Twitter users can now follow 400 accounts in a day.
The previous limit enabled one to follow 1000 accounts in a span of 24 hours.
This move is expected to cut down spammer on the platform.
The popular micro-blogging platform Twitter has its fair share of problems when it comes to fake accounts and spammers. To clean up its systems, the company has taken another step that is meant to remove fake accounts or spammers from the platform. Twitter is now limiting its users to follow only 400 accounts in a day, down from 1000. Standard Twitter users might think that following even 400 accounts in a day is a bit too much, which has been iterated in replies to the announcement by Twitter Safety. However, spammers are more likely to use automated means to do so and can easily follow and unfollow 1000 accounts in a day.
One might be thinking about how limiting the number of users one can follow in a day helps with booting fake accounts from the platform. Getting a large number of followers at once is considered a growth hack and such short cuts are mostly taken by creating bot accounts and letting them loose on the platform to automatically follow hashtags or keywords. Unaware users sometimes also follow spam accounts back, giving them much desired credibility. After a while, the spam account unfollow large groups of users at one go and the process is repeated. Limiting this number to 400 could help limit the activity of such accounts to some extent but this number could have been even lower since it’s more than the number of accounts an average person is likely to follow in 24 hours.
It took me ~7 years to follow 400 people lmao
— Steven | ZeRoyalViking (@ZeRoyalViking) April 8, 2019
Additionally, following and unfollowing users at a rapid pace is against Twitter rules and counts as spamming. The new limitation comes after the company reportedly suspended more than 70 million accounts on in May and June last year. The website’s systems are said to have identified and removed over 9.9 million potentially “spammy” or automated accounts per week during the purge. In June last year, the platform presented new policies on hateful conduct and violent extremism, and unveiled a plan to implement new technology and bring in staff to curb spam and abuse.
Related Reads:
Twitter suspends over 70 million fake accounts in May and June: Report
Twitter iOS app redesigned to de-emphasise followers and following count
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