This morning, I read an article detailing the author’s 
hypothesis that Twitter has been increasing its aggressiveness in fighting spam. The author said he spoke with Twitter’s Trust & Safety leader to see if he was correct, but didn’t get a solid ‘yes’ answer. However, he assumed from the response that Twitter was cracking down on spam.
To help confirm his hunch, he did some independent research in forums across the web and found that Twitter was thwarting efforts in creating spam accounts like never before. In fact, 30-40% of the created spam accounts were suspended within 24 hours.
So, what does this mean for you if Twitter is upping its aggressiveness at discouraging spam? Most of all this is great news and will not affect the average user. But, there are some things you will notice and other actions you should be wary of performing.
Less followers
As I described earlier, the first sign that pointed to spam elimination was a decrease in followers. The decrease is the suspended spam accounts. Some may see this as a negative outcome, but in my opinion it is for the better. I’ve always kept my Tweets unprotected and this just helps lessen the likelihood that a creepy, random person is stalking me. It’s also beneficial that Twitter is purging accounts so most will be real, genuine profiles: not just feeds and bots.
Less spammy posts
Obviously, with less spam profiles you will see less people trying to spread the same links, people telling you to “listen to my new music” or “check out my new site,” and direct messages from people with questionable intentions. Additionally, hashtags like #TeamFollowBack, #FollowMe, #500aDay, and #InstantFollowBack will become less frequent. It sounds strange, but people use these hashtags to gain followers on an account and then sell the account.
Be careful how you use Twitter
While the apparent update is supposed to penalize spammers, the article reports that some genuine accounts have been removed due to behavior that infringes on Spam and Abuse activities. In order to not get your account deleted, you should refrain from behavior associated with spamming. For example, the mainly involves not sending a large amount of @replies and @mentions, adding tons of followers in short periods of time, and Tweeting too many and misleading links.
Ultimately, I think this spam crackdown is long overdue as content on Twitter has become exceedingly difficult to manage. This campaign will limit Twitter quality and sincere actions. The aggressiveness will definitely benefit those who are using Twitter for what it was designed for: communication, discovery, and access to information.
