With social networking continuing to grow, Twitter has remained a ripe target for spammers, phishers and malware deployment -- so much so that the site's founders have capped the number of members anyone can follow in a given day, have closely monitored user "behavior," and have aggressively deleted untold thousands of accounts in a single day in an effort to root it all out.
Now, Twitter is trying to make it easier for its members to help them with the fight. On Tuesday, the service added quick-click links to user pages for members to either block others or report them for spam.
"No automated action will be taken as a result of reporting a user as spam (in other words, it can't be used to incite an angry mob against an account you don't like.) And once you report a profile it will automatically be blocked from following or replying to you. You nailed it!" wrote Twitter blogger Jenna Dawn.
"Our spam fighting tools will continue to evolve as new behaviors emerge, and as always, we'll keep trust and safety at the top of our list," she wrote.
Twitter isn't the only social networking site forced to try and protect users from spam bombardment. Spam on Facebook has been a common complaint by many users -- to such an extent that the site earlier this year began suspending large application developers from its platform for behavior that violated or appeared to violate Facebook terms.
The difference between Twitter's approach to spam and Facebook's approach is this: Twitter is now putting not just the burden of reporting spam on its membership, but also providing easy-to-use tools to get it done. Facebook continues to put the antispam burden largely on developers and its own users but provides rank-and-file members few or easy tools to fight back against spammy, invasive or misleading application developers.
