Somebody sent a strange tip about Spotify to The Verge on Wednesday. The email, with the subject line “Spotify Hackers,” claimed that “Every English account in America has two new followers, ! lucasrpx and ! vitornovaes.” The tipster followed up two minutes later to share a screenshot showing the profile pictures from the accounts, which featured characters from the Studio Ghibli movie Ponyo. Weird stuff.
I asked Spotify about what might be going on. Spokesperson Laura Batey sent me this vague statement: “Confirming that these accounts have been disabled for violating our terms. Note that while they are no longer accessible to the user, they may still be visible on the platform.” I followed up to ask for more details but haven’t received a reply.
TLDR; they don’t know. Spotify banned them but provided no further info.
Weird. I just checked my spotify account and both of them were following me.
I didn’t even notice but yeah I have both following me on an Australian account
Edit: weird they’re actually not the first mass follower bot accounts either
Same on an account originally created in Belgium. Looks like a global thing. Weird that you don’t get notified if someone follows you.
Yeah I’m surprised I have anyone following me, this is creepy
I had to check (oz) and yep, can confirm. Feel bad for removing them for the effort but those 2 playlists though… 🤨
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The email, with the subject line “Spotify Hackers,” claimed that “Every English account in America has two new followers, !
vitornovaes.” The tipster followed up two minutes later to share a screenshot showing the profile pictures from the accounts, which featured characters from the Studio Ghibli movie Ponyo.
This seemed pretty innocuous — we doubted they were hackers — but we had to investigate.
(Though full disclosure that I’ve been an Apple Music user for years.)
Spokesperson Laura Batey sent me this vague statement: “Confirming that these accounts have been disabled for violating our terms.
Note that while they are no longer accessible to the user, they may still be visible on the platform.” I followed up to ask for more details but haven’t received a reply.
The original article contains 289 words, the summary contains 127 words. Saved 56%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!