MasterChef Twitter hashtag swamped with spammers

The Twitter hashtag for hit reality cooking show MasterChef was swamped with spam tweets during the show last night.

The official Masterchef Twitter accounts encourages viewers to tag their Tweets with #MasterchefAu hashtag.

Nearly 300 spambots were created specifically for the screening of Masterchef on Ten last night, set up within minutes of the show airing and as the hashtag became a trending topic.

Twitter has now suspended the dodgy accounts, but not before the #Masterchef hashtag had been flooded with over 1,100 tweets.In total, expert counts indicate the program and hashtag had picked up 8,700 Tweets from 3,700 people. Spambots, or fake Twitter accounts, are automatically created by programs which mimic human accounts, and are designed to fool people into clicking on the links within the tweets, which usually take the user to porn sites or viruses.