Most of us are pretty annoyed with auto direct messages over Twitter. Well, Brent Spore took his thoughts in the public eye. He recently launched StopAutoDM, a movement to end the automatic direct messages. The idea and site are simple; you tweet out with the hash tag #stopautodm and it will show up on the site.
When we spoke to Spore, he mention that he just got “fed up” with all the auto DM’s he was getting, and there needed a way to stop it. Just another side project that means well. Just recently, Twitter changed the format of their direct messages with a new design.
For example, when Spymaster, the Twitter-based game, first came out, they used automatic direct messages which caused user revolt. Since then, the direct messages have been removed. There is still no clue on what Twitter will do to stop the automatic direct messages, but all we can do is hope that everyone ends the madness.
Update: Spore left a comment below explaining more about StopAutoDM.
Just an FYI: The site was launched exactly one month ago (stopautodm.com) it was never intended to start a movement or claim some crunch press or promote anything. I just got frustrated with the amount on impersonal DM’s I would get from people after following them. I think the purpose and goal of the site is pretty clear in the description on the side. It’s nothing more than a public service announcement to help people understand that twitter is not a place to blast spam but make real connections with people you are interested in. The third party software(s) that make these type of actions possible have a lot of great features, but the point is that this one service is polluting the nature of twitter. So I decided to make a simple site that informed and educated. That’s it.
Everything automatic should be banned, twitter spam sucks.
I use auto retweets for 2 of my business accounts.
I agree that spam sucks, however I believe my auto retweets have not caused any pains.
AutoDM is a simple way to introduce yourself to new followers by perhaps sending them to a link to an article you had posted.
This guy is getting his panties up in a bunch over nothing.
Who died and made him the Twitter cop?
It’s very clear that it is NOT wanted by most. So why would you continue to do it when you know most consider it spam. Maybe you are a spammer?
I use an iron boot foor my ball kicking business. i however do not believe that my iron boot has caused any pain when it came on contact with my customer’s balls.
Twitter still sucks.
While I agree with the spirit of your comment “everything automatic should stop…” the execution of it would mean an end to the open API of twitter as we know and love it. The only thing to do is what your gut tells you to do, which is stop following the offender. These days followers are almost worth gold to anyone who uses twitter in a commercial means. I follow plenty of companies that have never followed this approach and wouldn’t think to do it. It’s the ones with bad advice or a bad pr firm that end up following this practice.
I unfollowed so many people because of Spymaster, it ruled.
Don’t you have to be following someone to receive a direct message from them? If so, why not just unfollow them to send the message that if you spam w/ DM’s you will lose followers..
Unfortunately, I had to unfollow everyone because the AUTO-DM’s were all spammy!
Stop Twitter.
Go away, Anon. Just go away.
Nut… hehe
I unfollow about one person a week because they DM me with some sort of automessage. Ugh.
+1
Only thing you can do, and if people complain, make them aware. This is just like, ‘oh let me invite my gmail addressbook to [ insert crap website here ]. Not less annoying.
I’d bet though that this drives a lot of traffic, just like all the other spam. And since it’s easy^H^H^H^H^free (well, virtually) nothing else can stop it.
If Twitter added a captcha and/or email confirmation, that would probably cut down on spam. But so far, you can create a pretty much unlimited number of accounts with a simple script.
Apparently there is a captcha service you can sign up with. Worried now that if I put the link here it will be considered spam? Anyway, here’s the service… truetwit.com (I’m totally not affiliated with this service – honest!)
I’ve taken to moving all my following needs over to FriendFeed because there is no DM (at least not an abusive oriented variety) so far.
I totally agree. There is a lot of stuff on Twitter that have been turning it into a spamming machine.
Auto-follow back is often the cause of this, they go hand-in-hand.
People you know or who you are actually interested in are unlikely to intentionally spam you.
I hope you succeed! I did a video about his months ago out of pure frustration. This is a Twitter Fail at the highest level: http://www.yout...h?v=7yOpYM1miNU
This is a fascinating story.
Maybe I’m wrong… but hasn’t this website been up for quite some time?
It’s actually quite recent — I just started noticing it in the last couple of days on Twitter.
I’ll ask Brent Spore about it but I’m positive I saw this site months ago.
Doesn’t matter when it launched — point is, there is a site like this that wants to end auto-DM’s and I’m all for it.
I don’t get all this activism. You follow someone so you’re interested in what they’re saying… if you think their auto replies are annoying, unfollow them.
Why must people force their perception of what is wrong or right on Twitter over everyone?
Its another thing if someone is sending you email spam that you have never subscribed to.
Nobody said Twitter is supposed to be a commercial free zone.
I completely agree with you… I guess I’m more pointing out an error in the post when you said recently launched. That is all =)
Unless you are following hundred or thousands of people, this isn’t a problem. Real problem is following too many people. I mean, what ar you getting out of following hundreds of people anyways???
EXACTLY. Be more selective about who you follow and you will not have this issue. Case closed.
