{"id":11637,"date":"2019-12-15T00:01:36","date_gmt":"2019-12-15T05:01:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.renthop.com\/content-manager\/?p=11637"},"modified":"2023-07-22T11:36:39","modified_gmt":"2023-07-22T15:36:39","slug":"ghost-banning-to-stop-real-estate-broker-spam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.renthop.com\/blog\/ghost-banning-to-stop-real-estate-broker-spam\/","title":{"rendered":"Ghost Banning To Stop Real Estate Broker Spam"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<p>Back in 2009, Lawrence and I were speaking with one of our early investors about spam messages. Specifically, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.renthop.com\/blog\/2019\/12\/craigslist-freshness-bait-and-switch-problems\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Craigslist postings (opens in a new tab)\">Craigslist postings<\/a> at the time were full of low-quality ads, and for anyone with a legitimate apartment, they would find their inboxes quickly filled with unsolicited offers. We then learned about ghost-banning.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>&#8220;Getting rid of spam is easy!&#8221; the investor told us excitedly. &#8220;You just need to make sure the spammer doesn&#8217;t realize they are banned.&#8221; This particular investor knew a lot about spam &#8211; he was one of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.paulgraham.com\/spam.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"inventors of modern spam filtering (opens in a new tab)\">inventors of modern spam filtering<\/a> today.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>So finding and identifying the spam is not hard. But how do you make a spammer go away? The practice known as &#8220;hell banning&#8221; or &#8220;shadow banning&#8221; comes from the old days of dial-up modems and bulletin board systems, but deployed in modern apps such as WeChat, Reddit, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.renthop.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"RentHop's apartment finder (opens in a new tab)\">RentHop&#8217;s apartment finder<\/a> and messaging system.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2>Naming History Behind Ghost Banning<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>The idea is, eventually the problematic or abusive user will see that his or her messages appear to be sent to and seen by everyone else. However, the crowd just ignores them completely; no one even engages with or interacts with the offensive post. The banned person, unable to elicit a reaction from anyone, leaves and brings their toxic attitudes elsewhere.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>\u00a0<br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-10201\" src=\"https:\/\/www.renthop.com\/content-manager\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/image.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"324\" height=\"100\" \/><br \/>\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Perhaps it&#8217;s like the classic movie Ghost, when the hero desperately tries to have an impact on the world around him but is unable to do so? Or how about Sixth Sense and the classic quote: &#8220;Walking around like regular people&#8230; They don&#8217;t know they&#8217;re dead.&#8221;<\/p>\r\n<p><em>Editor&#8217;s Note: We updated this article to enhance readability.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Back in 2009, Lawrence and I were speaking with one of our early investors about spam messages. Specifically, Craigslist postings at the time were full of low-quality ads, and for anyone with a legitimate apartment, they would find their inboxes quickly filled with unsolicited offers. We then learned about ghost-banning.\u00a0 &#8220;Getting rid of spam is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":11677,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"yes","_lmt_disable":"no","footnotes":""},"categories":[269],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11637","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brokers-and-landlords"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v22.4 (Yoast SEO v23.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Ghost Banning To Stop Real Estate Broker Spam - Real Estate Topics, Tips, and Guides<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Ghost banning is a great tool to help block spam messages from going through, without letting the spammer know you&#039;re on to them.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.renthop.com\/blog\/ghost-banning-to-stop-real-estate-broker-spam\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ghost Banning To Stop Real Estate Broker Spam\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ghost banning is a great tool to help block spam messages from going through, without letting the spammer know you&#039;re on to them.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.renthop.com\/blog\/ghost-banning-to-stop-real-estate-broker-spam\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Real Estate Topics, Tips, and Guides\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/renthopapartments\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-12-15T05:01:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-07-22T15:36:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.renthop.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/realestatespam.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"512\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Lee Lin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@renthop\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@renthop\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Lee Lin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.renthop.com\/blog\/ghost-banning-to-stop-real-estate-broker-spam\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.renthop.com\/blog\/ghost-banning-to-stop-real-estate-broker-spam\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Lee Lin\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.renthop.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/5877a1d4b27a98e84d9840c6aea99af7\"},\"headline\":\"Ghost Banning To Stop Real Estate Broker Spam\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-12-15T05:01:36+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-07-22T15:36:39+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.renthop.com\/blog\/ghost-banning-to-stop-real-estate-broker-spam\/\"},\"wordCount\":277,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.renthop.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.renthop.com\/blog\/ghost-banning-to-stop-real-estate-broker-spam\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.renthop.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/realestatespam.png\",\"articleSection\":[\"Brokers and Landlords\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.renthop.com\/blog\/ghost-banning-to-stop-real-estate-broker-spam\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.renthop.com\/blog\/ghost-banning-to-stop-real-estate-broker-spam\/\",\"name\":\"Ghost Banning To Stop Real Estate Broker Spam - 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