An open letter to @twitter @support & Development

Dear Twitter Support & Development,

This letter is in regard to the increasing abuse of the "block and report for spam" function. It has become such a problem that at least two groups have sprung up to defend against the practice, #TGDN and #UniteBlue. Instead of requesting not to be contacted with posts with which the individual disagrees, or merely ignoring such posts, the trend has become to report the account of the individual for spam, when it is clearly not. Some accounts even actively draw others into conversations, with the aim of reporting them and getting those others suspended. This has got to stop.

Twitter has increasingly become an important venue for political expression. The ability of some to abuse the rules, to silence those with whom they disagree politically in such an important venue is not only damaging to political discourse as a whole, it damages the reputation of the Twitter brand, as people feel less free to express themselves, for fear of retaliation.
 

I have a few suggestions for features which will reduce the number of false reports & enable tweeps to express themselves freely, all while maintaining their ability to report true spammer accounts.

1) Limit the number of accounts that an individual can "report for spam". Let's say they get 2 "freebies" then they have to wait an hour, or fill out a captcha, to report another account.

2) Have the "report" button on the individual posts (not on the account), so a false report (abuse of reporting feature) will be obvious.

3) Add an "Ignore" feature, so that if you ignore someone, they cannot see any of your tweets, your lists, account, etc. nor can you see any of theirs. All you or they see is the avatar and a blank tweet. If you want to report for spam, you fill out a questionnaire. (This ignore feature would work much like /ignore  from IRC.)

It is my hope that Twitter will begin to take the abuse of the reporting feature seriously so that everyone can have a more enjoyable twitter experience.

Thank you,

@copycat042

To others reading this, please RT  and also copy the following & paste it in your TR, to draw Twitter's attention to it:

Open letter to @twitter @support on the abuse of Spam Reporting: http://tinyurl.com/a987upz