On Twitter I'm getting TONS of DM spam from... - Robert Scoble

yeah that sucks. the provide the opt-out though. http://playspymaster.com/optout - Aldiantoro Nugroho

You are not the only one - who is this person Sent on the Now Network� from my Sprint® BlackBerry - Lionel Spearman from email

This is different from Facebook how? - Zach Flauaus

A rather shady opt-out procedure, they should set up something like TweetLater's @optmeout - Antoniu

It's not the game, it's the people playing it. Hard for Twitter to filter when the tweets are actually coming from the various players and they have to intentionally send you the DM's, they are not automatic. Hate the players, not the game. - Shultzman

The DM's are Twitter users sending invites. It's hard to opt-in to something before you have been invited. I do agree that they should add some logic that if you have received a recent DM invite, that it should not send you any more when other users also DM the same person with an invite. - Shultzman

QUOTE: Shultzman "It's not the game, it's the people playing it. Hard for Twitter to filter when the tweets are actually coming from the various players and they have to intentionally send you the DM's, they are not automatic. Hate the players, not the game." It's not far off from FB games, but still, don't hat the playa's - if it brings a measure of joy. - Laurel LaFlamme

Zach: I haven't gotten an email from Facebook for years. And that's in email where i can filter them out. I can't filter these suckers out in Twitter's DM. It's VERY VERY VERY lame. But DM was already lame. Sigh. - Robert Scoble

I'm getting stacks of those spymaster dm's too. - Jim Connolly

I agree completely I have gotten almost 25 DMs of people joining my spymaster group. So, I just turned them off. It was cool for a day, but just got boring and Annoying. - TheHenry

I thought you didn't use DMs Robert? I thought you told everybody to email you instead. - Zach Flauaus

Zach: I tried that for a long time but gave up on it. Everyone uses DMs and the DM feature sucks so much I really can't stand it. - Robert Scoble

wait a little more :) - Ouriel Ohayon

Ouriel: I opted out, that should solve this one. But if this becomes like Facebook app spam just watch out! Twitter users aren't used to being spammed like that. - Robert Scoble

Yeah, Twitter sux! But what do I care... I'm still locked out of Twitter... my account was hacked a few weeks ago (lists me as Jose Perez!!!)... and despite MANY, MANY emails to Twitter... they are asleep at the wheel... no reply, no access... I'm just waiting in fear that my Twitter account wasn't hacked so it could be used by a spammer :-( - Fred Davis

Fred: Twitter are notoriously poor at tech support. I had same experience with my account. - Jim Connolly

Yeah, I knew their Quality of Service was abysmal... shoulda guessed tech support was, too... - Fred Davis

They've had millions of dollars in funding - how hard would it be to hire some motivated tech support people? - Jim Connolly

Well, the funding wasn't given to them to build a quality product, it was provided to get a fat ROI by selling it for zillions, and letting the buyer worry about fixing it... caveat emptor! - Fred Davis

Unfollow me if you don't like it. I'm a gamer. Won't hurt my feelings. Oh and I also ask users if they want an invite, I don't blast them out. That's just me. But if your "friends" do, why are you following them again? - Bwana ☠

Don't play games on Twitter or ever? - Louis Gray

Bwana: I follow tons of people. Many of whom play games and many of whom don't realize the consequences of sending out invites. - Robert Scoble

Louis: I very rarely play games, actually. I usually give them to my son to play and I watch. I do play some casual games once in a while, but get bored very quickly. - Robert Scoble

...I think it's actually an interesting social game. on one hand, you get points the more you broadcast your exploits in the game -- theoretically, you could shut down every announcement and message -- while competing against other game players. otoh, you risk spamming and annoying your followers who could care less about it. it calls into question what you value more about social media: your own entertainment, or your online relationships. - .LAG liked that

Twitter's response to this has been one of the most promising things I've seen in awhile: http://groups.google.com/group... - Jesse Stay

I like how I got 0 invites in my DM Box when Spymaster came out. It means I'm doing a decent job managing my followers. - Bwana ☠

Sometimes it's good to be the little guy :) - Bwana ☠

Jesse: It says a lot about the poor way users are treated by Twitter, that you were so impressed with their response to your suggestion. In fairness, most of us don't even get a reply - so you did well just getting them to acknowledge you exist. I appreciate your relationship with them is deeper than the 'regular' users, but they REALLY suck at customer care. - Jim Connolly

