A public service or draconian narc network? You be the judge. It didn’t take long for a few things to happen with Twitter: for so-called spammers to seek out a “marketing” advantage; for Twitterers to fight back against said spammers; and for a moral authority to form.
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(Photo Credit: Twitter)
News of the Twitter Blacklist come via Twitterer Michael Gray, also known as Graywolf, whose invective against said moral authority is relayed in several succinct tweets, one of which denounced “delusions of power” among those who have declared themselves “the boss” of everybody.
Meanwhile TwitterBlacklist.com has identified not only 378 spammers, but also some “obnoxious people” so far, thanks to 10,000 daily hits, bandwidth cost donations appreciated for the public service.
Earle Martin and Randy J. Ray, the brains behind the blacklist, say they have identified two kinds of commercial Twitter spam: “the kind that follow lots of people, and the ‘stealth’ type that set up interlocking networks of fake accounts. You can see these on the list with a ‘follow factor’ of zero.”
Martin and Ray, with help from Evan Prodromou have used the “follow factor” to determine a ratio by which to dig out various pigeonholes:
This class of people has been neatly described in terms of the ratio between how many they “follow” compared to how many follow them:
1:5 = twittercaster, 1:2 = notable, 1:1 socially healthy, 2:1 newbie or social climber, 5:1 twitter spammer
My own Twitter account holds about a 1:2 ratio of followees to followers, making me, according to their calculations, a “newbie or social climber.” The truth is I’m more of a self-secure-voyeuristic-talk-when-I-feel-a-need-to type Twitterer. That means I use it to watch this corner of the world more than to talk to it, that I’m choosey about whom I follow, and couldn’t care less if others follow me back. But I’ve said all that before.
Martin and Ray readily admit not everybody will fit into these categories, though, and judge visitor submissions on an individual basis. This manual review has led to some obvious ones being blacklisted, like Anne O’Rexia, which holds only a declaration of not eating and a fortnight-old update about visiting a certain website, and BigPenis, which shrank away after being blacklisted, it would seem.
But some other ones on the list seem questionable and downright surprising. Sure, Amazon_Kindle seems blatantly promotional, and the tweets center around books available on Kindle. Is that spam or just smart marketing? A Twitterer called airbrushtanning seems on the surface a spitter (spam + Twitter?) for a spray-tan joint, but whoever operates it tells his or her eight followers about all kinds of different global news stories, too.
But WebmasterRadio, with 1,110 followers is there, too along with its 4:1 ratio and an announcement there’ll be no live Daily Search Cast today. I’ve been a special guest on WebmasterRadio, which obviously makes it legit :-D. Aside from that, a good number of the tweets are decidedly un-spammy. Guess WebmasterRadio falls into the “obnoxious people” category. Suppose I might be next.
It might be fair to say the human aspect could be as unfair as the ratio-approach. But let’s, as we began, let Graywolf say it better and more succinctly:
twitterblacklist.com like some up tight condo board & home owners assoc telling everyone how tall to keep there grass or 2 paint there house
If he’d known he’d be quoted, he might have paid more attention to his homophones, but no harm no foul. Sometimes, I do it to.
