Richard Cunningham on Spoutible

Thread

Christopher Bouzy

@cbouzy

My statement regarding spamming, inauthentic activity, and targeted harassment.

Dear Spoutible users,
Yesterday, an individual created a fake account under the name “Vootin” with the intention of spamming hashtags and disseminating falsehoods. Initially, we chose not to immediately suspend the account to leverage this incident as an opportunity to test our automatic alert system and evaluate how Spoutible’s user base would react to the troll.
We received an overwhelming response, with over 700 reports being submitted by Spoutible users, indicating a high level of concern regarding this individual’s behavior. Most Spoutible users did not engage with the account and chose to block it instead. We believe that if not for the “Making Waves” section, the troll’s actions would have gone unnoticed and only affected a small number of users.
To prevent future incidents of spamming and to avoid the manipulation of the “Making Waves” section, we are implementing new safeguards. We are developing new algorithms that can automatically suspend accounts found to be engaging in sp...

08:15 AM - Mar 02, 2023

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Richard Cunningham

@dick

I've noticed people manipulating "Making Waves", but maybe automatic suspensions is a bit harsh, especially without warning. Can Making Waves perhaps only be counted per person, so one person can hashtag the same thing 100 times but only have it counted as 1?

In response to Christopher Bouzy.

06:04 AM - Mar 03, 2023