• CNet, Monday, May 10, 2010 3:01 PM

Twitter just confirmed the existence of a bug that can force one user to follow another user on the popular microblogging service. Yep, the bug is "unfortunately" real, Twitter spokesman Sean Garrett told CNet, adding: "We're focused on fixing it now and hope to know a lot more about the specifics once that's done." Presently, it's not clear how long the bug had been around or whether it could potentially give Twitter users access to the contents of "protected" accounts in which all tweets are private.

"The bug appears to have originally been noticed by a Turkish blog, followed by the blog Webrazzi, which successfully tested it out and forced the Twitter accounts of industry luminaries like Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Evan Williams to follow a dummy profile," writes CNet blog The Social. The flaw apparently allowed members to add followers to their own accounts by tweeting "accept" followed by "@," and any given Twitter user name.

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