Fake Follower @Twitter Spam Mars Company's IPO Rollout

Well, that Twitter IPO has a lot of folks atwitter, with some looking forward to a huge payday (see NYT, "The Payday at Twitter Many Were Waiting For").

But for us grunts down in the Twitter trenches, everyday is Twitter gulag defense day. And there's none more hip to that reality than Robert Stacy McCain, who's been plagued by a literal plague of fake followers in some deranged coordinated attack to have his account suspended. TGDN!

See, "Crime Is a People Problem: Why @Twitter Must Prosecute Fake Account Makers."

Online as in real life, every time a criminal gets away with illegal activity, he will be emboldened to further crimes, until he becomes so arrogant about his ability to evade prosecution that his continued spree of criminality is like an advertisement of the ineffectiveness of law enforcement: “You can’t catch me, cops!” Where wrongdoers no longer fear justice, the innocent must always fear wrongdoers.

Twitter is permitting this lawlessness. If they were genuinely determined to prevent the mass creation of fake accounts, there would not be — there could not be — these tens of thousands of fakes that have descended on my account like Egyptian locusts. After nearly 48 hours of this plague, I’m not just angry about the harassment, I’m becoming angry at other people for not being angry about it.

Continue reading.

Hey, it makes me angry, especially that Twitter's known about this problem all along, and is still looking to score that big payday without so much as a reckoning from the markets.

In any case, Robert's at least making a jovial time of it. More here, "‘Gosh, Stacy, There’s No Way @Twitter Could Spot All These Fake Accounts’," and "Dear @Twitter Security: Kill These Fake Accounts (Real People RT, Please)."