Bad Blogger Award: SpywareGuide Blog

2009-09-26T16:02:00.002-04:00

I hereby present this Bad Blogger Award to the SpywareGuide blog for their recent article on Twitter spammers, in which they stated that the bird graphics used by the spammers were an attempt to fool Twitter users into thinking they were somehow affiliated with Twitter in some official capacity, and suggesting that anyone using one of these bird graphics is a spammer and should be blocked.

I am not giving them this award for being dead wrong. I understand that everyone makes mistakes. I am giving them this award for refusing to acknowledge or correct misinformation, when they were given every opportunity to do so, after being informed of the mistake.

They published their article on September 17, 2009 and shortly after I left a comment informing them that the bird graphics these spammers are using are just the new default avatars for Twitter accounts, used when the account holder doesn't upload one of their own.

These colorful bird images are the new official replacement for the old creepy looking "brownie face" images. Many people have them and not everyone with these avatars are spammers. Some are just new to Twitter and don't understand how it works yet, or they don't feel a need to upload an image. Some are just lazy and don't want to be bothered with changing anything and personalizing their profiles.

I have friends with these new bird avatars and I can attest to the fact that they are not spammers. They do not deserve to be blocked and treated as if they are. They have done nothing wrong.

And this Mashable article seems to suggest there is also a bug within the Twitter service that could cause people that have uploaded avatars to suddenly have them unexpectedly replaced with one of these new default bird avatars. Twitter is aware of the problem.

I had to jump through hoops to leave a comment, being forced to register, validate my email address, and then leave my comment, which was immediately placed in their moderation queue and still hasn't been posted. Nor have they corrected their article, as of this date.

For a security related site, I find this unacceptable and it does nothing to lend any credibility to their blog. I will not be returning to read another article, never mind commenting on one.

Enjoy your award!

Cranial Soup

Bad Blogger Award: SpywareGuide Blog