Over the last 24 hours I have received 50+ mentions from fake Twitter accounts.

These spam tweets use copied tweet content from my real twitter friends.  Darren Rowse reports he has had hundreds of spam tweets and other people in my twitter circle of friends are also groaning at the moras of tweet spam coming their way.

 

@twitterau we’ve had the #PBEVENT hashtag being hammered since 7am (hundreds of them). All are tweeting old tweets.

— Darren Rowse (@problogger) May 3, 2013

 

Omg this is enough to make me stop using twitter@jimboot @matfitzgerald @whatjanesays @seancallanan @joshrowe @thehoneybar @trevoryoung

— Yvonne Adele (@Yvonne_Adele) May 3, 2013

 

@joshrowe @yvonne_adele @jimboot @whatjanesays @seancallanan @thehoneybar @twitterau Forever in your debt – copped 50 spams today.

— Trevor Young (@trevoryoung) May 3, 2013

 

Here’s an example of an orignal tweet from Darren Rowse to me which has been duplicated and tweeted as their own by fake Twitter accounts.

Taking a closer look at one of the fake Twitter accounts it bears some interesting traits.  At a quick glance the photo and bio look real.  The duplicate tweet even makes the account appear as though they are tweeting with real people.

The fake Twitter account is following real accounts which all have a high follower ratios.

Is it possible that these fake accounts are simply being set up to sell real looking followers to folks who buy Twitter followers?

Here’s what can you do to slow down the Twitter duplicate tweet spam problem:

1. Report every single one of these fake Twitter accounts as spam
2. Tweet Twitter @support that this is a problem
3. Tweet your local Twitter country rep that this is a problem, for Australia that is @TwitterAU

The more data Twitter is able to collect on these spammers then the more likely that Twitter will be able to build automated systems to slow the Twitter spammers down in the future.