Twitter gets tough on spam, files suit in federal court

Ever since Twitter started making a splash in mainstream and social media consciousness in 2008, it has been a major target of spammers. Its influence on clicks and search have made it USDA prime meat for those promoting nefarious agendas and Twitter has been challenged to sift through the real and fake tweets to try to sniff out the culprits. Now, they’re bringing in the law.

They are attacking the source of many of the biggest spam attacks by going after tool providers who help spammers get their messages mass-distributed. The goal is to not only cut off many of the techniques that spammers use to send out their unworthy or malicious tweets but to also discourage the development of more tools in the future.

It isn’t just a battle being waged in courts. They are promoting their reporting feature more feverishly, launching anti-spam technologies, and using their URL shortener, t.co, to analyze links for malware. It has been a long time coming but these measures should put a dent in the spammers’ efforts.