The New York Times asked a couple of weekends back, “Can Social Media Sell Soap?” The article pointed out that even the Pope is now on Twitter. Celebrities like the Pope and the Dalai Lama attract millions of followers. Or, do they? Twitter will never tell you the truth. But I will.

The Pope does not have 1.4 million followers. He actually has a fraction of that number.

You can prove it yourself with our simple “Follower Pooper Home Detection Kit.” No materials are required. All you do is click on the Pope’s “Followers” button on the Pope’s Twitter page (@Pontifex).

Once you see the list of followers scroll down a ways and pick a group of names at random – any group of names. I did that and the above screen shot shows a representative group of the Pope’s Twitter followers. We’ll use the names I found, but those of you who are playing at home, can use the names you find. It won’t matter.

Only of handful of the names listed are what any rational person could call legitimate Twitter accounts. The rest never tweet, don’t show any biographical information, don’t have any followers, or haven’t used their account for ages. Many qualify on every single one of these criteria.

For instance, the doofus pictured below has no followers and has tweeted once in December. But, he’s a Pope Follower:

And the yo-yo pictured below got himself motivated enough to follow 87 people somewhere along the line, but only one idiot was crazy enough to follow him back. He’s tweeted a sum total of 3 times, most recently in September, when he said, “I love my #cousins!!! They are so crazy!!!”. But, he’s a Pope Follower:

This goes on and on and on and on. I took many more screen shots, but I promise not to bore you. They are all Pope Followers.

You can check my work by doing exactly this same exercise. Most followers on Twitter aren’t active, aren’t participating, aren’t Tweeting, aren’t revealing any information about themselves, and, likely, aren’t even real people. Without question, they are not worth having as a follower.

Yes, of course, you can find some legitimate followers, but they are few and far between. Here’s an editor of a New York newspaper who is following the Pope.

If you are extremely generous, you might deem that about 1 in 10 followers of the Pope are in any way legitimate. That means that if the Pope now has a million followers, he likely has 100,000 real followers.

But NO ONE ever points this out. They keep writing things like: “Barry Boofburger has 310 followers.” Nope, sorry folks, Barry really has about 31 followers.

Twitter will never tell you this. Articles about social media will never tell you this. And, your social media director will definitely never tell you this.

In baseball, only pitchers can have a batting average of .100 and still stay in the major leagues. Yes, the dirty little secret is that the Mighty Twitter strikes out almost every time at bat.

Considering this, it’s amazing that we keep asking Twitter to step up to the plate at all. Or maybe just stupid.

This is the screen shot that I took of a ways down Sam R’s followers (see comments below):

Lately I’ve been ignoring Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and pretty much the rest of the “cloudy with a chance of anything” world of technology. I’ve been hiking, listening to music and reading books.

Meanwhile, over in the Internet world, the “Do no evil” guys have gotten nabbed more than once with their fingers in our private cookie jars.  The biggest “Like-me” guys have yet again claimed, this time through their lackey, that your private photos, well, aren’t really yours. And those “Linker-lubbers” realized no one was ever gonna’ actually write a testimonial, even for their best buddies, so they devised a simple click button and promoted the hell out of it. I know, I know, you’ve all been “endorsed” a million times lately. Me too.

The sad fact is that the world of social media is now a such a festering swamp of fakers, flim-flammers, criminals and idiots (and those are just the CEO’s!) that it makes talk radio look like a cultural Mecca.

Perhaps, if what we were doing with all this instant Internet deluge was in some way better than what we were sacrificing, it might be worth it. But, it’s pretty hard to see how the inanity and grossness of Twitter, the self-promotion of LinkedIn and the belly-button watching of Facebook could ever substitute for Leo Tolstoy’s novels, Verdi’s La Traviata or an early morning sunrise in a remote Utah canyon.

It’s encouraging to see that many more people are now questioning all this, asking things like:

• Might we be losing our gifts of reflection, distance and quiet?
• Do we know how to slow down anymore?
• Are we sacrificing sunsets for instant updates?
• Are we trading the fullness of a well-crafted 1,000 page novel for constant intrusive text messages?
• Are we missing our kids smiles and cries while we check email on our dumb phones?

