Until yesterday I didn't even know there was a contest. They talked a lot about it on CP24 news yesterday morning. I can't comment on whether there were throwaway accounts created but logic says there were. I don't know about spam accounts either. However, this type of thing is clearly taxing on the servers slowing things for normal users and really not conducive to twitter as a whole. The vast majority of us are not going to reach those kind of numbers and most of us would never want to. I didn't see any point to the contest myself although I now have a magic number of followers to aim for ... LOL!

Now Oprah is gonna do it too... if you want more one update accounts...

Honestly, I'm amazed that _anyone_ would be interested in following Ashton Kutcher, let alone a million somebodies.

I did follow Ashton and Demi, until now. I follow CNN, not CNNBRK and to be honest- I think all parties acted like children. They have no intentions of following a majority of the people who spammed Twitter for their "cause." Hell, Rick Sanchez and Don Lemon both follow me- that's an honor to me. But Ashton, Demi and the other celebs? Pfft. Forget it.

Not following either, but not out of spite, mostly I don't care what either has to say over folks I already follow.

Hey though, if others want to, who am I to disagree.

There is really a possibility that most of those accounts may be made just for the contest alone. We could not say that it is unfair because I do not think that it was included in the guidelines that there should be no accounts made. Too bad for twitter if this is true, there may be so many spam accounts now.

I am currently following both Ashton and Demi but because I am a fan, not because of the 1 Million followers thing. In fact, i didn't even know about it!

New to the internet, are we? Anywhere attention goes, spam follows. The people doing this knew this when they started, as well. Spam problems are a sign you've arrived.

Thanks for the comments everyone.

Mr. Gunn - thanks for the sarcasm. If you took the time to read the post fully, you'll see the post focused on whether this contest encouraged a large amount of spammy signups. Of course there will be spam either way, but a contest that encourages spam is irresponsible.

I prefer not to follow Ashton or the Communist News Network(CNN) as I refer to it.To answer your question twitter has been flooded with spam without this contest.

I love it when they cannot be troubled to add an avatar. That is my signal the person is not serious.

If Twitter is going to become an ad serving network, there has to be some way to verify users.

What was the question? LOL

Steven - that may be, but the contest didn't exactly help!