In an effort to fight spammers, Twitter is reducing the number of accounts users can follow each day.
Previously, the limit was set at 1,000 account follows per day. Going forward, the limit will be 400 per day.
Follow, unfollow, follow, unfollow. Who does that? Spammers. So we’re changing the number of accounts you can follow each day from 1,000 to 400. Don’t worry, you’ll be just fine.
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) April 8, 2019
Yes, that’s still an extraordinary number of accounts for the average person to follow in a day.
However, this update isn’t aimed at the average person, it’s aimed at spammers who follow and unfollow users en masse in attempt to build their own following.
Why 400 Accounts Per Day?
How did Twitter arrive at the number 400? Twitter’s Head of Site Integrity, Yoel Roth, explains:
“So, why 400 per day, and not 100? Or 58? Or 17? In short, we found that 400 is a reasonable limit that allows people to follow the accounts they’re interested in each day while stopping the most spam…
We found that nearly half of all accounts who made more than 400 follows per day were churning. That amounted to more than 20 million follows each day, and a high rate of blocks and spam reports — a clear signal that inorganic follows are super annoying.”
He adds that some legitimate accounts really do need a high follow limit, such as businesses providing customer service by DM.
For the most part though, 99.87% of Twitter users will be unaffected by this update.
