Who are “! lucasrpx” and “! vitornovaes”?

Somebody sent a strange tip about Spotify to The Verge on Wednesday. The email, with the subject line “Spotify Hackers,” claimed that “Every English account in America has two new followers, ! lucasrpx and ! vitornovaes.” 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. Weird stuff.

I asked Spotify about what might be going on. Spokesperson Laura Batey sent me this vague statement: “Confirming 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.” I followed up to ask for more details but haven’t received a reply.

  • PatFusty@lemm.eeEnglish
    10·
    1 year ago

    Weird. I just checked my spotify account and both of them were following me.

  • Selmafudd@lemmy.worldEnglish
    8·
    1 year ago

    I didn’t even notice but yeah I have both following me on an Australian account

    Edit: weird they’re actually not the first mass follower bot accounts either

    • jonne@infosec.pubEnglish
      5·
      1 year ago

      Same on an account originally created in Belgium. Looks like a global thing. Weird that you don’t get notified if someone follows you.

    • RingmasterincestuousEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      I had to check (oz) and yep, can confirm. Feel bad for removing them for the effort but those 2 playlists though… 🤨

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    82·
    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    The email, with the subject line “Spotify Hackers,” claimed that “Every English account in America has two new followers, !

    vitornovaes.” 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.

    This seemed pretty innocuous — we doubted they were hackers — but we had to investigate.

    (Though full disclosure that I’ve been an Apple Music user for years.)

    Spokesperson Laura Batey sent me this vague statement: “Confirming 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.” I followed up to ask for more details but haven’t received a reply.

    The original article contains 289 words, the summary contains 127 words. Saved 56%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!