Twitter Follower Bug
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Status - Follow bug discovered, remedied.
We identified and resolved a bug that permitted a user to “force” other users to follow them. We’re now working to rollback all abuse of the bug that took place . Follower/following numbers are currently at 0; we’re aware and this too should shortly be resolved.
TwitterFreakout: Follower Counts Down To Zero - Twitter Working
As the world is battling important issues such as the world financial crisis, oil spill and the recent Dow plunge – what may push social media types over the edge is what happened today: Twitter follower/following counts were set to 0.
If you have ever wanted Oprah Winfrey to follow you on Twitter, you might have been able to make that possible early Monday morning, when a software bug surfaced on Twitter’s Web site. The bug allowed anyone to force another user to follow them on Twitter, giving the site its first setback in several months. The bug was first revealed by a Turkish man who wanted to tell his friends on Twitter about a band, “Accept,” that he enjoyed listening to. When the man typed “Accept pwns” into the update box on Twitter, he noticed that a user by the name of @pwns was now following him on the site. (“Pwns” is a slang term used online to say that you “own” or have “conquered” something.) It didn’t take long for the bug to make its way across the Internet as several technology blogs, including Gizmodo and Mashable , wrote very simple explanations telling readers how to take advantage of the security hole.
Twitter Software Bug Exploits Users Follower Count - Bits Blog -
Twitter Bug Lets You Control Who Follows You
[ Also See - REVEALED: How Today’s Twitter Bug Was First Discovered ] Twitter has an embarrassing bug on its hands –- one that allows users to make anyone follow them. Mashable reader Ozan Yılmaz e-mailed us the details this morning, writing “[tweet] accept [username]” then the [username] immediately starts following you.” We confirmed the issue when we noticed that our main Twitter account is now following lots of new people that we didn’t manually follow on our own. That means that if you choose to exploit this bug, your tweets can show up in anyone’s timeline — at least until the issue gets resolved.
