No bullshit social publishing news and opinions. Follow Brandon.
Over the weekend, we saw a particulary nasty hoax concerning Jordan Chandler spread across Twitter.
There are also folks who claim to be sharing information about a trending topic, only to misdirect you to a product advertisement (their own or otherwise).
So if so many people are trying to mislead you on Twitter, who do you trust?
This is not foolproof. But I can tell you what I go by in the hopes that:
1) You do the same.
2) You make a tweak or two to your Twitter profile. I can’t stress this enough: Use a picture (of yourself, of whatever), fill out your bio, and include a link to a place where we can find out more about you.
Otherwise, new folks may avoid and not follow you. It’s not a judgement on you, it’s a bias we have formed from observing the behavior of people who want to ruin the Twitter experience.
How To Spot A Liar
1. The user still has the default Twitter avatar. This should be the first thing you change when you get on Twitter. Even if you don’t want to use a photo of yourself, use a photo or picture of something. The default avatar has become associated with spam and misinformation.
2. There is no information in their Twitter bio. If you don’t have a website / Facebook / Anything, we encourage you to use ours (http://www.soapboxincluded.com), but more importantly, fill out your bio and introduce yourself to us. We are more likely to trust folks we can connect with on some level.
3. Look out for multiple #hashtags in the same message. Usually, people do this to get their spam message viewed by those checking out trending topics.
4. In the case of a news stories, look to see who they are sourcing. In other words, if it says ”CNN / BBC / Whatever have confirmed” or referencing a trusted Twitter user, the tweet is ok.
Be wary of tweets that don’t identify sources (and be wary of sources that don’t identify tweets)
The best thing to do, before clicking on any link, is to go to Google News and type in the trending topic to see if it’s real. You can spot the frauds very quickly this way.
Also: Mashable is very quick to post about any big items trending on Twitter that are real.
5. If it sounds too good to be true, it is.
6. Stay away from anyone who (knowingly) promotes the “Get More Followers” tools and utilities. You can learn how to earn twitter followers on our FAQ page.
7. Don’t trust the mob, but trust your friends. One of the ways we are able to spot fakes on Twitter is because multipe Twitter users work hard to confirm and out them. Crowdsourcing like this works and can be trusted.
8. Look out for Twitter profiles that just import items from Twitterfeed. Some are useful, most of them are spam.
9. If you’re not sure about something or someone, ask your friends or check TwitChuck
10. Post the information yourself.
Did I leave anything off? Add your own suggestions in the comment section below.
