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Twitter Should Shut Me Down

edu.mkrecny.com

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Re: Twitter Should Shut Me Down

#111

Post by tomkarlo »

pdeuchler wrote: post #98
unreal37 wrote: post #67

This business model isn't analogous to "promoted tweets" or "Twitter ads". It's analogous to "email spam". You're a spammer essentially. Using an automated bot to fake a human interaction (favorite) in order to get my attention and get me to follow you. It doesn't matter that it's more effective than "Twitter Ads". Twitter Ads are marked as Ads, your favorites are not. I really do hope Twitter shuts you down, as well…

Meh. Doesn't seem any more offensive than a targeted ad on Amazon. It's just a favorite, after all. A subtle, "Hey, check us out." These are company/marketing/publicity accounts anyway (I'm assuming). It's not like followgen is masquerading around with a stolen identity like most follow bots, spitting out bit.ly spam with suggestive tweets and racy pictures. It's simply programmatically allowing twitter accounts to r…

It's an abuse of a messaging channel that degrades it for everyone to benefit a small number of parties. Similar to spam or telemarketing or chain mail. (Or, say, pollution. There's a mismatch between who the benefits accrue to, and who pays for it.)

It's also leveraging the fact that twitter (for now) emails the original user to tell them their tweet was favorited. So it's essentially spamming by proxy.

(Also, we've seen this before. It's just follower spam.)

Re: Twitter Should Shut Me Down

#112

Post by brown9-2 »

Finster wrote: post #55
macspoofing wrote: post #16

It's amazing how much devs want to build on top of Twitter. There's got to be an opportunity for Twitter to monetize that instead of fighting it and pissing everyone off. Why can't they just have some reasonable fees for API access?

If they put a paywall on their IP, then they'd be bound to have a reasonable support structure in place. No one in their right mind would want to support the Twitter or Facebook API's...

I don't follow. Why does any company implement and support a pay-for-access API then? I'm sure there are folks at Square or Stripe who are happy to support their API.

I think employees would be happy to support an API, if it is a revenue producing product.

Re: Twitter Should Shut Me Down

#113

Post by MartinCron »

mseebach wrote: post #53

There is another flaw in the business model: It feeds off the assumption that when someone favourites one of your tweets, it's because a person liked it, not a bot trolling for followers. I suspect the reason Twitter Ads is 20x more expensive for a follower is that it explicitly states that it's a "promoted tweet" and that throws up all kinds of guards. Once that cat is out of the bag, the cost to acquire a follower…

Another commons, another tragedy. Sigh.

Re: Twitter Should Shut Me Down

#114

Post by WiseWeasel »

jonsterling wrote: post #74

You're a bad citizen, mate. Not of Twitter, but of the Internet. The things you are doing are helpful to shitty people who want to get followers artificially, and obnoxious to good people.

No, if he were a bad citizen, he wouldn't have written this post. He's a morally ambiguous citizen at worst. He's drawing attention to this kind of abuse, so maybe Twitter will do something about it before it starts pissing everyone off and driving them away from the service.

Re: Twitter Should Shut Me Down

#115

Post by benatkin »

mseebach wrote: post #53

There is another flaw in the business model: It feeds off the assumption that when someone favourites one of your tweets, it's because a person liked it, not a bot trolling for followers. I suspect the reason Twitter Ads is 20x more expensive for a follower is that it explicitly states that it's a "promoted tweet" and that throws up all kinds of guards. Once that cat is out of the bag, the cost to acquire a follower…

I think the fact that it remains in the mentions pane has more of an effect than people being turned off because it says "promoted tweet".

Re: Twitter Should Shut Me Down

#116

Post by wjy »

Aqueous wrote: post #87
AznHisoka wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. The OP foolishly brought Twitter's attention to his schemes. They will probably shut it down due to the spammy nature, not because it competes with their ads.

I think he wants to be shut down because he feels guilty about being the last one standing despite being in clear violation of the TOS ( I suppose, though I haven't read the TOS and I'm not sure the author has either - can he point to which clause he is in violation of? )

If he wanted to be shut down over guilty feelings, he could, you know, just stop. So that's probably not it.

Re: Twitter Should Shut Me Down

#117

Post by MartinCron »

mkrecny wrote: post #96
unreal37 wrote: post #67

This business model isn't analogous to "promoted tweets" or "Twitter ads". It's analogous to "email spam". You're a spammer essentially. Using an automated bot to fake a human interaction (favorite) in order to get my attention and get me to follow you. It doesn't matter that it's more effective than "Twitter Ads". Twitter Ads are marked as Ads, your favorites are not. I really do hope Twitter shuts you down, as well…

OP here. Ultimately I want access to the Twitter Ads API, at which point I'll switch from favorites to serving promoted tweets/accounts. I think I've innovated on the Ads UX and the form which the impression takes is secondary. This is a surrogate impression. It has allowed me to build an Ads product and an Ads customer base in anticipation of Ads API access.

I think I've innovated on the Ads UX

What you've done is move ads from the place where they're supposed to be (promoted tweets) to the place where they're not supposed to be (your interactions). Innovative spam is still spam.

Re: Twitter Should Shut Me Down

#118

Post by mrmaddog »

Are there any legal implications about publicly admitting that you are knowingly violating a site's Terms of Use? It is surprisingly hard to search for existing precedents if you don't already have a decent knowledge of legalese.

Re: Twitter Should Shut Me Down

#119

Post by scrabble »

AznHisoka wrote: post #76
scrabble wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. These are people who are following accounts because the accounts favorite a tweet of theirs. If you follow someone without looking into their profile and deciding if you are interested in their content then you get what you deserve.

So by your logic, you have no problem with email spammers because the people who fall for their spam get what they deserve?

There's a big difference between being notified that someone favorited a tweet and an email spammer that is attempting to replicate an official email or is lying about a situation.

Favoriting a tweet has no connection with "Hey, I tweet about stuff that you are interested in so you should follow me." It's not even a request for someone to follow you.

Re: Twitter Should Shut Me Down

#120

Post by maxbrown »

MartinCron wrote: post #117
mkrecny wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP here. Ultimately I want access to the Twitter Ads API, at which point I'll switch from favorites to serving promoted tweets/accounts. I think I've innovated on the Ads UX and the form which the impression takes is secondary. This is a surrogate impression. It has allowed me to build an Ads product and an Ads customer base in anticipation of Ads API access.

I think I've innovated on the Ads UX What you've done is move ads from the place where they're supposed to be (promoted tweets) to the place where they're not supposed to be (your interactions). Innovative spam is still spam.

I'll play devil's advocate to this one... you're saying "interactions" are places where ads aren't supposed to be? Isn't any interaction between a business and individuals on Twitter really marketing?
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