Twitter: A Cesspool of Vice

Graphic: © 2009 by magbiz
As reported by heute.de, the number of Twitter spam profiles that advertise sex content on the internet, increases considerably.

As reported by heute.de, the number of Twitter spam profiles that advertise sex content on the internet, increases considerably. Even members of the German Parliament already had to face this. Media educator Thomas Pfeiffer confirms this trend: “The words breasts and slip were the most twittered terms within the last four weeks.” This however is not said to result from many new spam profiles but especially from four particularly active profiles, that spammed a lot. Twitter itself is aware of this problem. Numerous spam profiles were recently deleted. As these removal processes are carried out automatically, profiles of real users were deleted as well. However it is questionable if this is very effective. Sex news are still twittered every few minutes. Therefore, Volker Beck, representative of the Greens in the German Parliament, calls for a more relaxed approach and advises to block spam accounts in the own profile. Julia Klöckner, representative of the Christian Democracy Union in Germany, also says that she would just block spam and distance from it. Media educator Pfeiffer takes the same line and adds: “If many users do this, Twitter has the possibility to delete the fake profiles.” Furthermore, spam accounts should directly be reported to Twitter.