The Human Problem
I’ve been dealing with a lot of spam lately and it’s only going to get worse. Spam, like other security issues is a human problem. You can try and contain it but someone is always going to come up with something new.
At StockTwits, we are constantly battling spam. We are an attractive target because one tweet with a $ sign (“CHECK OUT THIS ONLINE CA$INO”) is sent to 80,000+ users.
Although there are preventative measures in place, we spend a lot of time monitoring the stream. We would monitor the stream regardless of spam because StockTwits is a thriving community and it is our goal to promote the best. But occassionally our community building efforts are subdued as we battle spam.
Our supervision has become a huge competitive advantage. StockTwits would add less value if the stream was filled with link, avatar spam, and stock promoters.
This problem is not new and its certainly not unique to StockTwits. Any business or website that has user generated content has had a spam problem for years.
I imagine that many companies, especially those that are community oriented are committing more resources to combat these issues. Fighting security problems involves building new technologies and/or hiring more employees. That’s not very efficient for cash strapped startups. Although the diversion is paramount, you are most likely decreasing your runway.
The internet needs a social media security company. I am convinced that a company can be built to help contain most of the security issues that social media businesses face. I am going to save my thoughts on how this would work for another time because it is not my intention to make spammers more intelligent/my life more difficult. The bottom line is that companies need to focus less on the human problem and more on other areas of their business.
[Side Note: It’s not just companies that are affected. As a user, I often worry about the vast data trail that I leave around the internet. I can no longer use real answers to security questions. If you wanted to analyze my life stream, you could easily figure out where I went to highschool, what my favorite car is, and the name of my pet. If I want to get really paranoid, you can almost find me in real time, or at least recognize my consumption behaviors via Foursquare. I have a feeling that we are on the verge of facing new types of attacks. ]
