Twitter nukes spam bots
Twitter announced today that it has undergone a purge of spammers and spam bots on the popular micro blogging website.
Many users have noticed their follower counts dwindling in comparison to yesterday’s numbers due to the recent correction for “spam accounts and data inconsistencies”.
“For some time, the follower and following counts we display have been incorrect for some folks. We’re soon to push a change that will address this issue. This means that the count you see in your sidebar should match what you see on your follower and following pages,” said a Twitter representative on the company’s status website.
“However, a consequence of this change is that follower counts will drop for some people. In particular, those with large followings may see significant changes.”
“No legitimate followings should be affected—we’re just cleaning up artefacts in the system.”
Twitter is now one of the largest social media websites in the world and has, in the past few months, become somewhat of an online phenomenon. In March 2009 Nielsen Online revealed that the site enjoyed a 1383% growth, month on month for February.
With the sudden increase in traffic spammers and spam bots alike have flocked to make use of the site for illegitimate purposes, a problem that most large social networks have had to endure. Typically speaking these spammers will follow thousands of people without actively using the site.
The recent ironing out of the “data inconsistencies” in the Twitter system is a good sign for regular users as it shows they are in for the long haul.
Twitter pruning spam bots – give your view
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