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Have you seen any of these tweets lately? They’re most likely spam, and they’re quite the epidemic on Twitter. The company is trying to fight spammy content like this that contains deceptive marketing or malware links, but you can help, too.

Here’s how to report spam tweets in a few simple steps:
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How many times have you tweeted about a trending topic or a hot commodity like the iPhone and received a spammy response from a total stranger? If this has ever happened to you, you now have the option to get back at the spammers, while making Twitter a better place and earning points. A recipe for success if I’ve ever seen one.
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There might be no legal repercussions heading his way, but one Twitter spammer is going to have one heck of a headache today, if an angry mob of Twitter elites has anything to do with it. His “app” – which promised to show you how many hours you spent on Twitter but was really used to send nefarious tweets from unwitting accounts – targeted a big-name superstar in social media, and he unleashed the hounds.
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My friend Mark has a neat idea.

Reply spam on Twitter is on the up and because anybody can send a (public) message to anybody else on Twitter (whether you’re following each other or not) there’s not much you can do about it until it happens. As Twitter expands, this is going to become more and more of an issue. A simple security measure that asked new users to authorise their tweets could all but end this problem overnight.

Yes, having to enter CAPTCHA information all the time can be really annoying, particularly if you’re a seasoned user (I’m looking at you, Facebook) but if Twitter implemented this as a requirement for brand-new accounts then you could essentially eliminate reply spam overnight (certainly from bots).

It wouldn’t even need to work on a number of people basis, as Mark suggests. If each new Twitter user had to complete a CAPTCHA for their first ten tweets and/or direct messages, probably 99% of all spambots would be nullified.

Once you’ve satisfied this trial period, no more CAPTCHA for you.

Aside from the marginal annoyance for newbies, can you think of any good reason why this wouldn’t work?

(Another solution would be for Twitter to verify all accounts, and not just a smattering of celebrities and brands. No verification, no unauthorised replies for you.)

My last nine followers:

They all arrived at once. All come with great names like ‘Giggles Shepard’ and ‘Danger Lehman’. All are following 500+ while being followed by less than a tenth of that.

Good times.

As your follower count grows on Twitter you will exponentially be hit with more and more follows and targeted direct messages and replies from spammers, trolls and other unsavoury folk. This article will provide you with steps on how to tackle these nuisances.

Spam

1. Follow @Spam

@Spam is Twitter’s anti-spam account. Spammers can be reported to @spam via direct message using the following code:

D spam @nameofspammer

You can also send multiple submissions, like this:

D spam @nameofspammer1 @nameofspammer2 @nameofspammer3

Note that this account is only for reporting spam accounts, not for trolls or people you don’t like.

2. Block Them

One of the best ways to deal with spammer accounts on Twitter is by simply blocking them. Accounts that are blocked by many users raise a red flag which will lead to an investigation and probably removal by Twitter. If you just unfollow a spammer, this does not happen. Block them. To do this, visit their profile and click on the ‘block’ link.

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