Dear @Twitter Security: Kill These Fake Accounts (Real People RT, Please)

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“Chadrick Shmitt MD,” “Melisa Howe II,” and roughly 5,000 more such accounts — zero Tweets, zero followers, names mismatched with handles, fake avatars, generic bromides as profile info — came swarming onto my account Wednesday night, following me in batches:

“You have 58 new followers!”

“You have 38 new followers!”

Go out to smoke a cigarette, come back 10 minutes later and there’s the message: “You have 863 new followers!”

Inquiries were made, and it turns out that this same troll-tactic harassment phenomenon has also been used in recent days against the Twitter accounts of John Hoge and Aaron Walker, who happen to be my co-defendants in a lawsuit filed by Brett Kimberlin.

Just a coincidence, I’m sure.

Evidently, this tactic is used to try to get someone’s account suspended: A troll buys fake followers for his targeted enemy’s account, which then makes it easier to then get the target account suspended. Considering that I’ve got 20,000+ real Twitter followers and run a high-activity feed, the troll had to buy thousands of fake followers in this sabotage effort, and they need to be deprived of this resource.

So, if you are one of my real Twitter followers, please re-Tweet the headline and link to this post, so that Twitter can delete the fake accounts: Roughly the 5,000 most recent accounts to follow me are all fakes. These fake followers were piling up faster than I could block them, even with mass-blocking software programs, and it should not be incumbent on the target of such vicious tactics to go through this trouble. Twitter security needs to delete these fake accounts as soon as they are exposed as such.

Twitter should delete these  5,000 or so fakes — which would re-set my follower count to around 23,000 — for starters, and then undertake an investigation to find who is responsible for this. Some people are so evil they should never have access to the Internet.

UPDATE: The do-nothing policy of @TwitterSecurity:

Twitter’s official impotence and apathy about these problems have permitted criminals to terrorize law-abiding users. They should be ashamed of themselves for tolerating — nay, actively abetting — the commercialization of fraudulent online criminal behavior.

It will not be enough for them to delete these fake accounts, although they can and should do so immediately. Twitter must investigate the persons responsible for creating such accounts — who evidently broker them — and take legal action against these fraudulent menaces, so as to prevent anyone else from profiting from this kind of evil.

 

158 comments

  2. I scrolled and scrolled on twitter (which I only log in to about once a year) and couldn’t find something to Retweet, so I logged back out.

    Twitter is only interesting at one or two removes. Up close, it’s worse than being forced to stare at someone’s cold sore at dinner.

  3. Go away f*cking troll … 1 comment (above), no follows, no following, no upvotes, twitter link to a brand new loathsome twitter account.
    Try to be more inventive next time. Your blatant assclownish behavior betrays you every time.

  8. I find it very useful as a means of staying in touch with my Friends In The Ether. We all have lives and this way we at least can keep in communication.

    It’s also very useful as a tool to promote blog posts.

  10. My first account was suspended and is still suspended for the last 5 months!! I periodically try to get on the account to delete it, and I can’t…..My pug’s photo is in the twittersphere forever I guess….I have had two accounts suspended, even after joining TDGN….So I now post with a fake name, abstract photos and am very selective on what I tweet out there….With Twitter going public today, methinks they won’t last much longer when a competitor comes along that does better than they do.

  11. Coincidentally, my identity thieving impersonator trolls are back as well, but I don’t care because, well, I know some stuff that ain’t widely known yet but soon will be.

    The bad guys are losing and they know it, so they are freaking out and throwing their hissies. Their days of feeling powerful are drawing to a close and their hour of reckoning is soon at hand. No worries.

    I know about these things because I make it my business to know. You will see.

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