Twitter’s transition to being X has come alongside a raft of changes at the behest of its owner, Elon Musk.
As well as the change of name, which took place in August 2023, paid for premium sections and the AI chatbot Grok have launched on the microblogging platform. But an unwanted byproduct has been the amount of spam tweets and messages that have been received by users.
This can be seen in the form of tweets sent without a message to a number of accounts, responses to your tweets that are irrelevant or containing adverts, or spam messages.
Katharine Merry, a British Olympian turned broadcaster, got hundreds of responses when she flagged the issue over the weekend.
She tweeted: “Anyone else’s X getting swamped by spam .. not followers but likes etc .. all of half naked people with the same rubbish content on their timeline? I am getting bored with blocking!”
The Standard approached Twitter/X for a response and an auto reply was sent back from its press office containing only the poo emoji. Musk is not apparently a fan of journalists.
Last year, Musk did say: “Twitter is purging a lot of spam/scam accounts right now, so you may see your follower count drop.”
However, that tweet has since been deleted – so who knows … But in the absence of any official advice from Musk HQ, here are some tips for reducing spam that we have found.
How to reduce spam on Twitter/X
First, head to your notifications page and click the wheel settings button.
From there, click “filters” and then “muted notifications”.
You should then get a list called “mute notifications from people”.
Spam update! From putting these recommended settings on yesterday it has totally stopped the ‘likes’ from naughty spam accounts .. may it last! I was blocking 20+ a day (most from overnight). pic.twitter.com/SPHYOsXVfy
— Katharine Merry (@KatharineMerry) March 24, 2024
To reduce spam, click on whatever you fancy. But for maximum protection, click that you do not want notifications from people: You do not follow, who do not follow you, with a new account, who have a default profile photo, who have not confirmed their email, who have not confirmed their phone number.