Sure, the smug ones still yell “Technophobe!” and “Luddite!” But, concerns about Internet issues like safety, privacy, access, education, psychology, parenting, meditation (and on and on) aren’t anti-technology, they are simply life affirming reminders that if we don’t step back and take the time to ask where we’re going, we might end up someplace none of us wanted to go.

So, let’s get back to work. Let’s keep asking those questions, bringing up those issues and challenging those folks who constantly insist that the Internet Emperors are regally attired in the finest silk and gold, when in fact they’re just plain starkers.

By Guest Writer, Gary Ujifusa

Gary Ujifusa got paid well for 28 years by a Fortune 200 company to travel and conditionally learn new things. Now, he’s retired and his travel and learning are non-conditional and unpaid. He finds this to be a great trade.

Much has been written (here and elsewhere) about Facebook’s intrusion into our lives. After reading this website’s blog article, Armed and Not Dangerous, I wondered why I was not more concerned and upset about Facebook’s “what’s in my brain” algorithms.

I wondered why Facebook has to be so damned sneaky about it.  And really it’s only the sneaky part that mildly bothers me.

• Want to know who my friends are? Hey, no problem. Poke around until your fingers are all blue.
• Trying to determine my purchasing patterns? Ask me and I’ll tell you.
• Wondering what music I like? I’ll send you a few sample cd’s.

Sharing this information really doesn’t bother me much and I sense it bothers my children and other adult Gen X’ers even less.

Can I Tell You What DOES Bother Me?!

What does bother me (and I think should bother everyone a great deal) are the private banking financial institutions.

These banks employ thousands and thousands of young 20-something college graduates who occupy pretty ordinary worker bee positions as collections representatives, consumer loan representatives and mortgage clerks.

My son worked for 6 months after college at a major bank and my daughter’s best friend worked at another major bank for two years after he graduated. The amount of personal information they had access to is truly scary.

What They Know

The information your average consumer loan representative who earns $25,000 a year can find out about you would make your hair stand on end. I know because my daughter’s friend and son told me what information they could access.

Think Zuckerberg is a loose cannon 20-something guy?  These bank kids make Zuckerberg look like The Pope. They make little money and have big information power about their peers, parents and neighbors.

Do you think they never let the genie out of the bottle? I mean they sign confidentiality statements, right? Any bank employee with access to your basic banking information can pretty much tell everything about your purchasing habits, how much money you owe and to whom, how much money you have in the bank, any financial problems you’ve had in the past and the list goes on and on.

This Time It’s Personal

I worked closely with XX Bank for four years. It was a signed confidentiality and non-disclosure relationship. After the first year I seriously thought about buying a safe, purchasing gold bricks with all my money and burying the safe under my concrete basement floor.

I’ve also worked closely with XXXX Bank. They had good external security, but rubbish for systems and internal information security.  I could rant on for days about my experiences with them.

UBS is one of the largest financial institutions in the world. I have a very close friend who is a high level financial advisor for UBS. He’s been trying to persuade me to move some of our secure, but hardly-making-money pension money, into more profitable vehicles.

We had lunch one week and I asked him about security and audit at UBS. He talked about it through the rest of our lunch. "Absolutely no need to worry" he said.

Two days later a young man was charged with $2.3 billion dollar fraud. That’s a billion. You guessed it, the young man was a UBS day trader working out of his home. He is no doubt smiling because there is probably another billion in gold bricks buried under his concrete basement floor. If he had not been so greedy, maybe kept it under a billion or $600 million, he might have been just fine.

I immediately called my friend and he said he would get back to me. He did, but had no good answer about how this could have happened.

They never do. They never do because their internal systems are not that smart and they have very smart, dishonest people working inside their institutions, sometimes at relatively low levels, sometimes at C-levels.

