Running The Twit Cleaner is great for cutting back on public timeline spam, but what about DMs?
Here are a few tricks that work well:
1. (This is the biggie) TweetLater/SocialOomph
You wouldn't think it, but the vast majority (90+%) of auto-DMs come from users of this software.
Go here, & follow the instructions. Or, if you can't be bothered following that link, do this:
- Follow @OptMeOut
- When @OptMeOut follows you back, it'll DM you to let you know
- Send a DM to @OptMeOut (anything at all, eg "Hey! Stop spamming me, thanks!")
- Unfollow @OptMeOut (totally up to you, just keeps it private)
Voila, no more auto-DMs from Social Oomph.
2. Unfollowers.Me
Go here. Click the big blue "Add me to DND List" (DND = Do Not DM). Authenticate through Twitter. Finally, go to your Twitter connection settings & revoke access.
3. PollPidgeon.com
Go here. Click the big button "Don't send me any direct messages", allow access when Twitter asks, then go to your Twitter connection settings & revoke access.
4. blip.fm
For some reason blip hasn't set up any automated process to do this (can't think why not). However, they promise that if you email support@blip.fm with the usernames you want removed, they'll do it. If that doesn't work, just hassle @blipfm on Twitter.
5. Mafiawars
Similar to blip.fm, you'll need to send an email to tweetygame@gmail.com with your Twitter usernames.
6. Fauxlowers.com
Go here. It'll take you straight to Twitter to verify your identity, then back to their site to finish the process. Go back to your Twitter connection settings & revoke access.
This site has been pretty broken recently - the above page errored, & now when you go there, it errors again when saving your request. The good news is, if it's broken like that, it's very likely not sending out spam auto DMs. If/when they do get it sorted, the above process will work.
Just follow these instructions for any you DMs you get - or all of them in advance if you want to be proactive. I'll add to this list as I find more ways to cut back on some of the crap on Twitter.
Anything to help Twitter be more awesome.
Beautiful - thank you!
You're very welcome Erika. This is a list which is going to keep growing, A LOT - since this "hey! let's DM spam people" idea seems to be spreading rapidly.
I have a few more spam sources I'm in the process of checking out, I'll be adding them here very soon.
Thank you for your great suggestions on cutting out DM Spam. And Twit Cleaner is cool — looking forward to next version!
Great tips and advice thank you!
You're very welcome! Anything to make twitter a better experience for everyone *smile*
This post completely rocks. I swear, that DM spam garbage drives me bonkers.
Oh yeah, me too, me too!
These tips aren't perfect - mainly because some sites (blip.fm, fun140, I'm looking at you) decide every so often to put you back on their lists. So, you unsubscribe again, it works for a while, then they put you back on - which, if that's not pure spammer behaviour I don't know what is.
However, these will cut your dm spam right back to almost nothing. Which is pretty great.
Great tips
Great list!
Awesome compilation. DM spam is such a hassle - this will help immensely. Thanks so much!
Si, My reports have been clean so far but I am getting ready to teach a bunch of older young folks like myself about Social Media and Twit Cleaner will be on the list of must have apps. for my students. You rock guy! Keep up the good work.
John Jensen
Jensen Maritime Group
Si, My reports have been clean so far but I am getting ready to teach a bunch of older young folks like myself about Social Media and Twit Cleaner will be on the list of must have apps. for my students. You rock guy! Keep up the good work.
John Jensen
Jensen Maritime Group
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!
[ -] you try this out, and find it effective, please share this post, or the original post here at TwitCleaner. You may also want to try some of the other recommendations contained in the TwitCleaner post. [ -]
Thnak You
Sure thing Dean :)
Thanks.Fantastic tips.
Marvellous work! Making Twiter a better place
Thanks Duncan.. and yep, that's exactly the plan!
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how do I get rid of DM's from Seth Godin please!
If you unfollow him, he won't be able to DM you. That's the only way though.
I didn't find a Porn topic on TwitClean? I had to block lots of Porn tweeters to stop the flood. I am not being prude here but how about people with kids that uses their computer?
If they're "porn tweeters" due to their image, I'd only be able to identify them with relatively sophisticated image analysis (a little beyond the scope of Twit Cleaner).
If it's their tweets (NOT DMs, since I don't look at those), I may be able to do something about it.
Additionally, right now Twit Cleaner is aimed at those you're following (ie, you unfollow to remove the problem, not block) - other side of the equation.
That said: if you can give me three or four examples, I may be able to find a common thread & create a new category.
Ok, I have some examples, from memory, of that kind of tweeters. You can identify them, not only through their avatars, but also through their "catch-phrases", on their bios and tweets.
Examples:
"Any guys wanna tell me what to do on cam? add me at -"
"Let's have some fun!!! -"
"Yet another Christmas alone - anyone single? add me at.."
Not sure this helps. :
Scanning bios is going to be a little unreliable - too easy to change a word here or there & side step any filters. There's also not enough information to draw reliable conclusions.
Eg "My name is cam!" (with bad capitalisation) or "I love Ontario's rivers and I love using my cam. Add me at pinterest" - both harmless, but tricky to distinguish from spam.
