Mike Isaac

Recent Posts by Mike Isaac

Poll: Is Twitter List Spam Getting Out of Control?

If you’re a frequent Twitter user like me, you may have recently noticed an odd trend.

Some users have complained of being added to a series of spammy-looking Twitter Lists — a feature on the microblogging service that allows users to organize and keep track of people they follow, categorizing them by topic, demographic or industry.

Most of what I’ve seen thus far looks similar to this embedded photo: A spammy Twitter user with a name along the lines of “@mileycyrusSexTape” will add you to a list, and you’ll be notified of it in your “Connect” stream, which lists your interactions with users. There doesn’t seem to be any immediate effect on how one uses and experiences Twitter, but it’s definitely noticeable.

I’ve had it happen to me dozens of times, and multiple people in my stream are complaining of the problem, too. BuzzFeed wrote about it earlier this week, but has little indication of the issue’s scale.

Twitter hasn’t responded to multiple requests for comment, nor has it offered any public explanation thus far.

So I’m curious: Have you, our readers, been hit with the Twitter list spam issue? Let us know in the poll below; perhaps it’ll give a slightly better idea of how widespread the problem is.

Latest Video

View all videos »

Search »

Just as the atom bomb was the weapon that was supposed to render war obsolete, the Internet seems like capitalism’s ultimate feat of self-destructive genius, an economic doomsday device rendering it impossible for anyone to ever make a profit off anything again. It’s especially hopeless for those whose work is easily digitized and accessed free of charge.

— Author Tim Kreider on not getting paid for one’s work