The Ground Floor

That’s why Facebook or Twitter or Linkedin or Myspace are little peanuts to me. There are other really immense privacy issues people should know about.

I hope many citizens and those in government do not stop looking into the business of banks and key financial institutions. There is nothing wrong with asking those institutions what they do. If they’re doing good things, like all reputable companies who do good things, they should be proud to open up their books and talk about it.

Until that happens, does anyone know a contractor who does cement floors?

You’ve joined a LinkedIn Group. Unfortunately, Peter Peddler has joined the same group. Since legitimate email services have already heaved his ho-ho-ho out the door, he’s joined LinkedIn because LinkedIn allows him to spam you with impunity.

Last week I got a private LinkedIn message (pictured above) from Peter Peddler. In the screen shot I took, I was careful to change his name (lawyers are just too expensive these days), but you’ll soon see I needn’t have worried.

Peter wanted to know if my website was a bust – and could he fix it for me to produce new business “day after day, month after month, year after year, like CLOCKWORK.”

No, I wanted the creep to leave my inbox alone, but even more I wanted LinkedIn to stop allowing this sort of nonsense.

Group Gropes

The reason Peter could send me this spam message was because both he and I belong to the same LinkedIn Group, in this case “The Sales Association-Colorado Chapter.” Peter had just joined the group 15 hours before, but he’d managed in those 15 hours to send his pitch to everyone in the group – AND to post the same pitch on the Group’s so-called “Discussion” board.

The Emperor is Clothed in a Stock Photo

Well, Peter is a good looking guy, isn’t he? Which got us to wondering. Peter, you see, had only 3 connections on LinkedIn. He listed himself as a consultant to a company called “Marketing Drive Worldwide.”

You’d be surprised at how many people sending you messages on social networks aren’t really people at all. Nope – take a look.

We dropped his photo into Google for more information. Yes, is this a great Internet or what? Just drop a photo into Google’s Image search (click on the little camera to do it) and you can find almost anyone.

And, we did.

Oh My Gosh, Batman!

Peter, it seems is so good looking the guy really gets around. Imagine! He is the poster child of Level Five Solutions:

He is also one of the happy humans that Sanders Consultants helped find his dream job. In fact, it turns out, Peter’s lovely mug is all over the Internet. How did that happen?!

Peter, you see, is really just a stock photo available for download from Photos.com.

And, if you think Peter is the only one doing this… well, you’d be wrong. Pick a few of your latest Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook followers and you’ll find that this practice is one of the leading forms of social media deception. Kind of makes you want to puke, doesn’t it?

Yes, Peter is not Peter, and as we’ve said over and over again, Natsume is not Natsume, David Ccyris is not David Ccyris and so on, ad nauseum.

Clicks Just Keep Gettin’ Harder to Find

So we can take the cover off now. It’s official, Peter Peddler is actually Michael Lohan – so no more need to worry about lawyers.

But wait, there’s more! Michael Lohan is not really Michael Lohan. He’s merely one of the thousands of made-up swindlers cynically haunting social media sites these days. He’s there to get his clicks. Yes, it’s money for nuthin’ and your clicks for free. Your loss. My loss. Our loss. Soon to be LinkedIn’s loss. Don’t buy their stock.

And even though he’s as fraudulent as a $3 bill, how would you know? You wouldn’t. But, LinkedIn knows about these guys – and they do absolutely nothing at all about them.

Whack-a-Mole

We did find someone who cared. The administrator of the LinkedIn Group, “The Sales Association-Colorado Chapter,” is Jeff Arnold. He responded to my email quickly and within hours had booted this fake “Michael Lohan” out of his LinkedIn Group.

Jeff, however, admitted his frustration with these kinds of “members”. He told me:

WE just don’t have enough time in the day to monitor such posts.  I frequently block and delete problem posters, but it’s a game of whack-a-mole.  You get one, another one pops up.

So, What Did LinkedIn Say?

