Fight Spam With A Direct Message To Twitter

There doesn’t appear to have been an official announcement, but Twitter has begun soliciting spam reports to a “spam” user account via direct messages.

Are you a victim of Twitter spam? Just begin following @spam and send it a direct message with the username of your spammer. As the following email autoresponse to spam reporters instructs, you can send these direct messages from your mobile phone or opt for a public tweet as well:

Howdy!

Thanks for reporting spam- we’re working really hard on getting rid of it! Did you know: you can now easily report spam directly from your Twitter account? Visit:

and follow the account. You can then send:

* a direct message to @spam: @moneybagsnow is a spammer!
* a direct message from your phone using d+ username + message: d spam @carmoney, @cashnow is spam!
* a reply to @spam like so: @spam this is a spam account: @bigmoney5

and we’ll take care of it. You can send as many spam user names as will fit in one direct message or @reply as long as they are designated like this: @crystal.

Note: it’s better to send a direct message over an @reply. Direct messaging keeps @replies reporting spam out of your followers’ time lines. Sending direct messages also keeps the spam account’s user name out of all search results. Because the message is private, you prevent them from benefitting from publicity. Thanks again for helping us track down spammers!

Twitter Support Team

So far 213 members have begun following @spam, which oddly has decided to follow 179 members itself. It will have to gain a much larger following to make a dent in Twitter’s spam problem. The Twitter Blacklist, a website that tracked all banned Twitter accounts before its owner lost faith in the service, lists 561 blacklisted users as of July 12th.

Read more about Twitter’s spam efforts here.

[Thanks for the tip, Rafa]