Twitter cuts down number of accounts you can follow daily
In a bid to curb malicious activity, Twitter has slashed the number of accounts you can follow on a daily basis. The restriction, as the microblogging platform hopes, will keep people from mass following then unfollowing other users of the service - a commonly used trick by spammers to increase their followers count. Here's everything about the latest restrictions from Twitter.
Follow 400 users on a daily basis, not 1,000
Originally, Twitter had supported 1,000 follows per day, something that gave spammers an opportunity to follow accounts in bulk. They employed automated tools and services to mass follow users, some of whom followed back out of courtesy. But now, the platform has tackled the "following and follow churn" on an API level by slashing the maximum number of accounts you can follow to 400.
Here is Twitter's announcement
Is 400 daily follows enough to make a change?
While this is a major change, many have raised questions over Twitter's preferences because 400 follows/day is still a lot and regular use won't need it. A Twitter spokesperson, however, defended the move, telling TechCrunch that "we looked at follow behavior at various thresholds, and selected 400 as a reasonable limit that stopped most spam while not affecting legitimate users".
Follow, unfollow churn has long been a problem for Twitter
Initially, people used to follow/unfollow accounts manually, but then, spammers created tools to automate the process. Many companies started offering 'follower' services with these tools, charging a certain fee for following/unfollowing accounts in bulk and increasing the follower count of their customers. This "bulk, aggressive or indiscriminate" practice has grown to be a major problem for Twitter.
However, the company has been proactively tackling the issue
Over the last few months, Twitter has taken several steps against spammers and their tools. Last year, the company had removed followers from accounts engaged in illegal activity and introduced tools to report cases of spam. Meanwhile, earlier this year, the company blocked the API access for several apps that were engaged in the follow/unfollow business.
