Weird followers
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Every few days I get one of these emails notifying me of a new follower. When I look at the list of followers on my site, they are not there.
I just delete the notifications. I can usually tell which are spam, because they have really long names.
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kimmerama-
These followers aren’t making it to your “followers” list because we are removing them from our side as they are spam. Perhaps setting up a filter in your email account to collect these would save some aggravation.
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I see this thread is from January, 2018, but it’s now late April and I am still getting them on my blog, and like so many others, they don’t appear on my follower list, so there’s no removing them. Does this mean that the WP folks are removing them as soon as they appear, and i am just getting notifications after the fact? Any updates? Thanks!
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This has been happening to me too, yet none of these email addresses are appearing on my followers list, so I’m really not sure what’s going on :(
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gerguinea2014 – Yes, that’s exactly what is happening. We are removing them so they never make it through to your followers.
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saeedamali – This is because we are removing these spam followers before they reach your account.
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I am having the same problem. Obviously it is spam. Clearly these are not “real” followers and must be up to no good. I am not very tech savvy, and will try to figure out how to block them on my site, but I’m an old gal with little time for doing so, and these things take me a lot of time. I hope you folks at WordPress do something about it. It needs to be stopped. Thanks to all of you who’ve shared your concerns and thanks to WP support for looking into this and helping us out (I’m hoping you are able to effectively do so).
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Hi mskarol,
We are working to remove and block these spam followers from our system. If they aren’t listed in your “Email Followers” list, then it means we have already done so. We don’t want to remove genuine followers using Outlook email addresses so the process isn’t a simple, quick fix.
Rest assured, this is something we are already aware of and working on.
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I, like everyone else, have seen dozens and dozens of “new” bogus followers. Yes, they may indeed be generated by some sort of spambot. On the other hand, WordPress has considered an IPO and the dozens of bogus followers that each of us are seeing multiplied by the millions of blogs on WordPress could suggest radically more “people” are watching WordPress blogs than are actually doing so. Could this affect the valuation of a potential IPO? I am not suggesting that WordPress has anything to do with this, but what about the individuals or institutions that have options or have invested in WordPress pre-IPO and stand to make Billions from an inflated IPO? Has the #SEC or #FBI become aware of this or started an investigation? Should they?
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@afreude, please refrain from completely unfounded speculation and attempting to derail this thread. We have explained what is going on multiple times in this thread, and we are working on fixing the problem. If you are unable to keep discussions on the topic at hand your ability to post in these forums may be suspended.
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Yes, I have also received numerous “outlook” address followers all with long, odd sounding names. Have become concerned and not sure how to handle. Hoping that WORDPRESS.COM will be sending out information on proper handling of this situation.
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This has been happening to me too within the past couple of weeks. It makes me nervous because I run a High School Library blog and I don’t want anyone trying to stalk my students.
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Same thing here – for a couple of months I’ve received email notifications of one or two new subscribers every day, all with Outlook addresses. Apparently WordPress has yet to address and correct whatever this is, but what is it? What’s the point? What are they up to?
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It’s hard to know the intentions of any spammer. Rest assured that your stuff is safe though. This is annoying, but not harmful.
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Fstat (staff), is it necessary to be so rude to a customer? I’m really dismayed to read the tone of your reply. Let’s ALL try to stay positive. We appreciate the efforts of staff to resolve this issue.
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I noticed the same thing. I haven’t posted in months and started to get new followers with weird outlook email. It started last month and keep on going
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Thanks folks. These spammers are awfully persistent, but we’ll keep working to stop them.
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