\n<\/p>\n
Somebody sent a strange tip about Spotify to The Verge<\/em> on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The email, with the subject line \u201cSpotify Hackers,\u201d claimed that \u201cEvery English account in America has two new followers, ! lucasrpx and ! vitornovaes.\u201d 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<\/em>. Weird stuff.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n This seemed pretty innocuous \u2014 we doubted they were hackers \u2014 but we had to investigate. It was easy to disprove that the accounts followed \u201cevery English account in America\u201d; the accounts were not following me. (Though full disclosure that I\u2019ve been an Apple Music user for years.) But the accounts did follow two other Verge<\/em> staffers, and a cursory search on X (formerly Twitter) showed that a lot<\/em> of people were wondering<\/a> about these accounts<\/a>. (Based on the images we\u2019ve seen, it appears \u201c! lucasrpx\u201d sometimes went by \u201c! lucas.\u201d)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I asked Spotify about what might be going on. Spokesperson Laura Batey sent me this vague statement: \u201cConfirming 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.\u201d I followed up to ask for more details but haven\u2019t received a reply.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Exactly who or what \u201c! lucasrpx\u201d and \u201c! vitornovaes\u201d are remains a mystery. If I had to guess, I think they\u2019re just spammers who were mass-following people. But they may not be the only other weird accounts following people unexpectedly; one colleague found two followers they didn\u2019t know with the \u201c! [username]\u201d construction for their profiles.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Are you seeing any followers like this? If so, I\u2019d be curious to know in the comments!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n