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Twitter’s spam removal is up 214 percent compared to 2017

Twitter’s spam removal is up 214 percent compared to 2017

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Photo by Michele Doying / The Verge

Twitter dropped a blog post yesterday explaining how it’s currently handling malicious spam and bots. The company says that in May, its system found and questioned over 9.9 million accounts for spamming or being automated.

Twitter says it’s also monitoring its APIs more strictly. During Q1 this year, it suspended more than 142,000 apps that violated rules and tweeted out over 130 million spam tweets, and kept up the momentum in the following months, removing an average of 49,000 apps each month.

Twitter says it is cleaning up its platform

Compared to last year, Twitter says it has removed 214 percent more accounts for violating spam policies. It also notes that the average number of spam reports has dropped from 25,000 a day in March to 17,000 a day in May, which Twitter is taking to mean that spam is being effectively combatted, but it could really just mean that people are getting tired of reporting spam.

The social media platform recently came under scrutiny last week for the arbitrary application of its rules, after it suspended many accounts for retweeting a Splinter story that published White House adviser Stephen Miller’s (since changed) phone number. Splinter wrote a story in response pointing out that Twitter has left other accounts that have posted hateful tweets alone. While the recent announcement from Twitter doesn’t address doxxing or the accounts that tweeted about Stephen Miller directly, the timing seems to reassure that measures are being taken to some degree to clean up the platform.