Wtf, who’s these accounts following everyone?

janbug@slrpnk.net to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 148 points –

I noticed these accounts are following a lot of ppl on Spotify including me nd it doesn’t seem like I’m the only one from looking on social media. Does anyone have an answer to this? Bots maybe, ppl spam following?

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There are multiple copies of them too it seems because the ones that are following me have slightly different display names

The two (also slightly different names) I see on my Spotify have a "Viral songs on tiktok" playlist in their profile. So it's probably a way to spread/spam songs around?

I checked after seeing this post. Same for me. They had a slightly different names

... you can follow people on Spotify?

Yup

What does it do? Do you like... see what they're playing? You listen along or something?

Not a lot. Yes you can see what they are playing and they use it to make recommendations for you.

I think the primary motivator for Spotify is just data scraping. Everybody wants to know your circle of friends in order to advertise better towards you.

I don’t know if it’s still a feature but I used to get phone notifications every time a friend put a song on.

I don’t recommend this.

But I remember we did it. "Okay, Brian, the record's five. The record's five... Okay ready? Go!"

Yep, you can see what song they're playing if you follow each other. Not sure if it does anything else

For me, I follow several artists and it gives updates on when they uploaded a new album etc etc And I follow my siblings and could see what they're listening to, live, if I activated the sidebar but I'm just here to listen to music

That first part works without following personal accounts too. I don't follow anyone but I get notified when the bands I listen to release new albums. Besides that, I use the release radar playlist.

They would have to follow 44 people a day for 6 years straight to reach 98,000

One of them is following me, but with a bunch of extra spaces after the exclamation point.

I don't usually check my followers, but I happened to be in there a couple days ago. The only person following me then was my wife, so this bot/spam is relatively new.

Wtf me too - the Lucas one plus all the spaces. I never even really use Spotify. Creepy.

Edit they are literally my only follower aside from one single friend I know irl.

I have set the list of people following me and the ones i follow on private now. This seems to be the only useful thing they could scrape. Why would i care if they can see what music i listen to? It's not like they can see my personal info and link that or is it?