Linkedin, on the other hand, wrote back a multi-paragraph generic upchuck email to my request that they throw Michael out. They told me the Group Manager is responsible. They allowed as how they don’t really have any power at all:

Please understand that the group management team is responsible for decisions about inappropriate discussions or comments as well as the activity of perceived “spam” that is posted in the discussion threads.

Please note that groups are member-generated content and not sponsored or sanctioned by LinkedIn. While spamming fellow group members is not considered a best practice for groups, joining a group and being open to messaging from a large open community can sometimes result in unwanted items.

To maintain the integrity of your group, please report any of these discussions or comments using the “Flag as Inappropriate” option.

You have to love it! Michael Lohan has nothin’ to do with us, LinkedIn says. How ‘bout a “Flag as Inappropriate” option that we could put on the total inaction of LinkedIn? That’s a flag I’d like to see.

Thank goodness for folks like Jeff Arnold, is all I have to say. They’re out there whacking the moles that LinkedIn ought to be snuffing out before they invade your inbox, your groups’ discussions, or before they sidle up to you and become your “friend.”

Yup, Lindsay Lohan Told Us

Do you still think the time you spend (or, more importantly, the time you must spend avoiding these kinds of dirtbags) is somehow worth it? Think about it. Someday the Pollyanna Pitchmen of social media will get off their duffs and begin to join in the fight against bot faces like Michael.

How might LinkedIn protect their site – and their stock price? The best thing they could do is to start throwing out the Michael Lohans of the world “day after day, month after month, year after year, like CLOCKWORK.”

It’s Spring Training time and baseball nuts are out in force. The real nuts, however, may just be the companies like MLB.com who seem to be selling their customer service soul to social media clowns.

MLB offers many ways to enjoy the baseball season, but by far the one that feeds the hungry baseball soul is their whole TV package. For a really reasonable amount of money MLB.TV makes it possible to watch major and minor league baseball games on your iPad, TV, phone, placemat, bathtub, ceiling tiles and even your neighbor’s begonias.

But, here’s the rub. The start of the spring training season has been frustrating because the folks running MLB seem to be off on vacation in Aruba.

Just when we need them the most, they are absent without leave on Twitter. Oh, they’re there, but they’re just not responding.

MLB.TV customers have been asking questions, making suggestions and even raving ecstatically about them, but they’ve responded virtually none of them.

Yes, some of their customers have been frustrated because the apps for MLB.TV have been showing up very slowly, or sometimes not at all.

Case in point? The apps for the iPad and iPhone remained “MLB 2011” all the way through February (even after pitchers and catchers reported). The 2012 version showed up only after March roared. The 2012 MLB app is still nowhere to be found on Roku – a sensational little device that turns your TV into a monster home entertainment system that will hurtle you towards unemployment, divorce and starvation. But you won’t care.

Except – MLB is clearly not delivering to Roku:

Has MLB.TV answered any of their customers’ questions, frustrations and complaints? Nope.

And, most all of the folks who are asking questions or complaining are legitimate fans with connections and reach that extend beyond their own gadgets. For instance, Steve writes a baseball blog called “The Baseball Enthusiast” and Lincoln helps run ShutdownInning.com – which is devoted to the Texas Rangers. Others making their voices heard are just as legitimate and connected.

MLB’s Twitter crew has done virtually nothing, though. Do you suppose that MLB’s management knows that their social media team has been sucking their thumbs? I doubt it.

Look, I love MLB.com. I just don’t think they are well-served by their Twitter guys, whoever they may be. Perhaps they’re busy watching spring training games…

True social media experts know that interaction with their fans and critics is the essence of the power of Twitter (and other social media sites).  We’ve scolded other favorite companies before – for instance, in “Are You Snubbing Your Very Best Customers and Fans?”

As we said in that article, if Chris Brogan, Gary Vaynerchuk, other even bigger companies and other popular performers can respond to their fans and critics, then so can these baseball guys. At 20,000 followers and a handful of questions, @MLBTV can surely handle it. Those mentioned above have hundreds of thousands and even millions of followers, and they manage to respond quickly to almost everyone.

