If you notice this morning that your follower count on Twitter dropped dramatically, don’t be alarmed. It is just Twitter cracking down on spam accounts and bots that automatically follow people. So chances are those weren’t real people anyway.

The drop is a big topic on Twiitter (search for “spam”). This isn’t the first time Twitter has purged spam accounts. What is alarming, however, is that some people affected are complaining that not only did their follower count drop, but that all of their followers and people they followed were wiped out. Oops. That is the same effectively as starting from scratch.

Spam accounts on Twitter are becoming a big problem, inflating follower counts and setting the stage for unwanted commercial come-ons and scams. (And you thought spam on Gmail was bad). As Twitter inches towards becoming a place to do business, it needs to sweep the spammers out of its system. Inevitably, some innocent bystanders will suffer collateral damage.