Found 897 Fake Followers on DEV.to. Here's How I Proved It.

A full technical audit of a coordinated follower inflation network — methodology, findings, and a detection rule simple enough to run in one query. On May 19, 2026, I published "Found a Coordinated GitHub Follow Botnet" — a piece documenting a coordinated follower inflation network on GitHub. The next day, my DEV.to follower count started climbing. Fast. Date New Followers May 19 75 May 20 288 May 21 447 May 22 399 May 23 311+ From ~600 followers to 3,045 as of May 24 — and still climbing. Not f