New way to spam
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I am now getting really concerned about the number of Followers gathering up at my blog. Many of these Followers are coming from Hotmail/Outlook account and several other suspicious looking email name and addresses.
I really do not wish to give the illusion to my readers about the number of Followers/Subscribers/Like(rs) to the blog. Just for a single day yesterday, I see 50 subscribers/followers. The hard part is to sift the legitimate ones from the fakes.
What can WP.com do to eliminate the fake followers and/or ensure that things are accurately being reported? I am particularly concerned about the number of follower count which shows up in the Email widget/box. I also do not have time to eliminate the fake followers if and when WP decides to give bloggers the ability.
WP needs to do something to reduce the number of spammers who are now being able to follow the blogs for whatever reasons of their own. The spammers previously filling up the Akismet comment section were not a big concern because they were never counted towards the Subscriber/Followers. But this new phenomenon of fake followers being counted towards the subscriber count is different and concerning.
staff-blorbo, I see notifications like
(email visible only to moderators and staff) is now following
(email visible only to moderators and staff) is now following your blog
(email visible only to moderators and staff) is now following your blogIt is obvious that these are fakes. So which entry point in the WP system they are using to corrupt the subscriber count? And why should WP not look into eliminating that entry-point?
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How would you know that they’re fake? They can’t really do anything to your blog. I mean, what would a “fake” follower do? Maliciously read your blog? ;)
Anyway, this thread is about Likes, so if you want to switch to discussing Followers, please start a new thread.
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staff-blorbo
Thanks for your answer and particularly for noting that here https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/new-way-to-spam/page/2?replies=62#post-1220268 -
staff-blorbo, I do not know if they are fake or not but they look fake based on the name plus the combination of email domain name.
As for how they can do harm. They can’t but they are corrupting my subscribers count. Do you think that’s not harmful?
Based on what I see from my email notification history. Something has gone wrong on or after April 5 (or something has changed). All of my subscribers/followers email notification look reasonable as they show the name (not the email address but just the name) of the subscriber who followed the blog. The notification email contains a View Profile button which takes me to the Gravatar screen. There is nothing else for me to click in these notification emails. If a subscriber has a blog setup already, than there are few of their posts available in the email for me to look at.
However, on and after April 5, the email notification looks different. They now contain the whole email address of the subscriber in the subject field. If I open the email, the same email address is clickable. The suspicious thing is that there are many of them in my inbox and they all have spam-looking name and email domain names.
If you wish to investigate, I can send you the screen shot personally. If you think I may have done something wrong somewhere causing this change on my blog, than please let me know. As far as I can tell, things don’t look normal and it would be helpful if you could investigate.
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timethief, you’re welcome!
ismailimail, please read what I wrote above again, “this thread is about Likes, so if you want to switch to discussing Followers, please start a new thread.”
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staff-blorbo, thanks for your time. I have no intention to “discuss” anything as I am reporting what appears to be a problem related to spam. If you expect me to write all this again (or even copy/paste) than I will have to take a leave for now as I am running short on energy to recompose everything.
There was a time not too long ago when Support would meet where their bloggers were.
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We do, but I don’t want this thread to get side tracked from the topic of spam Likes. I’m open to a new thread discussion about the concept of fake Followers, but not here, where those involved are discussing spam Likes.
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I think spam likes would go way down if nobody was permitted to like from the reader. Frankly, what is the point of liking a post through the reader which it is impossible to have actually read other than to engage in some form of spamming? Why have that as a feature in the first place?
It seams draconian to require bloggers to disable “likes” on all their posts just because the reader is designed to enhance spamming. Perhaps that was a bold statement. What is the logic behind having a like button in the reader? Maybe if I understood I wouldn’t find it so detestable. Why not allow us to disable “likes” from the reader and allow “likes” from those who actually visit our blogs?
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Frankly, what is the point of liking a post through the reader which it is impossible to have actually read other than to engage in some form of spamming?
Not all posts in the Reader are long enough to be truncated.
It seams draconian to require bloggers to disable “likes”
We aren’t requiring anyone to do anything, it’s still a choice.
If you keep Likes enabled and report the spammers if/when they Like your post (if you’re sure they’re spammers), it will help us crack down on them. After all, spam comments come in all the time, and reporting them as spam is a better solution than closing comments.
Meanwhile, we’re working on a way to rate-limit Likes, which will take care of any of the bulk-spam-Likers.
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For a very small percentage of posts that are short enough to read in their entirety through the reader, we live with the ability of someone to just “like” away very quickly. If one actually “likes” the content the extra step of going to the actual post to “like” it from the post instead of the reader shouldn’t be that difficult.
WordPress provides the option to completely eliminate “likes” on our post. Why not provide the option to allow us to simply eliminate “likes” originating from just the reader? It is the lack of that option that I find draconian. I guess I’m just not seeing any value to the ability to “like” through the reader and at the same time I’m seeing a large cost associated with that feature. It feels like an unnecessary trade off given the extremely low percentage of posts that can be seen in their entirety through the reader.
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For a very small percentage of posts that are short enough to read in their entirety through the reader, we live with the ability of someone to just “like” away very quickly.
That depends on the blogs you follow, I follow a lot of photo blogs, so they’re of course fully visible in the Reader, and I like my easy Like button there. ;)
We do our best to provide the option for all use cases, and don’t want to exclude anyone just because one type of blog post may be more prevalent than another.
Why not provide the option to allow us to simply eliminate “likes” originating from just the reader?
That is one thing we have considered.
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I think treating “likes” like blog replies might be worth looking into. Have an option for the blog owner to either allow all likes or “hold” them for moderation.
If the second option is selected, perhaps some mechanics on the backend could let additional likes bypass that hold and approve automatically (if desired).
Just spit-balling.
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Have an option for the blog owner to either allow all likes or “hold” them for moderation.
Yes, that plan seems to be the most likely so far.
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Why not provide the option to allow us to simply eliminate “likes” originating from just the reader?
That is one thing we have considered.
That would be fantastic and the most fair option for the community as each person could just handle this issue the way they prefer!
While I like the idea of holding them for moderation as mentioned above, I still wouldn’t be able to tell if the person liked it from the reader or not. The difference between a like and a blog reply is you can’t reply from the reader. As I never post something short enough to be read in it’s entirety from the reader I find all “reader likes” to be a form of spam and would rather have the option to eliminate those entirely.
macmanx, thanks for your quick replies and anything you do to help make this issue better (even if it’s not what I prefer).
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The difference between a like and a blog reply is you can’t reply from the reader.
Under any post in the Reader, click the Comment link. ;)
thanks for your quick replies and anything you do to help make this issue better
You’re welcome!
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Add me to the chorus of those complaining about spammers/abusers of both Follow and Like. These have gotten out of hand on my blog, per my post about it today. (Too lengthy to repeat here.) WP needs to take a seriously look at the problem and come up with some worthwhile solutions.
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I second your thoughts completely. I couldn’t agree more. “Like” and “Follow” spam has become such a rampant problem here on WordPress, and nothing is being done to stop these people.
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@windwhistle
@scriptorobscuraIf you had the ability to moderate “likes” as we do comments would that work for you? (gureggu made that suggestion, I was okay with it, and sherpakyle was amenable but still looking to get rid of the ability for the like button to display in the Reader)
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I’ve also been receiving many likes from users that were mentioned in the first post. And so, thank you, I am happy to have read this thread and gain information, as well as, know that I’m not alone!
I have gone to their gravatar profiles and clicked on the “Report Abuse” icon. I hope this is enough. Should I also provide their usernames here? Would that be helpful?
Thanks again for the Support service here! You all are doing a great job!
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