The Blog of Lisa Morosky

Twitter spam is incredibly prevalent and obnoxious. It’s a bummer that, as of now, Twitter isn’t doing a whole lot to take care of it. So, that means you have to be more diligent in recognizing what Twitter spam looks like yourself and reporting it (if appropriate to do so).

Here’s a quick list of the types of profiles I consider to be spam.

Profiles that include a celebrity’s image, but are obviously not that celebrity’s Twitter account.
If I was that celebrity, I’d be pissed that someone is using my likeness without my permission. I report these accounts.

Profiles that are just self-promotion/all links.
Usually this looks like affiliate links sent out every five minutes or so. I don’t report these accounts (unless they’re DMing me with spam). I figure it’s their prerogative to waste their time on useless “marketing”.

Multiple accounts with the same information.
I report these accounts. Usually the only difference is the username. The accounts tend to have the same bio and bio link, as well as the same tweets posted.

Anything pornographic.
Self explanatory. Usually this is in the form of the “boob” girls (aka. avatars of women with their cleavage all out there).

Crazy persistent marketing “gurus”.
Is anyone else annoyed with the amount of people on Twitter who call themselves marketing experts, then continue to blast off unsolicited tweets about their MLM programs to anyone and everyone? I hate that. I usually just verbally scold them, unless they are harassing me with DMs (then I report them).

So how do you report a profile as spam? Follow Twitter’s spam account, @spam, and send them a DM about any accounts you think are spam.