Twitter Follow Limits Are Jacked
By StrangeWork.com: Last week Jennifer Leggio of ZDNet posted an article about Twitter’s new anti-spam efforts and how royally jacked they are. I’m here to confirm that the Twitter follow limits are still jacked.
So what are the limits? Here is Twitter’s answer:
What are the limits?
We’re starting with a few limits based on various parameters, and we’ll be adding more as time goes on. We reveal some limits only when you reach them, and tell you about others in advance. Twitter applies limits to any person who reaches:* 1,000 total updates per day, on any and all devices
* 250 total direct messages per day, on any and devices
* 100 API requests per hour
* Maximum number of follow attempts in a dayFollow limits are based on several things, one of which is our belief in a person’s good standing and intention. The behind-the-scenes portion of follow limiting varies by account, relationship, and changes over time. Based on current behavior in the Twitter community, we’ve concluded that this is both fair and reasonable. While we figure out what works best for everyone, the limits may change occasionally, but this is the nucleus and future limits will be based upon the success of these.
source: http://help.twitter.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=242
None of the above follow limits apply to my situation. Twitter is blocking my ability to follow new people.
I’m currently following 2100 people on Twitter and I have 1451 people following me. So my current follow to following ratio is 1.44:1. So for every 1.44 people I follow 1 person follows me back.
Does this ratio strike you as ridiculously skewed to either side? Of course not. So why can’t the techs at Twitter see this? I’m sure Twitter looks at other stats to determine who to put a limit on, but posting about 10-15 tweets a day about random stuff shouldn’t trip their spam filter.
I submitted a couple support tickets to Twitter, but have not heard a response yet. There are a few posts on GetSatisfaction.com regarding this issue, but none seem to give a solid answer on the follow issue:
Can’t follow Twitter members since last week
What happens if i hit a Twitter limit
I just hope the Twitter techs can get this problem resolved so I can start following more interesting people on Twitter!
Popularity: 14% [?]
Tags: follow limit, problem, rant, Twitter
Brad Williams is a computer programmer and tech junkie who enjoys exploring technology and sharing his knowledge and experience with others.
Vicki
said
am July 28 2008 @ 8:50 pm
And the funny part is that “spammers” won’t care. Drop 100 to add 100? Who cares. Those aren’t real people. They aren’t customers. They aren’t clients. They aren’t friends. They aren’t people you Want To Follow.
Arbitrary follow limits don’t hurt “spammers”. They only hurt real, authentic, positive, Twitter-evangelizing People!
How many times do we have to repeat this before someone at Twitter wakes up and says “Oops. Bad idea, that.”
GeekMommy
said
am July 29 2008 @ 2:06 am
Someone elsewhere suggested that the best solution might be to keep people from following thru the API… as this would keep the spammers from mass-following, but would allow those of us with larger communities who really do interact with our follower/ing lists to manually add thru the website when we want to while still discouraging the spammers.
I know I’d be willing to pay for a pro account to get rid of the “limits” on that. And I pretty much maintain a 1-to-1 ratio.
Stop Twitter Spam » Update on Twitter’s Following Limits said
am July 29 2008 @ 5:41 pm
[...] And I wasn’t the only one complaining about this. Brad Williams (@williamsba on Twitter) wrote a blog post called “Twitter Follow Limits are Jacked“. [...]
Patrick Curl @ There's a Blog in my Soup
said
am August 7 2008 @ 5:02 pm
I feel your sentiments exactly, I just posted a similar post on my blog, you can read it at: http://www.theresabloginmysoup.com/why-im-leaving-twitterfollow-me-on-plurk/
I’m definitely wanting to migrate from twitter completely if they keep jerking us around like this..
giornale
said
am August 11 2008 @ 5:25 am
thank you
Jay
said
am June 26 2009 @ 11:32 am
I really do not understand how they can define someone as Spamming if users willingly followed a person / company within Twitter. They can easily unfollow them if they do not like their tweets. It is the same thing as signing up for someones email list and then unsubscribing if you don’t like their content.
Of course I use a process to find people and follow them in hopes that they checkout my twitter page and follow me back. That’s called marketing and trying to reach out to your audience. if they choose to follow then great…. if not then no harm done.
I have been reduced to following a small amount of people a day now on twitter and there is no explanation why and how these new limits are being determined.