Twitter Is Tired of Twitter Spam Too, Files Lawsuits

Amid a growing spam problem, Twitter is taking to the courts.

The microblogging service said today that it has filed lawsuits in San Francisco Federal Court against several people it said are posting spam or providing tools to create unwanted messages in violation of its rules.

The spam issue has continued to grow along with Twitter, which now has 140 million active users posting some 340 million tweets per day.

“As our reach expands, we become a more attractive target for spammers,” Twitter said in a blog post. “While spam is a small fraction of the incredible content you can find on Twitter, we know just how distracting it can be.”

The company continues to try engineering tactics to thwart spammers, but anyone who has tweeted about an iPad or iPhone can tell those efforts alone are not stopping the problem.

“With this suit, we’re going straight to the source,” Twitter said. “By shutting down tool providers, we will prevent other spammers from having these services at their disposal. Further, we hope the suit acts as a deterrent to other spammers, demonstrating the strength of our commitment to keep them off Twitter.”