It's generally easier to look at overall behaviour - you have more data to work with, so it's less likely to give false positives. The last thing you want to do is flag an enthusiastic nature photographer as a porn bot.
Another issue is - for example, I follow someone whose icon is a pic of them in a bikini. They're a personal trainer - so it's totally appropriate, but could easily be mistaken for a porn bot if you ignored their content.
I'l continue to think about it. There may be a combination of bio+behaviour that might be useful - although whether that's more indicative than merely behaviour I'll need more data to assess.
Lots of factors to consider, as you can see.
Oh. I see. It's a really tricky one indeed. It's nice to have an idea of the amount of work involved in such filtering and how you work with your algorithm. :) How do you gather that kind of data? I want to help you on that, but not sure how could I do it. The only thing that comes to mind is making an online survey, but even that doesn't strike me as much effective. :x
Do you mean to follow these applikations request and sign up and join and follow them just to unfollow so they cant harm you. Another thing I am new to twitter and I'm not finished and ready to use seesmic cause I should verify my twitter account and there is problems but under twitter connection settings I did revoke acces to seesmic. Is that a mistake. I have difficulties about understanding the word revoke so it crashes all communication. Do you mean to press the link "here" so I will be taken to twitter to verify my account. Do you want me to do so in all cases above under the title Cutting back on DM spam. I'm working hard to understand so many different sensory impressions and also problems with the language. Twit Cleaner has done an awesom job helping me and I do appriciate the help <3
Wow. So many questions. ok:
1. Where it says "allow acces" and "revoke access" then yes, do that. The other cases you won't need to.
2. If you revoke access to something (eg Seesmic) you can always allow access again later. It's just a switch, on, off, on, off. No problem at all.
3. "revoke access" is the phrase used by Twitter on your applications page (under Twitter | Settings | Applications - the menu is at the top right)
4. If (above) I've got a link "here", then click that. Where it takes you will depend on what's needed to deal with that specific form of DM spam. In other words, each url is different. If you're not comfortable, then either don't click, or hover over the link to see the url before you click.
5. Do as many as you like - but the list is sorted in order of badness. So, even just first one will help a lot. The others help too, but less as you go down the list.
I think that's everything. If you're finding it confusing, you can always just delete the DMs as they come in. It's tedious, but that works too.
Thanks! Any way to stop the ‘someone is posting nasty pictures of your mom' (or something like that) DMs?
The reason that's happening is because the person sending them to you has had their account hacked. They need to change their password & check their Twitter | Settings | Applications (http://twitter.com/settings/applications) - revoke access to any that seem dodgy.
Unfortunately, the only way to stop them coming through is to unfollow the person in question.
Thanks that's a great tip! I'll write a blog about it and link to this article.
Oh awesome! Thank you.
Sadly, some of those URLs are not valid. Maybe the article needs updating?
Yep. You're bang on the money. Thanks for the reminder. Have updated it all now.
The last one is working fine now.
Thanks for posting this and thanks for the great tool!
You're so very welcome! Glad it helped.
:) Thanks for posting this and thanks for the great tool!
Sorry Si. Total accident. What do I need to do to make sure it doesn't happen again please? How did it happen? What tweet did it?
Sorry Yvonne, I have no idea what you're talking about. How did what happen? What tweet did what?
I've come up on the dodgy behaviour report for the first time but not sure why.
Ahh right. Well, if you go here that should tell you in some detail.
Unfortunately, I don't have your Twitter username, so I can't dig any further, but that page is pretty thorough, in terms of explanations etc.
Thanks Si, still not sure how it happened but will be more alert (AND CAREFUL) in the future. Thank you as always for your help.
How do I stop: "REAL PEOPLE, REAL SEX" DM's? I'm getting 10 a day or so -please help.
Hmm. Interesting. I haven't seen any of those (And I see a LOT of DM spam).
Easiest way is to unfollow the person DMing you. Then they can't send you any more.
Usually I send them a message letting them know their account has been hacked too (unless, of course, you're following actual pornographers, in which case they may not be hacked at all).
Thank you for this!!! I Hate-hate-HATE DM SPAM!!!!
I know -exactly- how you feel Nicole. I feel completely the same way.
Useful and from NZ - Like it
hehe. Thank you!
Very helpful. Many thanks for the tips. Hoping OptMeOut will cut back on the amount of clutter I receive.
OptMeOut is definitely the big one. Although I can't help noticing a few, slightly more unscrupulous outfits starting up. Am hoping they'll offer the less spammy of us the option of an optout soon too.
great app, for me the biggest spammer is tweetadder - but I'm not sure if there is anything you can do about that - can you identify people that post using it?
Not that I'm aware of, no. Or at least, not that I've found so far. I believe posting from TweetAdder only appears as coming from "web" (ie, the same as Twitter's site) - which makes it impossible to differentiate.
WOW what a great service! Thanks for being here!
Ahh, you are so very welcome indeed *smile*
Si, fabulous info as always! Thank you xx
Thanks Miki :)
[ -] Click here for the simple details on how to Opt out of receiving DMs via SocialOomph/Tweetlater. The procedure involves following a special Opt Out account (which will automatically follow you back and send you a DM) and then you reply to the DM. Then boom, you're opted out. [ -]