"Twitpocalypse!" tweeted Wired magazine yesterday. In its attempt to fix a bug that was allowing users to force other users to follow them, Twitter temporarily set all users' follower and following numbers to zero.
"We identified and resolved a bug that permitted a user to 'force' other users to follow them," Twitter explained in its status blog on Monday. "Follower/following numbers are currently at 0; we're aware and this too should shortly be resolved." The resolution took all day, but Twitter managed it. By evening the status blog noted, "We've finished our cleanup of the spurious followings generated as a result of this bug."
Before the cleanup was finished several Twitter users became convinced that their accounts had been hacked. Justin Bieber tweeted, "Hackers i send a warning...u have now pissed off over 2 million teenage girls. They are more dangerous than Navy Seals." Bieber's 2.3 million followers are back today.
Apparently Twitter had had the "force follow" bug for a while. It wasn't the result of any hacking. It was simply there in Twitter's codes: if you typed "accept Oprah," Oprah would follow you. If you typed "accept Bob Marley," Bob Marley would follow you. The bug was discovered by accident, by a Turkish Twitter user who sent a tip to Gizmodo, which published instructions on how to force Twitter users to follow you. Soon Twitterers all over the world were forcing follows.
The self storage community survived the Twitpocalypse with little disruption. Inside Self-Storage, for example, is back to its normal 387 followers. Mini Storage Messenger was taking the day off from tweeting and missed the whole thing. So did the national Self Storage Association. Many self storage companies are just starting to try Twitter, and instead of feverishly tweeting all day, they tweet once a month or once every two years, in some cases. Classic Self Storage of Cumming, Georgia, for example, has been craving coconut cream pie since last October, and probably didn't notice that her 263 followers disappeared for several hours yesterday, only to return at about 9:30 p.m. Georgia time -- just about the time for a nice slice of pie, coincidentally. Beehive Storage of Ogden, Utah, was focused on raising money for the American Cancer Society fundraiser, Relay for Life, and busily tweeted about that, ignoring the lack of followers.
Sources used:
Albanesius, Chloe. "Zero followers? Twitter fixes 'force follow' bug." PC Magazine. May 10, 2010.
"The real story behind Twitter's ridiculous follow bug." Gizmodo. May 10, 2010.
Twitter. "Follow bug discovered, remedied." Twitter Status Blog. May 10, 2010.