I should be writing about my recent trip to Cancun, and my safe return without the swine flu. But instead, I’m writing about this stupid person who hacked my Twitter account and started following hundreds of spammers who started sending me hundreds of direct messages with hundreds of stupid links that I’m afraid to click. So I can’t tell you where those links go.
What I can tell you is that the incident completely freaked me out. First, because I was only gone from social media and internet access for one week, and someone managed to violate my privacy in that time frame. Second, because I had to unfollow everyone to get rid of the spammers. And I was afraid to unfollow everyone because I know lots of people have auto-unfollows and I knew my followers count would drop. Fast. Wait. It’s still dropping. Like hundreds of people every few hours.
Numbers define something about your online presence?
Then I realized I just don’t care. Seriously. I know that people who would only follow me if I was following them are using me to boost their egos. And I know that cleaning out my Twitter following was unmanageable without starting from scratch. And I know that I need to get over the idea that numbers define something about my online presence.
I feel a lot of things right now. Mad at the hacker. Annoyed with the source of the originally hacked account. Annoyed with myself for using the same password for both accounts. And then, relieved that I have an excuse to unfollow everyone and delete the noise in my Twitter account. And then, back to annoyed, because I will probably spend a lot of time adding people back.
But. I can breathe again. I can hear myself think. And if that costs me a thousand followers, it’s probably still worth it.
Your Twitter account is hacked? What to do…
Here’s what to do if your Twitter account is hacked:
- Change the password.
- Identify the source, so it doesn’t happen again.
- Unfollow the spammers, even if you have to unfollow everyone.
- Use this How-To to delete your DMs.
- Be patient. You can’t fix your account in one day.
If I owe you a follow, let me know. And be patient. Because it’s going to take me awhile to get back on track on Twitter.
Author:
Monica O’Brien writes career advice for young professionals at her blog, Twenty Set. You can also follow her on Twitter (@monicaobrien).
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Great article, I really like it,
That really, really sucks Monica. At least you get a fresh start which is nice sometimes.
By the way, check out refollow.com. It’s got some tools that might help out in the future. I use it to clean up my list every now and then. The cool part is it’s got a previously followed query and you can lock users so you don’t accidentally unfollow them. It’d take a little bit of ground work to set up the locked users lists, but once you do in the future you could use it to refollow people if you have to mass unfollow everyone.
You hit the point right Monica, i was thinking along that line that if anyone unfollow me because I do not follow them , it means that individual do not value me in the first instant .so, I have refused to be bothered about numbers that “unfollowed” me .
The same thing happened to me. I think the time frame was about the same as your experience! I had a follower write me a nasty message. It still bugs me a bit but I now realize that my readers know that I am true to my brand.
Hi, I got hacked today but i changed my password but then later today I got hacked again and they have changed my password. I don’t know what to do because they are sending nasty messages and people think it’s me:(. It’ horrible. I don’t think I’ll make another Twitter. And will they be able to hack into my email account as well?