Don’t be Baseball Nuts, MLB – get a Twitter clue and start responding to your fans. They’re ready to become fanatics, but not if you continue to scorn them.

It arrives over and over and over again. It’s that oh so personal message, “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.” No explanation and no referral. Just click here, please. It’s making LinkedIn ecstatic. But, it should be making you nervous.

Yes, these days scads of Linda Dlugler’s have been asking to Link to us. We don’t know them from a hole in the wall. They’re mathematicians from Houma, Louisiana and restaurateurs from Scranton PA, but goody-goodie, they all want to connect to us.

Does Linda Really Want Me?

What Linda wants, Linda usually gets. If Linda asks us to connect, most of us are simply saying “Yes,” even when we’ve no idea who she is. That’s because LinkedIn wants us to think that’s our only choice. I mean, after all, it would be grumpy and mean to click the “Ignore Button,” because, well, it would be downright anti-social.

You see, LinkedIn wants as many followers following followers of followers following followers (do you follow?)  because that’s how it builds it’s value. After all, the more people who “group-on” to LinkedIn, the better, right?

Well, right if we’re deciding what’s good for LinkedIn; wrong if we are deciding what’s good for you. Having thousands of contacts who mean nothing to you – and you mean nothing to them – is the way to spam, computer viruses and even criminal attacks. We’ve written about this until we’re blue in the face – but LinkedIn Bubble? Or, Bobble-Heads? and Armed and Not Dangerous are good places to start.

Fight Back with Write Back

I don’t know how many people have told me – “Yes, but I can only accept or ignore the invitation.” NO, not true, you can write back and ask these folks to give you more information. But, LinkedIn doesn’t really want you to know that.

Pay attention. There’s a tiny little arrow next to the “Accept” Button. The “Accept” Button is big, so you’ll click it, even by accident. The arrow is tiny, and most people miss it entirely. However, if you click that arrow, you can actually “Reply (don’t accept yet):”

When Linda asked me in that highly personalized way, “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn,” although my heart was all aflutter with the anticipation of a new connection, here’s what I said when I clicked “Reply:”

Dear Linda,

I’ve loved you all my life – and I shall love you forever. But first please, tell me who you are. I understand that you’d like to link to me, but you whisper not a word of why. Why me? Is it my charm, my charisma, my spicy, insightful blog articles, or something else altogether? Please write and fill me in,

Your patient servant,

8 out of 10 never write back. 1 out of 10 write back with a weak and generic claim that it’s good to connect to 37,000 people (why that might be they never really say – it’s just good). And, the other 1 says something like, “It’s your mother, Michael – call me sometime.”

Linkedin has been clear forever – get introduced through someone who knows the person you want to link to, and tell them why.

That’s out of one side of their mouth. They’d go broke if you followed it. Who’s encouraging indiscriminate following, linking and liking? Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook all assault you with “connection” offers. Here’s a recent screen from my Facebook account:

Why do they do it? Because the more customers they have and the more links they promote, the more they can brag that they’ve got zillions of users.

These days, however, serious articles about what is being called “social media overload” are starting to appear. The frightening privacy implications of online social sites are finally becoming evident. Serious people are beginning to apply Robin Dunbar’s studies of apes and gorillas (very apt when it comes to social media types) about how FEW connections we can actually handle. It’s called Dunbar’s Number – look it up.

But, studies and articles aside, this is how one of my friends feels about it:

I’m pretty dormant on all of the social network stuff.  Facebook is creeping me out and all I see are the same people announcing they put ketchup on their fries 20 minutes ago and other earth-shattering pronouncements.  LinkedIn reads like a series of self-appraisals in which they pulled out Roget’s Corporate Jargon and Buzzword Thesaurus. I don’t think I’m missing much by sitting on the sidelines.

Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter had better pay attention to my friend Jim if they treasure their stock prices and care about satisfying their investors. Big numbers don’t necessarily mean big stock prices. In fact, big numbers of nitwits, sellers and spammers pumping out the trivial, the mean and the misleading almost surely foretells a crash.

