Twitter Cuts Follower Numbers Per Day Down to 400

[engine]

Twitter is clamping down further on bot activity by reducing the number of accounts you can follow per day from 1,000 to 400. Verified accounts can still follow 1,000 per day.

Also, once the account reaches 5,000 follows, it will have to wait until it gains more followers before following any more accounts. It's not specific about the calculation to allow the accounts to start following again, and is variable depending upon the "unique ration of followers to following."

[help.twitter.com...]

[Lexur]

What kind of human can find and follow 400 Twitter accounts a day?
Is Twitter saying we must use bots to follow and be followed by people?

[edited by: Lexur at 4:14 am (utc) on Apr 10, 2019]

[tangor]

Bots don't care. They never sleep and never get tired. At 400, just takes a bit longer.

There are other ways of identifying bots ... so I think this new restriction is aimed at something else and @Jack is not saying what it is.

[NickMNS]

so I think this new restriction is aimed at something else

I disagree, it is intentionally designed to be ineffective. If Twitter suddenly blocks all the bots, the sudden drop of users would be alarming and send its share price into a free fall. House of cards.

[buckworks]

What kind of human can find and follow 400 Twitter accounts a day?

A determined human who is willing to spend time.

[engine]

It's not just about followers: The second part of that initiative is to limit how the account can progress.
Imagine, all the bots reach 5,000, but can't progress from there, and that makes them easily identifiable.
Seems like a good step, imho.

[NickMNS]

Seems like a good step, imho.

How does this solve anything? You reach 5000 follows, you then you point your network of bot accounts on the target account it and follow it 10, 20 or 100 times or whatever is needed.

This is all smoke and mirrors.

[tangor]

Account growth is modified.

I suspect it is not bots but ideology that is driving this change.

[Zalman]

It's definitely a deterrent and hindrance.

It'll reduce some botting and make it less effective. But of course it's impossible to stop entirely.