Twitter ups the ante on spam with new reporting feature

Because of its public nature, Twitter has always been particularly vulnerable to spam.

In the beginning, there were accounts that instantaneously followed thousands of accounts upon inception. Then there were Twitter users who did nothing but share porn links. Then there were users who latched onto Twitter’s trending topics by sending tweets using popular tags to end up in search results.

Twitter has tried to fight back every time by suspending accounts with strange activity. But it’s an ongoing battle — and spammers inevitably evolve.

So Twitter is adding some reporting features today. You can mark certain accounts as spam and their handles will be forwarded to a “Trust and Safety” team to check it out. (Sounds like a fun job! Maybe this is where their headcount will grow after raising $100 million in its latest fundraising round.)

The accounts won’t be immediately suspended so if you say something unpopular, don’t fear that an angry Twitter mob will shut you down. But once you mark an account as spam, it will immediately be blocked from following or replying to you.

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