A new way to report spammers on Twitter

by Graham Cluley on October 16, 2009 | Comments Off

Filed Under: Social networks, Spam

If you're on the increasing number of people exploring the strange world of Twitter then you'll be pleased to hear that there is a new way to report spammers on the micro-blogging system to the Twitterthorities.

Up until this week, Twitter users have had to direct message @spam to report that a user is posting links to spam or phishing websites. It's not a big deal, but it was always something of a pain and interruption to go through what was - essentially - a manual process.

Now Twitter users can report spammers more easily, directly from the Twitter web interface:

Report Twitter spam

Spam is definitely a problem on Twitter - hackers create fake accounts and follow users en masse, or hijack legitimate accounts to spread their unwanted messages. Anything which Twitter does to encourage more of their community to report the bad apples on the system has to be a good thing.

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About the author

Graham Cluley is senior technology consultant at Sophos. The readers of Computer Weekly voted him security blogger of the year in 2009 and 2010, and he pipped Stephen Fry to the title of "Twitter user of the year" too. Which was nice. He was also named "Best Security Blogger" by the readers of SC Magazine in 2011. You can subscribe to Graham's updates on Facebook, follow him on Twitter and circle him on Google Plus for regular updates.