New Twitter Exploit Allows Spammers To Add Themselves To Your Following List Without Your Permission

Thank you for this post, John. I have somehow been added to twitter accounts as a follower for a while now and I have no idea how it's happening. Like you, I'm editing my following list, just can't do it all at once (hoarding syndrome?) Getting caught up in having massive accounts can happen to all of us but it really doesn't benefit anyone. I'm so thrilled with the #valueovervolume tweets I get!

There was another one one week ago. In result of a browser game they add them self and send messages to all followers. This was really spammy. I think it was called mobsterworld or something

best regards,
Volksphone

So, they have found a way to get you follow them. As an internet marketer I know you would be very happy to know about the application they used to add you to their list.
SPamming is some thing that has different meaning to different persons. You are right when you said Twitter must make its place a safer place.

Exactly the same to me, i've gain 12 followers and following the same 12 et the same time ! Hard to manage... :-(

I think this is SPAM.... my twitter account is safe and i will surely going to make my tweets private so that i don't get attacked by the spammers on twitter too. I must say these exploiters are really a pain in the ...

Sign up for a new twitter account and follow just 20 users. Wait a month and that number will change :)

To be honest, the spammers come through other people you follow. If you unfollow EVERYONE, you won't have any spammers following you.

-Mike

Spam is the scourge of the internet :-(

I do think the new twitter terms & conditions will help, but one has to be pro-active in sifting through followers too. I can just imagine trying to deal with 1000's of followers and weeding the spam followers out of there. Not fun!

This isn't new. This has been happening to me fort he last few months.

That is crazy. Hopefully it doesn't happen to me!

My My - I never notice this, These spammers are bigger then everything out there.

-Shanker Bakshi

Is it really possible? That's very horrible! and I was never aware with this thing to happen.

Hi John,

I think this is a mischief done by some intelligent spammers only on your account and we all know that twitter always has some small or big defects in its system.

I have never seen this type of things on my twitter account.

Better Luck John.

the key point of twitter is simple.
understand if they have low security

I have a very similar problem on an account it says I am following 16 people, but I am only following 2, and from the 2 I followed myself the other i Don't know How I am following that account and for some odd reason I cant Unfollow it.

I bet no one notices this kind of thing. I could be following 100 of these kinds of accounts and would have no ideal.

Ugh. Just reading the title of this blog post pissed me off because I thought, "Excellent. Another way that spammers are continuing to rule Twitter." How do these account owners think that what they're doing is a good use of time and energy, and that it's making them any money? So absurd. I hope the issue gets fixed quickly, as it's a real bizarre one.

Dude how the hell did you follow them first?

I'm sure Twitter feels safe now that you are on patrol! LOL:)

I get people following me everyday and a lot of them are spammers. I think I am going to have to purge my followers list. This is one thing that Twitter is going to have to address at some point in time or things could turn ugly.

I noticed this too, but didn't think anything of it, until I saw this post. I delete all the people I follow, and yet it continues to grow each day... also, the accounts that you follow get marked as you follow them, so they are all growing too.

I did notice that I was following an additional 11 accounts this morning which I was sure I did not add any of them. But didn't really think too much about it at the time.

So, have you reported it to Twitter or not? SY

This may have happened to me as well. I've noticed that I am following more than who is following me. I'm not sure if people are unfollowing me or not, but I found it odd.

Ditto for me. My follower list grows everyday without having to manually add anyone else. It does get bothersome because every day all day long my email box gets filled with new "So and So is following you on Twitter" messages. Then another email that they sent me a DM, which is usually a sales pitch. I've finally given in, and if they are spamming me too much or if it is pitching porn I manually delete them. I just ignore most of it and pay attention to the tweets that are useful.

Hey John, Thanks for bringing this to our attention. I personally have not been subjected to this exploit but at least I now know what to look out for.
Thanks again and thanks for the blog
Simon

John, Did you joined any Twitter Train kind of program in which if a new people follows you then you will automatically follow him/her with the help of API..??

Thank you for the information. I haven't noticed any problem at the moment, but I'll be more careful from now on.

I never notice that. But all the same twitter need to work on this before it start spreading like wildfire. May be I'll do a re-check on my list and unfollow unnecessary people so as to monitor my account

Yup has happened to me. On one of my accounts, I follow one person. But when I checked it a week later, it was following 17 - all spammers

If you know the username, how come you can not report to Twitter?

No exploit John just that these people where suspended when you did your mass unfollow.

Their accounts have been reinstated after so pop back on your follow list...

I have noticed this myself and one of the accounts you have listed looks familiar. When I notice these type of accounts I just delete them.

Just another example of Twitter's growing pains.

finally i found people who have the same experience with me . but i got something more worst than you john. i got more than 20 unknown people in my twitter list already. and this increase every single day.
what a damn s*it

Well, I don't often use Twitter actually. One of the reason is Chinese Great firewall banned it, and I am in China.
Twitter is good, but I don' t really use it, so I don't very care of what is going on with Twitter.
But I think that spammers are disgusting, I support to fight against them :).

this is horrible for true twitter writers

So, the twitter guy have homework now. :D

This is scary!