They've become the bane of a lot Kiwi Twitter users over the past couple of days: pornbots that follow you and tweet links to malware and try to lure you in with lewd suggestions — making your timeline very un-family (or work) friendly.
You can block these bots, which inevitably have half-naked female avatars, and report their accounts for spam.
But a few minutes later, along comes another.
And reporting them doesn't seem to do any good.
Film maker and editor Dylan Reeve says he reported one 12 hours ago after she – or it – had made about 200 posts. Since then, another 100 posts have appeared from the same bot.
Twitter's official blog is silent on the topic.
What's being done about the epidemic?
Why is it so easy to create a fake account?
I've asked Twitter's Sydney-based Austalia-New Zealand office. I'll let you know if I hear anything.
[UPDATE: Twitter is now looking into the attack]
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Hey Twitter, what are you doing about the pornbot explosion?
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