The Republican candidates still in the race for the White House are getting blasted with social media spam, according to the social spam-fighting firm Impermium.
Mark Risher, the company’s CEO and founder, says Impermium has found that the same techniques used by social spammers advertising free iPads and Viagra are now being used to spread bogus political messages across social media, blogs and news sites.
Spambots, fake accounts and a look-alike “impersonator” accounts are all contributing to the spamathon. Sometimes they’re vicious, spreading often false information about a particular candidate. Other spammers are trying to sway your vote by promoting one of the presidential hopefuls.
Political spam got particularly bad during Super Tuesday, but it’s been a persistant problem throughout the Republican primary season. Approximately 85% of people reading political news on the web over the last few months have encountered at least one spam-based comment.
Impermium isn’t able to identify exactly who’s behind the attacks. However, the target is clear: Mitt Romney. The company estimated he’s getting between five and ten times as much social spam as the other Republican contenders.
Risher, formerly Yahoo’s email “spam czar,” started the company after he saw that spammers were refocusing their efforts from email to social media. Impermium scans the entire web to detect spam attacks before they’re carried out. The company’s technology is able to analyze the context of posts, which Risher says makes it better able to determine if a comment is authentic or spam.
“That builds a ‘credit score for the Internet,’ a reputation for each actor out there,” says Risher.
Twitter users who encounter spam can report it to @spam.
Have you noticed any political spam on your social media accounts over the past few months? Let us know in the comments below.
Thumbnail image courtesy of iStockphoto, pearleye
Source: Mashable
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