July 29, 2009    

Twitter kills off spam accounts

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by Alan Harten

Many people found out on Sunday that they had less Twitter friends than before due to the disappearance of several followers and friends overnight.

This is due to the fact that Twitter took advantage of the past weekend to clean its user database and delete spam accounts that were created by automated bots.

The company did not state the algorithm it used to detect which accounts are rogue and which are genuine, but as of yet there have not been any complaints by genuine users who mistakenly found their accounts closed.

Twitter’s own update Sunday morning stated that members with large followings were more likely to notice the loss in friends then smaller Twitter users, given that those with smaller lists probably are more exclusive with their friend lists.

Shockingly enough, the largest Twitter member, Ashton Kutcher, and other large celebrity lists on Twitter, such as Britney Spears, did not see a significant drop in followers.

Twitter stated that it is cleaning up artefacts which may cause some data inconsistencies to have appeared in the past, but that soon the count in the sidebar will be accurate once again without spammers.

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Comments

One Response to “Twitter kills off spam accounts”
  1. philena says:
    July 29, 2009 at 11:25 pm

    “The company did not state the algorithm it used to detect which accounts are rogue and which are genuine”

    You can say that again because I would like to know how I was considered a spammer. Did I not reply enough? Post too many blips? Pings? Too many links? More following than followers? WHAT?

    http://help.twitter.com/forums/31935/entries/49181

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