About TwitBlock

TwitBlock is a junk filter and bulk blocking tool for Twitter users.

You may think you have a loyal following of people who find you interesting, or amusing, but they're probably not all real people. Among your followers will be a wide spectrum of fully automated, or computer aided Twitter accounts. They will range from reputable companies looking to profile and market to you, to fake profiles directing you to adult websites. At the very worst you will find the spammers and phishing gangs - the same junk you get in your email inbox, designed to sell you fake pharmaceuticals, or trick you into parting with your passwords or credit card numbers.

Give the follower scan a whirl and you can block your spammiest followers in one fell swoop.

The mission

TwitBlock offers a light-hearted approach to booting unwanted followers, but beneath the surface is a serious mission, and one that isn't just about Twitter.

The problem of spam on Twitter may be temporary. Maybe Twitter will sort it out, maybe Twitter will become a very different service, but one thing's for sure; wherever the Internet gives us a place to communicate and share, spam and crime will not be far behind. Where there is trust, there will be those who exploit it. Where there is security, there will be those who seek to break it.

TwitBlock aims to raise awareness, and hopefully educate Twitter users about how to avoid falling foul of cons and phishing traps. The data TwitBlock can gather while these junk accounts are active will be useful battling spam in future, wherever it shows up next. We hope to gain great insight into how spammers are using social networks, and rest assured that we will be sharing these insights.

How does it work?

A points system is used to order your followers with the most likely spam at the top of the list. There is no limit to the actual score, it is just used to order the list from high to low.

A score doesn't guarantee an account is spam; it's just a relative indicator, and a non-zero score doesn't mean the account is black-listed in any way.

The score is worked out using various factors associated with spam and nuisance accounts. If you analyse a single account you will see a verbal description of the indicators that have been applied.

Legitimate accounts are getting spam scores.

The analysis performed looks for common indicators of spam. Sometimes real people and legitimate companies will display the same characteristics, but the real problem accounts come up with scores well into the thousands. Through continued development we intend for the scanner to become more accurate, but it is unlikely to replace your brain, so take a good look before you block.

Think before you block!

Blocking users will increase their spam score on TwitBlock, so don't be too trigger happy and check they deserve it before you block. Think whether you really need to block - maybe not following them back is enough? Legitimate accounts do get blocked, often out of animosity.

Your privacy

Signing into TwitBlock is done via Twitter's OAuth implementation.  We do not see your password, and cannot store your password. Don't use any service that asks for your Twitter password directly, and check the address bar when you are redirected to Twitter to ensure you really are on Twitter.com.

TwitBlock requires you to authenticate so we can perform blocks and get access to your block list. Once logged in we cache your block list and if you remain authenticated we will refresh this cache every 24 hours. You can revoke authentication any time you wish by going to your Twitter account settings on Twitter.com and going to the Connections tab. We will no longer be able to access your account, but if you want to help improve the service, please stay authenticated, we will use it responsibly.

For continued, detailed info please check @timwhitlock's blog