While everyone is free to do as they please, participating in a program where people are encouraged to block other people for no other reason than because one person said the target was a spammer is pretty horrible. Maybe you can see the point better from a different angle.

What if you called all your friends in the neighborhood and asked them to call the police and complain about a specific neighbor. Maybe their dog barks, or maybe they don’t cut their grass or maybe they are a member of a minority that you don’t like? In America, groups of people use to do such activities. They would wear white hoods and burn crosses on lawns.

Twitter is an open network. You follow someone, you receive their updates, you stop following, you stop receiving their updates. Simple!

If some one is sending you @replys with business solicitations, then Twitter.com has a spam account, you simply follow the account and DM them with the account name of the offender. Twitter’s SPAM investigation team then will research and use DATA to ban the account.

What you are suggesting people do is turn into a linch mob when all you need to do is unfollow the offending party.

Worse still are the advertising messages you haven’t signed up for, sent to you as fake “replies” from someone that you’ve never heard of.

There’s no question that Twitter at the moment has a major problem with spam, but the enormous number of accounts that Twitter has suspended recently for spamming shows a genuine commitment to dealing with it.

If you want to hit back against spammers flooding your Twitter timeline, the best way is to block them (click on their name, then when you see their profile go to the sidebar on the right of the screen and click on Block).

Next, follow twitbroom, the spam-busting service which tweets the spammers’ names to followers and gets them ALL to block the spammers. Just type the “at” sign, then twitbroom, then the spammer’s name (WITHOUT the “at” sign), and end your message by typing the hash key then adding the word twitspam (don’t leave a space – twitspam should come immediately after the hashtag).

This will make sure that as many people as possible see your message and block the offender. Enough blocks, and the spammers are kicked out.

It only takes a moment, and helps you get your own back on the spammers and reclaim Twitter for the people who use it for its proper purpose – making friends.

It’s not spam because you “opt-in” to get the messages. If you don’t like them don’t use the service.

I have been hearing a few folks referring to Twitter as a SPAM engine. I would image these people also HATE junk mail?

I know this is anecdotal (since I am a Twitter expert), but I receive calls from people who say they found my ad on Twitter. I also have five times the number of Google listings BECAUSE of my twitter feeds. Of course, there is such a process as search engine optimized twitter messages.

In the end, Twitter is just ONE tool in a small business operator’s arsenal. Craig’s List, WikiDWeb, Yahoo Answers, Business Blogging, Direct eMail, Cold Calls, and Tradeshow (just to name a few) are others. No body in business today should rest on just ONE marketing method. Explore new opportunities. Talk with others here online to find out what they are doing, what works and what they are struggling with. Just because something didn’t work for someone else does not mean it will not work for you.

Thank you Bear for posing this question to stimulate the conversation.