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Twitter bug lets users fake followers

Twitter says it has fixed a glitch that has allowed users to seem more popular by making it appear that celebrities had subscribed to read their mini-blog postings known as tweets.
/ Source: The Associated Press

Twitter says it has fixed a glitch that has allowed users to seem more popular by making it appear that celebrities had subscribed to read their mini-blog postings known as tweets.

The flaw allowed some Twitter users to game the popularity contest. It allowed users to add anyone else as a follower of their tweets. Normally, the other person has to initiate such "following."

It's unclear how long the flaw existed and how many people took advantage of it. Twitter Inc. says it's looking at the issue.

A side effect of the fix was that for about an hour on Monday, Twitter users showed zero followers while the company fixed the problem.