Twitter has finally taken action against the spammers and porn sites that clog up people’s follower lists and news feeds. The company filed a lawsuit on Thursday in a U.S. court against five websites that it accuses of creating tools for spamming. Many users complain that the site is 'wide open' to 'spambots' which bombard users with links that lead to dubious web sites.

 

The social media firm battles a wave of automated tweets barraging real users with anything from Viagra ads to virus-ridden links. Often billed as a service to help a Twitter account gain followers, websites can take control of an account, known as a bot, that follows or sends automated tweets at real users in the hope that some will follow the bot back or click through links the bot has sent out.

 

‘As our engineers continue to combat spammers with strong safeguards and technical efforts, today we're adding another weapon to our arsenal: the law,’ Twitter said in a blog post.     

Twitter now claims 140 million active users. As its user base has grown, so have bots and spam, emerging as a problem that Twitter fears could dilute the online conversation and irk bona fide users.

 

Both Facebook and Google have taken spammers to court in recent years with success. The defendants listed in the suit filed in the U.S. Federal Court in San Franciso are TweetAttacks, TweetAdder, TweetBuddy, James Lucero of justinlover.info and Garland E Harris of troption.com. Often billed as a service to help a Twitter account gain followers, websites can take control of an account, known as a bot, that follows or sends automated tweets at real users in the hope that some will follow the bot back or click through links the bot has sent out.     

 

 

 

(DailyMail)