I recently had this issue with blip.fm auto dms from my friends. I @replied blip.fm on twitter and asked to be opted out which they have done. +1 for them.
love the Idea ! cant stand all those Spam DM’s we get. cant even use our direct messages because we are scared to go into the inbox and see all the crap messages another Twitter Startup Fails Despite Major Blessings http://www.trig...le.php?id=86541
@trigeia
And if you want to be published on TC, simply create a Twitter related product. Nice…!
Auto-DMs are the worst. If I get one after following someone they are immediately unfollowed.
The most obvious option is to just disable DM’s via the API, but there are legitimate uses for them. For example, I run a web analytics service at getclicky.com and we have the typical “alerts” that most analytics systems provide (e.g. a search for X, a referrer from Y) – but we have an option to be notified by DM instead of just email as most services do. We choose DM because it’s private – this isn’t data we want sent over standards @replies. Point being, there are legitimate uses…
I forgot my point! Maybe Twitter should do something like… you can’t send a DM via the API for at least 6 hours after someone has followed you. Well, I guess the bots would then just delay 6 hours.. hmm… no easy solution I can think of.
Ok, this is just lame. If you don’t want DM’s from somebody, STOP FOLLOWING THEM. I thought that was one of the main selling points of Twitter: the fact that you can easily filter out people you find annoying.
The automatic direct messages are generally sent by 3rd party software and twitter has no control on it.
This is only a problem for people who use Twitter in ways it wasn’t designed to be used. Stop complaining, get over yourself, and only follow people you’re actually interested in hearing from.
AMEN! That’s exactly what I have been telling people. Stop whining about auto DMs. It’s like going out drinking complaining about the headache the next day.
If you weren’t interested in what the person or business had to say why did you follow in the first place?
Stupid should hurt.
I think most people are using #endautodm: http://search.t...rch?q=endautodm
It is a movement @richardatdell and others began using long before #stopautodms. It would be nice if they adapted to the existing movement so it remains unified, but either way I support it.
Hey guys… Thanks for the unexpected crunch.
Just an FYI: The site was launched exactly one month ago (stopautodm.com) it was never intended to start a movement or claim some crunch press or promote anything. I just got frustrated with the amount on impersonal DM’s I would get from people after following them. I think the purpose and goal of the site is pretty clear in the description on the side. It’s nothing more than a public service announcement to help people understand that twitter is not a place to blast spam but make real connections with people you are interested in. The third party software(s) that make these type of actions possible have a lot of great features, but the point is that this one service is polluting the nature of twitter. So I decided to make a simple site that informed and educated. That’s it.
Thanks for the article Daniel, I appreciate it.
I wasn’t aware of any other “movement” until today. I guess there’s #endautodm and @stopautodm (probably others) – Well, if there’s a way I can help, I’ll do whatever I can
Thanks guys for all the comments.
Brent
Thanks for the clarification, Brent. I’ve added your comment into the post.
The solution isn’t to educate spammers, the solution is to stop following them.
It’s a self-regulating system, if you don’t like spam don’t subject yourself to it.
Actually, spammers won’t listen to this. The point of his site is to help educate well-meaning people who don’t know they’re DoingItWrong(.com). I think the target audience heard about Twitter at some seminar and were told these great tools to use for it. They turned on AutoDM without realizing they were annoying people.
Seeing the title I actually thought this was about my website, http://elbertf.com/stopautodm/ (the @stopautodm account is mine). Perhaps we can work together on this? You can e-mail me at stopautodm@elbertf.com.
Just go to @OptMeOut, follow the instructions…that has eliminated most of the Auto-DMs I use to get. It’s a very simple process.
kids
Well said Mr. Spore… it is ALL about building relationships – not to leverage as a spam machine.
I live in a world protecting people and businesses from fraud and other threats from the Dark Side –
Its quite simple: ANY autoDM, get 10k followers today, please check out my site, see my article etc etc and any from API = Block
Fortunately, many people are beginning to recognized these type of followers (and Bots) first and can block them right up front – like the 30 or so mlms, affilliates, porn & buy my stuff now followers I’ve blocked the last 24 hrs.
Humans should be using twitter than bots and machines. I hate auto DMs there should be healthy conversation between twitter users auto DMs spoiling concept of twitter.
Auto-DMs. I’ve never quite understood why anyone (especially a company) would want to send them out. They go against everything that makes Twitter great–especially transparency. I suspect they are mostly new users who just see a convenience in it, but it’s definitely not being “real” and we all see that.
A few things I’d like to clarify:
1. Spymaster uses DM’s to invite your friends to play the game with you. All invites sent are explicitly initiated by the originating user. I don’t think this is the sort of “auto-DM” that StopAutoDM.com is targeting. I think they’re more referring to the “you follow me and I’ll automatically send a canned auto-response via DM” stuff. I don’t like those either. :/
2. No features related to DMs in Spymaster have been removed, as noted in your article. What we *have* done is provided users with more tools to control them (like an opt-out process), since Twitter doesn’t really have a good way to do this at the network level (like what Facebook does, for example).
Thanks for mentioning the website! Auto DMs are getting a pain in the neck..
There are many ways that Twitter Spam happens, one of the most common ones is in the form of Twitter direct messages (DMs) with offers about “making money with Google” or “make $500 a day online”.
Take 3 Steps to Get Rid of this kind of Twitter Spam
http://bit.ly/1LWjGa