Too bad, because I liked connecting to some of you… just not all of you.

Here’s a screen shot that pretty much tells the story of why a once fairly intriguing form of communication has gone down the tubes so quickly. Spammers are now piling onto Twitter in swarms and very few people seem to care, and even fewer are willing to point them out for you.

I took the screen shot above a week or so ago – and it’s not at all an unusual point in Twitter time these days. It shows the messages that are specifically addressed to me (on Twitter these are called “@ messages”). It also shows the folks who have recently followed me.

At the time of my screen capture, no one of any use or value was sending me a message or following me. But, quite a number of spammers and vultures were.

Be Still My Heart

These kinds of vermin crawl out from under their rocks and accost you just about any time you send off a tweet. Zillions of them are following you, and zillions of them are following every other Twitter user.

So, who are these icky people? Well, it only took a few days for Twitter to hoist @FreeKindleBook2 right out on their little backside. You see, @FreeKindleBook2 was an outright spammer – linked to a bogus site. And, yes, they’re gone, good riddance.

It’s hard not to notice, but they were following 640 people and only 43 followed them back. I guess not that hard to notice, because those 43 sure didn’t.

The moral is don’t follow people who follow way more people than are willing to follow them back. Or, maybe the real moral is don’t be one of those people yourself.

Who Else Came to Twitter Town?

Well, @Yonjs8 tweeted to me specifically (I feel so special) that they were now hiring and also offered a link. Even though I desperately wanted to get hired by someone, I had no doubt that if I clicked the link, my computer would have burped Cheerios and nails for the rest of its life, so I didn’t. But, of course, just like with email spam, a small percentage of us do click –and that’s why these criminals find social media such fertile ground.

As for @BDvissablla176 and @YoungNatividadN Twitter has not thrown their tushes out yet. Maybe, just maybe, that’s because… well, no, no, no we are not going to go there, this is a family friendly blog.

@BDvissablla176  gave up on Twitter after sending out only 3 tweets. Maybe that’s because she was crushed that I did not respond to her offer to go to the “next level of networking.”

These kinds of Twitter spam offers are one of the reasons it’s far less likely that people will reply to your “@ messages” these days. They simply can’t tell your legitimate message from the punks and slime balls, and they’ve given up trying. Since communicating with other people is one of the most important aspects of Twitter, this spells some significant trouble for Twitter.

And Miles to Go

Finally, my last follower from the picture at the beginning of this article is @YoungNatividadN. She keeps on merrily tweeting away, every hour of every day. She finds no time to sleep at all – ever. You can actually see this for yourself, but why would you? We’ve done it for you.

The point is that Twitter keeps trying to kick off the spammers, and it succeeds in a tiny minority of cases. But, Twitter is woefully outmatched and outmaneuvered by the vast majority of spammers, sleaze balls, idiots – and automatons like Natividad.

But, Twitter is So Hot

Yup, it’s true. Now, more than ever, big companies like GE and Target are joining Twitter and crowing about it in their advertising. Celebrities like Lady Gaga and TiddyTwiceTea are hopping on board and gushing away. And television is so enraptured by Twitter that it’s positively embarrassing to watch.

But, unless you want to sell your soul to corporations or you just want a new version of People magazine on your desktop, you have to think long and hard whether it’s worth the hassle of weeding your way through this kind of guck.

You also have to ask yourself. Why are there so many social media boosters willing to sell you on the idea of Twitter? And, why are there so few that will mention the evident and important drawbacks? But, I’m sorry, you have to be the one to ask that, and I hope you will.

No one seems to care anymore that tons of folks are following slimeballs on Twitter. I’ll bet you’re doing it, too. But, you couldn’t be broadcasting your disdain for others, and for Twitter, any louder than by doing this.

Most of the people on Twitter who follow idiots are doing it through an automatic follow program. Hey, there’s nothing more “social” than an automated program. Most of these folks argue, “Who cares – it’s all good.”

Well, as we’ve pointed out time and again that’s an attitude that paves the road to viruses, spam and even early onset doofussness. It’s not all good.