If Twitter adds filters, there goes the simplicity - Bwana ☠

Not necessarily a bad thing, just sayin - Bwana ☠

Tech News Blog, they're actually quite responsive on the developer mailing list. Some times faster than others, but if your question merits an answer from them they usually, eventually, answer. Also, @twitterapi answers questions all the time (Doug Williams). I have to give them credit for that. That said, you know my frustrations. - Jesse Stay

Spam? What spam? Surely, whatever else you think about Twitter, Twitter has done something different: it provides asymmetric relationships. How can there be "spam", whether direct (private) or public, when each of us decides whether or not to follow? Surely unfollowing removes unwanted messages? In any case, when following tens of thousands, the volume of messages is such that you are more likely using some kind of "search" anyway. - John W Lewis

John, the problem here is that there are actually legitimate users that I want to follow and just happen to be playing this game as well. Twitter needs to allow me a way to block just the app and not the user. Facebook and FriendFeed both provide this. Twitter doesn't. - Jesse Stay

Spymaster posts via web - Bwana ☠

Bwana they're not using the API to post? That will get them kicked off Twitter pretty quick. - Jesse Stay

Thanks Jesse. For some time, the case has been emerging for services which allow separate control of segments of other people's streams. I am not familiar with this app; but others are reporting that the user (rather than the app) is initiating the message; so are they not damaging their own reputation by emitting this stuff. In the absence of (future) segmentation, could they not choose to create extra accounts for these purposes? - John W Lewis

I'm just looking at the Twitter posts, they say "via web" - Bwana ☠

See http://twitter.com/Bwana... Maybe I'm misunderstanding the app filtering you're describing - Bwana ☠

While we're at it, can we filter out #followfriday, #unfollowdiddy, #stupid3lettermemes, etc..... slippery slope - Bwana ☠

Bwana, every app on Twitter is saying "via web" right now. Check out Louis Gray's post on it (and my latest). - Jesse Stay from email

Oh, that's.... broken - Bwana ☠

Bwana that's different - users are generating those. In this case SpyMaster is generating the message. Users should have a right to block it. And yes, regardless, more filters to block stuff like that would also be appropriate. Let the users decide what they want to see. I don't see the slippery slope here. - Jesse Stay from email

Users have total control over Spymaster's tweets, I don't see a difference - Bwana ☠

The difference is spymaster is the one generating the tweets for those users. There's an obvious filter here Twitter could provide. - Jesse Stay

But the decision is still the user's whether to post or not... I'm not talking about a technical issue here, I'm talking about a management issue - Bwana ☠

The technical issue I agree with, Twitter *could* filter apps, they *could* filter users, they *could* filter by terms, they *could* filter by date - Bwana ☠

Bwana I don't care - I still want to follow many of the users posting those, but I don't want to see the spymaster tweets. I'd like a filter to turn those off, and it's a pretty easy one on Twitter's end. - Jesse Stay

The thing is, will they? - Bwana ☠

Bwana see the link I posted - they're going to talk about it tomorrow - it looks promising - Jesse Stay

Promising? I'll believe it when it's working for 6 months - Bwana ☠

Filtering brings back memories of Track. - Bwana ☠

Even if it's at the app level - Bwana ☠

Social responsibility is in the eye of the receiver, not the presenter. I could care less what people post as long as I have a way to receive only the tweets I want to receive. That's what I do with Facebook, and it's what I do with FriendFeed. IMO it's not the fault of the users to be sending this stuff - it's the fault of the technology for not allowing us to turn it off. - Jesse Stay

It's Twitter - and you want to change it - Bwana ☠

Bwana I don't see how that changes Twitter. - Jesse Stay

Easy - Before you couldn't block apps, now you can - Bwana ☠

Not implying it's a bad change - Bwana ☠

But a change nonetheless - Bwana ☠

It brings Facebook/FriendFeed functionality to Twitter - Bwana ☠

robert, promised you heads up. check your DM or contact me for more details ouriel.ohayon@gmail.com - Ouriel Ohayon

I think Twiiter somehow needs to go through users and get rid of spammers, or give users a spam filter similar to what you have with mail - Asgeir

Twitter needs better filters - Steve Lynch from twhirl

yeh, twitter also needs a better search, a better native web app, and a better backend - Kirill Bolgarov

Robert this might help with a lot of the DM spam - http://bit.ly/23VREp - Sean Malarkey

Sean, or you can just sign up for SocialToo, set up some filters, and not even have to give those sites traffic to opt out. We'll block them for you if you set up the filters. - Jesse Stay