Your number of Twitter followers is sort of a badge of honour. It doesn’t mean much, but having more is something (stupid) to brag about. Thanks to a bug currently active on Twitter, you can have as many as you want, just by clicking one button heaps of times.
Discovered by Karnesh Mehrah, the bug is dumb easy to exploit. Just log into a second Twitter account, go to the twitter.com/[targethandle], and then hammer on the follow button. You’ll notice the count keeps going up. Here’s my before and after, with about 45 seconds of clicking in between:
If you really want to get busy, you can automate the process in Javascript the way Mehra explains, but just hammering the left mouse button works as well. Once Twitter figures this out, it’s bound to go away (we’ve reached out for comment; sorry, we had to), but Mehra reports his inflated follower count has persisted from some six hours so far.
So if you wanted to know what it’s like to be Twitter famous — or at least look like it — you can go try the exploit too. Although use it at your own risk; Twitter might not be too pleased if they catch you. Don’t look at me if you get suspended. And sure, it’s not quite the boost you get from buying followers, sure, but it’s free and so stupid easy you can’t not give it a try. [Karnesh Mehrah via Hacker News]
Update: When I say [targethandle] I mean the handle you are targeting, but @TargetHandle appreciates the confusion.
thanks @ericlimer & @Gizmodo!!!
— Target Handle (@targethandle) January 26, 2014
Update 2: My follower count has gone back to normal after about two hours, but the trick’s still working.