Do you like losing followers and annoying people? No? Then ditch TrueTwit! Here are the reasons why TrueTwit is an evil trojan horse spam “service” that you’re better off without.
What is TrueTwit?
For those of you that (fortunately) don’t know, TrueTwit is a “service” on Twitter that promises to keep the spam bots from following your legitimate human Twitter account. Sounds good so far, right? Yeah… well what they really are is the spammiest spam bot of them all trying to achieve a monopoly on spamming you and your followers while charging you for the privilege!
Wait, What?
That’s right. TrueTwit is more like a neighborhood hooligan charging you protection money than a useful service. Once they get you in their grips, they turn right around and use your account to recruit more victims into their program. Here’s how it works.
The Basic Concept
Here’s how the vicious cycle works:
1.) You try to follow someone you’re interested in on Twitter.
2.) You immediately get a Direct Message (DM) on Twitter saying this person uses TrueTwit and you’ll have to click a link to “validate” on their site or be blocked, not followed-back, etc.
3.) If you click the link, you get taken to a non-mobile friendly website where you have to click on yet another link (to an advertisement) in order to “prove” that you’re a real human.
4.) Jump through the hurdles and a few minutes later you’ve finally managed to follow this person (who you’re probably not all that interested in anymore).
5.) If you don’t want to do the “validation” every time you follow a TrueTwit account, then guess what? You need to open a TrueTwit account of your own and pay for the privilege of them not annoying you with “validation” spam!
6.) Now TrueTwit starts harassing people who try to follow you in the same fashion and the vicious cycle begins anew.
TrueTwit Makes Money on Captcha Ads
The “validation” that TrueTwit puts a potential follower through to prove they’re human is actually an advertisement you’re supposed to click on. Every time someone clicks one of these advertisements, TrueTwit makes money. The Captcha advertisers pay whoever uses them for each click. TrueTwit has come up with a very novel (and evil) way to generate millions of clicks. Cha-ching!
TrueTwit Makes Money Off of You
If you actually want to follow people who use TrueTwit, then you have to put up with the process. The only way around it is to become a member yourself. Sure, it starts with a free trial but eventually they start charging your credit card. More cha-ching for TrueTwit!
TrueTwit has Access to Your Twitter Account
In order to join TrueTwit, you have to authorize them to access your Twitter account. That means they can post on your behalf, send direct messages, and read all your account information (followers, posts, etc). Seeing as how they’re in the business of making money through advertising and spam, is it really a good idea to hand your Twitter account over to them? I think not.
TrueTwit Doesn’t Actually Stop Spammers
On Twitter, most spam accounts operate by spamming you through their profile or by mentioning you in their Twitter feed. No follows necessary. So how is TrueTwit helping you? News flash: they’re not.
TrueTwit Annoys Your Followers (and They Leave You)
As a member, TrueTwit will show you some “great” numbers on the number of spammers it blocked for you, but in reality it’s humans who aren’t following through with the “validation” process. And who can blame them? Real humans, don’t like the crappy website and Captcha ad nonsense. They’ll just follow someone else instead. Yes, TrutTwit LOSES YOU FOLLOWERS! You don’t win friends by annoying them right off the bat.
Okay, I Get It. TrueTwit is Bad. So How Do I Stop Spammers?
There are a number of much easier and user-friendly ways to stop most of the annoying spam on Twitter:
1.) Get rid of the biggest spammer you’ve got: TrueTwit. Cancel your account immediately and block the application from your Twitter account.
2.) Spammers may follow you from time to time. This is OK. Who doesn’t want more followers? They can’t direct message you until you follow them back, so just ignore them. If they start @mention spamming you in your feed, block them. It only takes a second.
3.) How do you tell which accounts are human? Believe it or not, most of them actually say so right in their profile. Go read it! If you’re still not sure, read their feed. Do they ever post original tweets that aren’t links? If so, probably a human. More importantly, if their feed isn’t interesting, why would you follow them back anyway?
Twitter is social media. You are supposed to read, post, and interact. If you’re relying on a 3rd party application to do that for you, then you’re missing the point. Worse, you’re allowing evil spammers to make money off of you and annoy your potential followers. End the cycle, quit TrueTwit! You’ll be glad you did.
And remember:
