Quick question for the community: Over the past few days, has anyone noticed unusual follower activity? I'm talking about sudden spikes with accounts that look... automated?
What I'm Seeing
My follower count jumped from ~50 to 130 basically overnight. When I checked the profiles, nearly all the new followers had:
Zero posts, completely empty bios
Generic username patterns (user_xxxxx style)
Default avatars
No activity history (no comments, reactions, nothing)
Account created recently
Why I'm Asking
Before I assume this is a platform-wide issue, I wanted to check if others are experiencing the same thing. I built a quick Python audit script to analyze my followers, and the results were... concerning. Nearly 80% of my recent followers match classic bot characteristics.
For the Security/Data Folks
If you've seen similar patterns, I'm curious what heuristics you're using to detect them. My current approach checks:
Profile completeness (bio presence, post count, avatar type)
Username entropy and common bot patterns
Account age vs. activity ratio
Engagement signals (comments, reactions, follows/following ratio)
The pattern is pretty consistent across the suspected accounts, which suggests automated account creation rather than organic growth.
Not Trying to Be Alarmist
I've already reached out to the Dev.to team to share my findings. I'm not here to complain—I genuinely want to understand if this is:
Something others are experiencing
A known issue the team is already addressing
Just me being paranoid about metrics that don't really matter
For those of us trying to build real credibility here—especially in security, research, and data-integrity fields—follower authenticity actually matters. When half the engagement comes from accounts that look automated or inactive, it dilutes the signal and makes it harder to measure genuine reach. And in this line of work, when you're building and testing security tools, visibility can make you a target. So… anyone else noticing this?
Have you noticed similar follower spikes?
Are you seeing the same bot patterns?
Should we even care about follower counts if they're this easy to game?
Would be interested to hear if this is isolated or part of a broader pattern.
Why Early Detection Matters:
Here's the thing about bot waves: they're manageable when caught early, but exponentially harder to clean up once they've established a foothold. I've seen this pattern in network security—automated threats that start small and seem harmless can metastasize into infrastructure problems that require major intervention.
The sooner we identify and address bot patterns on platforms like this, the easier it is to preserve authentic engagement metrics and community trust. Waiting until the problem is "obvious" usually means it's already embedded in the ecosystem.
That's why I'm raising this now, while it's still just a pattern I noticed—not a crisis the platform has to manage.
Top comments (1)
Will keep a lookout for this pattern. Only have about 7 followers and the 2 I recently gained look legit. I also think it’s important to blow the whistle when discovered, so this doesn’t turn into X.