Thomas Gericke

I like Twitter. I really do. But there’s something I simply don’t get.

How to stop Twitter sending invites to email addresses known to my iPhone?

It all started about two weeks ago. My iPhone’s iOS reminded me of a new version of Twitter’s native iOS app, which I installed right away. After firing the new version, Twitter came up with a reminder to look for new friends in my address book. “Okay, why not? What could possibly go wrong?” I thought.

It turned out: just like everything!

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I clicked the Go-Ahead-button and, well, Twitter found several Twitter accounts related to some folks I really know. Great shit! After following those people, the app came up with another button which looked to me like “I have some more cool stuff for you” or something like that. I clicked.

And that was a huge mistake. A very bad and really, really dumb idea! Generally, I’m very well aware about privacy and all that social media stuff. But that very day, I was in hurry and actually did not read what I was doing. It turned out, that button said something like “I’m gonna send all email addresses known to your iPhone to Twitter and keep reminding those recipients over and over again to please join Twitter until they do so or die old and grey.”

Dumb. Really, really dumb.

The Twitter app not only invited all email addresses from my contacts, but also any other address known to my iPhone in any other way. Friends, co-workers, customers, any email address I’ve ever sent an email to. Not only a few hundred contacts, but several thousand addresses including virtual addresses just like ticket numbers for technical ticketing systems.

Horrible, really horrible.

But that wasn’t the worst news. Okay, I earned some laughter and finally had to laugh about it myself. But the really, really, REALLY bad thing about this is: Twitter keeps reminding all those addresses to join every few days. EVERY FEW DAYS! And even more: THERE’S NO FUCKING WAY TO STOP THIS!

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Seriously, Twitter!? Are you fucking kidding me? I mean, okay, it was a really bad idea to click that damn button, but why do you keep spamming my contacts over and over again? You have a great website with strict guidelines for using your logos, you have a well structured support area and an obviously working facebook page. You do think about getting your stuff work, but you do not think about how to stop spamming!? Or if you do it nevertheless, you keep it very, very secretly.

I already tried:

1. Finding help within your support pages
2. Searching the web
3. Sending a bug report
4. Contacting your @support account
5. Contacting your facebook page

Fun fact: searching for “twitter stop sending invitations” takes me to: How Do I Stop Facebook From Sending Invitations? That’s so hilarious. Really.

Twitter (or anyone else), please tell me:

HOW TO STOP SENDING INVITES AND REMINDERS TO MY EMAIL CONTACTS?!

Seit wohl mehr als zwei Jahren wundere ich mich hin und wieder, weshalb mein SpamAssassin bei der Beurteilung, ob es sich bei einer eintreffenden E-Mail um Spam oder nicht handelt, nicht langsam mal ein wenig cleverer wird. Nutze ich doch schliesslich sa-learn und verfüttere ihm gesammelte Spam-E-Mails, damit deren Signaturen erkannt und zukünftig nicht mehr durchgelassen werden. Irgendwie wurde es aber nie besser. Gefühlt kam immer mehr Spam durch. Aber das Thema war auch nicht so wichtig, dass ich es mit Nachdruck verfolgt hätte. Bis vor ein paar Tagen. Hier geht's weiter... » // Read more... »