I made a major change to TwitBlock the other night. The change was made to protect people who are heavily blocked, but are not “spam”. Of course that depends on your definition. (A topic for another day)

Originally each block on account would yield 10 points. Then I became aware of just how murky this issue is. Barack Obama is blocked by many accounts (Republicans no doubt) plus some people with extreme right wing views were being blocked heavily. Then the complaints started. People whose businesses survive on a huge Twitter following accused me of destroying their reputations, and generating further blocks on their account by showing the number of existing blocks.

So now two things have changed for the time being:
1. Clicks on “not spam” are deducted from blocks;
2. Blocks are diluted by the size of a user’s following. 10 points are added for every 1%. So, if you’re blocked by 40 people, but are followed by 8,000 this will only yield 5 points.

Although this has stemmed the complaints, the scanner is less aggressive and lots of real spam accounts are not showing up with high enough scores. I am struggling to find the balance in the face of all of this and may have to tweak it again.