A few weeks ago Aol canned most of the AIM team. Including, apparently, the people who stop spam. (24/m/NYC, in case you were wondering.)
Google had to temporarily turn off its AIM/Gchat bridge in early March after a similar surge in spam, and that was a before before the AIM division lost a majority of its employees. It was also about a two weeks before countless people had their accounts reset out of nowhere.
Now, a flood. AIM isn't exactly dead yet, but it sure feels like it's falling apart.
Source: @mcflipper
Source: @grumpyhawk
Source: @qatoby