I’ve got an idea for cutting down on twitter spam that I’d like to put out there.
Set up a Twitter Spam Filter service that works a bit like this:
- You authorise the Twitter Spam Filter application using oAuth (keeps your login details safe)
- You report potential spam messages and spammers to the spam filter
- Moderators review the message. If it appears to be spam, they flag it. (This coud be automated based on number of people reporting the same user, but that means it could also be gamed)
- The Twitter Spam Filter keeps a “Block List”. People using the Spam Filter have their own block list updated with the Block List run by Twitter Spam Filter.
Issues:
- Who’s going to pay for it?
- An ad supported spam blocker defeats the purpose. In the most cases, you wouldn’t want to see anything from Twitter Spam Filter, except maybe an update once a month via email.
- Subscriptions? Twitter is free. Most users believe that everything on the internet should be free. Subscription makes the most sense, but I doubt enough people would subscribe.
- People gaming the system to get other users blocked.
Potential Alternate Solution:
Offer an alternate twitter interface that doesn’t modify the user’s account. Instead, it filters the tweets a user sees based on the contents of the block list. That client could display acceptable advertising. The client could have a built in method of reporting spam, and possiby incentives in return for helping to moderate the spam queue.
This solution actually sounds like it could already exist, so if anyone knows of anything, please mention it in the comments to this post.
Like the idea?
