twitter power users.
