So, I Have A Twitter Account...

[JimGinPA]

I got on about 5 years ago so I could follow one of my nieces that has a business. I now follow a few of my favorite Dems, a few pundits, and a bunch of comedians. I don't get on a lot and I have never "tweeted" anything, or even re-tweeted anything. I've never had any messages on twitter either. The tweets show up on my email social tab, so I normally just check there periodically and open the ones that I'm interested in (only the first several words are shown on the social tab).

I spend much more time on Facebook and the news about the bots last week got me thinking about a lot of the wild crap that I saw throughout the election cycle. I unfriended the few FB friends I had that posted right wing bullshit early on and unfollowed a couple of my Missouri cousins so their political posts were hidden. I ignore the trending "news" for the most part, but I guess that's where I noticed most of the craziness.

Every so often I see that someone is following me on Twitter, which I think is odd since I've never tweeted! It seems lately they are usually attractive women and when I check their feeds they often have links to their "sexy pictures". It seems like they only follow me for a short time and are gone.

So, looking at the pages of my latest Twitter "followers";




I noticed below a few tweets they had a link to follow to the same guy, listed as a;

"Abdul ***********
Stiudent:-Dewrail Title Madrassa.
Badarpur,Karimgang,Assam"

I figure that has to be more than just a coincidence.

In another thread about Twitter links I saw a few people who are frequent users and I guess my question is how do people manage to find me there? Is it through the people I follow or something more random?

Also, is it possible to block followers? Or am I just worrying needlessly.

Thanks.

[Warpy]

1. I have a Twitter account but it's been at least a couple of years

since I signed in to it. I find it useful as a rumor mill, but that's it, and mostly during big breaking stories of revolution or natural disaster.

I don't have a Farcebook account, I never liked their business model of data mining subscribers. I would consider it to be an even bigger rumor mill, frankly, and take nothing seriously except maybe birth announcements from extended family.

With so many people absolutely obsessed with these platforms, it's no wonder they're being used to disseminate fake news.

Take anything you read there with a pound of salt. Please.

[femmocrat]

2. You can block them.

After "Follow" you will see 3 dots. Click on the dots, then Block @(user name). I don't know how they find anyone. Lately I have seen some new followers who are obviously in foreign countries. I always block those.

[oldtime dfl_er]

3. I block all the time

same as you

[JimGinPA]

4. Thanks

[Warpy]

7. When I first signed on five years ago, it was mostly eastern European

porno sites. I bounced those. A couple of years ago there was a political analyst and a couple of retail bots. I just left those. I suppose I should check again one of these days.

[blogslut]

5. There are services for people that want a lot of Twitter followers.

I would imagine some of those services just use a database lookup of random Twitter members and have their clients follow them in the hope that the clients will be followed back.

It's a marketing/bot thing.

[hrmjustin]

6. you can block them by going to their profile.

Some are just trying you to get them to follow them, and some are just bots.

If you don't trust them then block.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. Perhaps the male name in your Twitter handle is attracting the "women in your town want to meet men"

business - "escort" if we're polite, "prostitute" if we're not. Email spam of that sort has been around years, so now Twitter gets it. Since my rarely-used Twitter account is also under "Muriel Volestrangler", I'm not getting anything like that (the disadvantage of that name is that when I have used it to send in a comment to a program, I suspect they see "Muriel Volestrangler" and think "nutter or troll" and ignore it ...).