Twitter users the world over have seen a drop in their follower numbers in recent days. In keeping with its measures to crack down on spam accounts, Twitter announced a major policy push on Wednesday stating it was removing all locked accounts from people’s follower numbers. Twitter said it locks accounts when it detects sudden changes in account behaviour. For example, if the account tweets a large volume of unsolicited replies or mentions or if the account posts misleading links or if a large number of accounts block the account after mentioning them. Accounts can also be locked if the platform finds that someone’s login credentials have been leaked elsewhere. “Follower counts may continue to change more regularly as part of our ongoing work to proactively identify and challenge problematic accounts. We don’t release specific numbers for countries however I would emphasize that the impact will be felt globally - not in any one country. Most people will see a change of four followers or fewer; others with larger follower counts will experience a more significant drop,” said a spokesperson from Twitter in a response to ET’s queries. The company said it understands that this may be hard for some, but that it believes accuracy and transparency will make the platform a more trusted service for public conversation. Twitter said, in most cases, these accounts were created by real people but the platform cannot confirm that the original person who opened the account still has control and access to it. Twitter requires account owners to change their passwords for protection. Until Twitter confirms that everything is okay with the account, Twitter will lock the account, which makes the account unable to Tweet or see ads. Spam accounts (sometimes referred to as bot accounts) typically exhibit spammy behavior from the beginning, are increasingly predictable by Twitter’s systems, and Twitter can use its technology to automatically shut them down. Twitter said the specific update is focused on followers because it is one of the most visible features on the platform’s service and is often associated with account credibility. Once an account is locked, it cannot Tweet, like or retweet and it is not served ads. Lately, Twitter has suspended several accounts globally, including accounts of polling app MyVoteToday in India. Twitter said removing locked accounts from followers does not impact monthly active user or daily active user metrics as locked accounts that have not reset their password in more than one month are not included for the two parameters, though it stated that some accounts Twitter removes from the service as part of its ongoing commitment to a healthy public conversation have the potential to impact publicly reported metrics.
