Has Twitter trending topics gotten too spammy? It’s a question we’ve needed to address since the moment Twitter introduced trending topics, which were once relegated to Twitter’s search page and now display on all public Twitter pages. But a recent incident with a group of pranksters on the anonymous forum 4chan is pushing the limits of Twitter’s ability to deal with trending topics-related spam.

The 4chan prank has not only pushed an offensive term through to the trending topics, but did so as a result of several fake accounts that have been created in order to do so. It’s the creation of the fake accounts that minimizes Twitter’s ability to curb spam and the people behind it.

While it’s easy enough to create regulations on what terms can be pushed through as a trending topic, and subsequently easy enough to remove an offensive trending topic, it’s not as easy to get rid of the fake accounts behind it. From keeping up with the creation of fake accounts to the measures necessary to ensure that a suspended or terminated account is indeed fake, there’s a lot more to deal with than just the spam itself.

It’s an issue that Digg was once notorious for having to deal with, leading to a series of changes made to the very way in which Digg operates. Perhaps a complete overhaul for the way in which Twitter manages and promotes trending topics is in order, but that would require careful monitoring and decisions on an executive level. As Twitter is working towards building close relationships with advertising brands, trending topics is likely to be one channel by which marketing can readily take place.

We’ve discussed ways in which Twitter could curb trending topics spam here on MultisocialMedia. Certain cues and user behavior are ways in which Twitter can begin to determine which users are spamming and which accounts are fake. But as we’ve seen with many platforms, from Digg to Facebook, a great deal of ongoing tweaks to platform regulations and users’ terms of service is a necessary growing pain.