socialmedian: The Newest Annoyance on Twitter: Follow and Refollow Spam

User-submitted headlines for this story

Clips

The Newest Annoyance on Twitter: Follow and Refollow Spam

Source: louisgray.com

Mar 08, 2009

Summary

Unless you've turned off notifications when users follow you on Twitter, you are no doubt used to the e-mail messages you get when somebody has opted into seeing your updates. Follower updates are a staple of social services - and if you are maniacal about keeping e-mail like I am, you can start to see trends on the data, including when people are oddly manipulating the system, in a way that's not normal. And for whatever reason, a small number of Twitter accounts look like they regularly follow me multiple times a day.

I use auto-follow capabilities from SocialToo, letting me automatically opt in to see followers' updates. The way I use Twitter means there is little downside to having new incremental users in my feeds. So, in theory, if the user follows me just once - it's one and done. And I just don't see too much benefit to these new follow and refollow bots, even if I try to get creative.

Take a look at two examples: @PoliticalUpdate and @twtr.us.

Twice a day, starting on February 27th, I have been followed by @twtr.us, the first time at 3:56 a.m. my time, ...Read the full article

Comments (0)

Add Your Comment