With any successful enterprise, there are always going to be individuals seeking to take advantage of the opportunity. For Twitter, it is no different, and the site has fallen foul of fake accounts, or bots, which automatically follow people and post countless scam messages. Once one of these accounts is following you, your timeline can become engulfed in their pointless messages. True Twit is a third-party application, commonly used by Twitter users, which seeks to find a way around this problem. When a user has enabled True Twit, anybody that follows them is prompted to verify their identity through True Twit. This is completed via a simple captcha validation screen. If the user passes, you can set the site to automatically follow back the user, on the basis that the validation message will have proven that the person is a real human being. Increasingly, however, use of True Twit is frowned upon within the Twitter community, on the basis that it actually doesn’t really do any good. The process of True Twit runs contrary to some of the fundamental, social principles of Twitter, and the reality is that if you use the service, you may actually be harming your Twitter account, rather than helping it. While True Twit does stop automated bots, it cannot stop ‘human spammers’. As such it doesn’t necessarily keep your timeline free from unwanted spam. If somebody human follows you and goes through the validation process, he or she can then still easily send unlimited messages, which would clog up your timeline. As such, True Twit, at best, reduces the problem of unwanted spam, but doesn’t completely save it. There is also an issue of how you manage your relationships with other Twitter users. Many of them will refuse to complete the True Twit validation process, meaning that you have instantly disengaged them. The reality is that very few Twitter users (Lady Gaga and Ashton Kutcher aside, perhaps) inherit so many followers each day that they cannot afford to check the details of their new followers in person. This is a fundamental part of Twitter, and undesirable accounts are easily detected. If you see, for example, a constant stream of self-promotion or useless tweets, then you certainly wouldn’t follow the user back and you even have the choice to block them. There’s a certain arrogance about the True Twit service. Unintentionally or otherwise, it suggests a level of self-importance that doesn’t bode well for a future relationship with you as a Twitter user, and could get every new relationship off to a really bad start. Fundamentally, it suggests that you see Twitter as a numbers game and nothing more. The auto-follow feature is particularly undesirable, for example. When somebody follows you, it should suggest that they are interested in what you have to say. You should take it as a compliment. If somebody follows you just because you followed them, then the compliment is eroded. If they do so in an automated fashion then it largely becomes defunct. Overall, therefore, True Twit validation does little good. It may reduce the burden of spam, but the negative impact on your followers and genuine Twitter users is almost certainly way too negative to consider implementing this tool. Category:Home › Other • Pomegranates: A newly discovered superfood • Where did the joke why did the chicken cross the road come from and why is it funny? • Can mothers diagnosed with bipolar disorder make good parents? • Spiritual evolution of human consciousness • Tips for getting a college basketball scholarship • Living with Pseudotumor cerebri (PTC) • Caring for the caregiver • Technologys impact on society
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