Attack of the spammers: Twitter's list-spam makes a come-back

After a couple of years of lying low, Twitter list-spammers are back in action. Even while you might still get spammy tweets on the basis of the keywords that you use in your tweets, you will now see a bunch of lists you’ve suddenly been added to, all taking you to spam accounts.

When you log on to Twitter now, there’s a good chance you will end up finding yourself become a part of lists like “How to hack on Twitter”, “Spotify Free”, “Free iPhone” and the likes. Spammers are essentially now trying to slip under the radar by putting people into lists rather than send them a mention tweet.

Spammy lists taking over your Mentions tab

The list-spam used to be a big deal back in the day when Twitter first introduced lists a couple of years ago. It was difficult to deal with it then thanks to the absence of enough spam reporting methods on the website. However, since lists gradually became a feature that people didn’t use a lot, the spamming method died down too. 

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Now when Twitter is looking to give a shot in the arm to the lists feature again, the spamming method has caught on almost overnight. This is probably not what Twitter needs as it is about to go public any time now. Twitter has on occasion paid heed to studies regarding how spamming rackets work on the website and are armed with information that could be vital to blocking these attacks. Certainly, Twitter at this crucial juncture is paying attention to even the smallest of issues that could be detrimental to its IPO. We should be seeing an end to this spam attack soon.