The point of this article is to warn you about the growing number of these kinds of lollypop-heads – and hope and pray that you aren’t one of them.

Follow, Follow, Follow, Follow

Let’s take a particular example (which I changed slightly to protect the innocent – namely, me). We’ll call him Bubby Braggadocio (and we’ll say his Twitter handle is @BubbyBrag) Here’s his profile (edited only a tad):

LinkedIn & Social Media Guru, Trainer, Online Optimizer, Personal Haiku Writer, Husband, Father, Son, Follower of John the Baptist, Door Stop and Man of Destiny.

You know the type. He’s used automatic follow and automatic follow-back programs to run his numbers up into the stratosphere.

He follows 52, 142 poor souls and he’s followed by 67,205 even more bereft ones. These are actual numbers from an actual Bubby type person, and there are jillions of his ilk on Twitter (and a good hunk of them are following you if you only take the time to look).

Bubby Billboard

Yes, he’s following you – as are his henchmen, roadies, dope peddlers and suck-ups. But, don’t, for god’s sake, follow him back.

Why?

Well, ask yourself this – can anyone follow 52,000 people? Do you suppose @BubbyBrag is ever looking at his Twitter stream to see what @Slmmbll is saying on Twitter? No, and he’s not looking at what you say, either.

Following 52,000 people is just an advertisement that says, “I don’t give a flying fish about you – all I’m doing in collecting numbers.” So, if you think you might “network” with him, converse with him, joke with him, or in any way interact with him, we’ll, you can just fahgettaboudit.

And, if you were to look, you would find that he’s only ever broadcasted tweets about himself, and he’s never, ever interacted with anyone via an “@ Message.” Also, you’ll probably not be surprised to know that no one has ever sent him an “@ Message” either.

But, here’s the deal – you actually don’t need to check this bozo’s Twitter stream to see if he ever interacts. The number of people he is following means he CAN’T interact, because no one can keep track of that many people.

Numbers Game

These folks have been told that it’s all about having numbers. Which is why they are cynical – and why they threaten Twitter. Currently, well north of half of all new Twitter users show no understanding at all of a reasonably manageable Follow/Follower ratio.

So, if you want to follow people on Twitter who might actually have a “social networking” relationship with you, stay away from these folks. They’re just counting social media coup. And you’re likely to end up scalped in more ways than one.

We’ve often written about how rude it is when people don’t respond on Twitter. Now, it’s more than rude; it can even be downright dangerous.

Here’s the deal. No matter how much you practice “Safe Following,” you’re still at risk on Twitter if the folks you follow don’t practice “Safe Following,” too.

You see, when you follow someone on Twitter, they can send you private messages (called Direct Messages or “DM’s”). These should be legitimate and intentional, but they’re not always. Notice the DM message pictured at the beginning of this post. It says, “Found a funny picture of you.” That sure sounds legit, no? Well, if you click on it, your computer will have been hacked.

Be Honest and Let People Know

When this happens to folks, it’s embarrassing for them, but most of them belly up to the Twitter bar and admit it. They say they’re sorry, and they warn their followers of the danger. Must be difficult, but it’s also absolutely necessary.

Do a Twitter search for the phrase “Found a funny picture of you” – and you’ll see for yourself that there are thousands of folks who’ve been infected this way.

Our Own Worst Enemy

Notice that the DM message does not say, “Jessica, I found a crazy picture of  you at the Wood Whittling Conference.” Nope, it’s a generic message, not a specific one at all – which means it can be automated. That, indeed, is exactly what’s happening. The bad guys are playing to our vanity, and automating it.

You can also do a simple Google search for whatever DM message you’re concerned about. If your message is an automated hacking attempt – other folks will have written about it:

Chilling, isn’t it. And, in this instance, you will find a few articles from a Google search, but considering the extent and danger of these attacks, remarkably few, indeed.

The folks over at NakedSecurity wrote a post (and thanked @TweetSmarter for the alert) called “Found a funny picture of you! Twitter phishing attack.”

