Porn Bots Are Now Storming Twitter's Trending Topics (Endgadget)
Read the full article by Edgar Alvarez at Endgadget.com
“...if this does not scare you, call me on whatsapp”
Instagram isn't the only social media app being invaded by porn bots. Now they're on Twitter, too. For the past few days, as I was scrolling through Twitter's trending section, I noticed a number of accounts showing similar behavior as the bots that have taken over Instagram comments. But, whereas on Instagram they're leaving messages like "We gonna ignore the fact that I've GOT A HUGE BOOTY?" or "DON'T LOOK at my STORY, if you don't want to M A S T U R B A T E !" on Twitter the spam also includes pictures of women in bikinis and a bunch of words relevant to topics currently trending on Twitter. And they're even more brazen in their attempts to lure in gullible readers, with messages like "I moan very much during sex, if this does not scare you, call me on whatsapp."
One account Tweeted, "Marzia Pewds KickItOut Tusk Will Keane Irish Sea Phil Lynoott Chopra josh kroenke Lavazza Joe Sugg Dulux Nick Timothy Ben Unwin Amy Adams US Steel Little Brother USA Network Congrats Felix." US Steel was trending on Twitter on Tuesday after reports that the company plans to lay off hundreds of workers in Michigan, while Amy Adams was getting thousands of birthday wishes from people. The goal of these spam accounts, all of which are pretending to be women, seems to be the same as their Instagram counterparts: to get you to visit a sketchy porn site that will then ask for your personal information, including email address, age, location and, if you get far enough, credit card number.
What's more interesting is that the accounts we discovered showed up under the "Top" tab of Twitter's trending section, not "Latest," meaning they were one of the first things people saw if they viewed the river of tweets on any hot topic. All the accounts were created in August and they used the "Pinned Tweet" feature of the app to try to promote a website. "Looking for a guy with a good dick and for sex and relationships," tweeted the account @calvi_anna, whose tweets and pictures have now all been removed. In that same pinned tweet, the bot added, "My WhatsApp is on the site in the profile information about me, call me. Watch my private videos for free after a simple registration."
Thing is, even if you did want to get into a relationship with "calvin_anna," once you click on the URL she tweeted, you get redirected to sites like snapfuck.com, benaughty.com or onenightfriend.com. Some of these are the same sites you'll come across when you fall for a scheme from the bots leaving comments on Instagram, except on Twitter they're using trending topics to run their operation.