Not to turn this into The Twitter Spam Post (besides, that’s Stop Twitter Spam) but I believe I’ve just discovered a new spammer technique.
At 3:42 a.m. last night, I received a notification that a Twitter user going by the name Cardiophile was following me. 
But when I checked out the account this morning, the sidebar looked as it does in the graphic to the right of these words. For readers who don’t know me, I am not one of the 5 accounts being followed.
So, mark this as the logical next step in the growing sophistication of Twitter spammers. Aware that they’re being identified by the obvious disparity in their following/follower counts, they’re now following an account just long enough — seconds, maybe — to send a notification e-mail and then unfollowing, so there isn’t the dead giveaway. I caught on, but then there are 350-some Twitter users who followed it anyway.
Earlier this week, a Twitter friend suggested that I simply uncheck the e-mail notification option. True, this would keep me from being annoyed. But there are two problem here. First, I would prefer to avoid changing my behavior because of spammers. But more practically, I wouldn’t know about followers I do care anbout and would want to follow back. Follow me?
Update: Stop Twitter Spam has also noticed this new technique, and has posted on the same subject.
0 Responses to “No Follow”