They warn:

Everyone needs to learn to be on their guard against phishing attacks like this. If you did receive a message like the above, please tell your online friend that their account has been compromised, and they should urgently change their passwords.

So, if this happens to you – don’t ignore the folks who tweet to you about it. You are infected. Change your passwords right away. But, more importantly – admit it. Out in the open. Fess up. You’ll save your friends (and you) a lot of pain and heartache that way.

What Can You Do To Stay Safe?

There are three main things you can do to protect yourself against DM spammers:

1. Never use an auto-follow program
2. Don’t follow people who follow thousands (or even hundreds of thousands) of people
3. Don’t click on a link in a DM message unless you are sure of it

Learn From the Very Best

Chris Brogan is maybe the best Twitter mind on the planet. He once followed almost everyone – indeed he followed over 100,00o people not that long ago. But, not anymore!

Chris learned that he was being inundated with DM spam. He publicly and honestly had to change his “Follow Philosophy” and he now follows about 400 people. Read what he says in “The Great Twitter Unfollow Experiment of 2011” and “Update to the Unfollow Experiment.”

Good for Chris. And, good for you, if you keep following good people and stay away from the dipsy doodles. Yes, go ahead and even keep sending DM’s (and reading your DM’s) when a private message is appropriate. But, good lord, quit following everyone on Twitter.

And, if you’re hacked – admit it, openly, please.

It’s time to admit something. It’s time for therapy. It’s time to let you all know just how disappointed I am in you. Don’t take it personally. It’s my problem. I’m getting help for it. Promise.

When the Internet came along about 10 or so years ago (OK, I was a little slow) I was incredibly intrigued. I thought, “You know, all these people out there – someone might like me.” I also thought, “And a few of them might even share my interest in Edward Abbey.”

Turns out I was wrong. Despite the Internet, almost no one still really likes me. And, almost no one has ever shared their enthusiasm with me for one of the greatest writers of the past decades.

The AOL Years

My first foray into connecting with people online was AOL. They had chat rooms, they had my email and they had free email! Oh my.

My name on AOL? DSolitaire. (I still might be, but I can’t remember how to log in).

Could I have been more transparent? I mean I figured I was waving a red flag that said, “I love Edward Abbey’s great book about the destruction of the American wilderness, Desert Solitaire.” Someone is gonna’ come along and say, “I like him too!” and I’ll have a new friend.

Crushed, I say, crushed. No one ever did. No one caught on. In fact, the main interaction in all those many AOL years was a message sent to me in error. It had been meant for a David Solitare in San Diego.

The Blog Years

Then, after endlessly making fun of the people who would waste their time writing blog articles, I began writing not one, but two blogs.

Again, I figured I’d spend time with some of you. Get to know you. Talk around the campfire, so to speak. But, only a tiny portion of the millions and millions of you out there ever scroll down as far as you now have – and even fewer of you ever comment. Like I said, I’m getting help.

The Facebook Years

Then, along came social networking. I could hardly contain my enthusiasm. Double bubble! What could be better – both “social” and “networking.”

The clincher? I got to tell you who I like on my “Info Page,” which I admit I spent time on. I really thought about it. Not like some of you. NO, you don’t fill out your “Info” page at all. Makes it darn hard to get to know you.

On Facebook I got to tell you that I like Rosanne Cash, Jonathan Yardley, Northern Exposure and A Thousand Clowns – books, music, artists, writers, even baseball players. I could hardly contain my anticipation. The plutillions of Facebook users all over this polluted little globe of ours would know more about me. And, THEN, maybe they’d like me. Nope.

Almost none of you ever fill out your Facebook “Info,” and you never, ever say anything about mine. And, that’s why I’m disappointed in you. And, why I’m picking up the phone to call my therapist.

But, you know what. I’m not gonna’ give up. I’m gonna’ keep trying. Have any of you read Tana French? Amazing mystery writer. The Likeness and Faithful Place are two of the meatiest mysteries I’ve read in years. Anyone? Anyone?!!