In the last two weeks or so, you may have noticed that your follower count on Twitter may have dropped. Rest assured, it has nothing to do with anything you have done wrong. This all part of an initiative that Twitter has taken.
In more than several ways, Twitter has become the world’s leading and largest popularity contest, Social media Network. There are politicians, celebrities, experts/scholars and a ton load of bots striving for credibility and status based on their follower count. The more popular a Twitter account becomes, the more followers it gains. Moreover, these very popular, Twitter accounts become trusted and highly regarded, resulting in more visible Tweets.
However, the the truth is that Twitter follower counts are more than often misleading at best. For this reason, Twitter has been taking measures to make Twitter follower counts more accurate.
Twitter had been getting rid of spammers, repeat trolls and bots on their social media platform. Furthermore, Twitter has toughen up on the development process to make it more burdensome and challenging for these types of accounts to breed and generate.
On Wednesday, June 11, 2018 – Twitter’s Legal, Policy and Trust & Safety Lead, Vijaya Gadde explained on a blog, that the same app they’ve been utilizing to get rid of spammers and bots, will now be used in abolishing accounts of different types of inactive followers just the same.
In the past, Twitter has locked accounts, which have been identified with sudden changes in habits and behavior, as this is an indicator that an account may have been hacked. Moreover, it is also, an indicator that these accounts are being utilize to litter news feeds with spam. When these cases have occurred, Twitter has always reached out to the account owner, so that they can validate the account and if necessary to reset their password.
If an account user does not validate their account in these cases, then the account will remain locked. However, all these unvalidated and locked accounts are now also, being removed with what is being called the Twitter Purge.
Needless to say, this has brought upon an uproar of mixed feelings with Twitter account holders that are okay with this adjustment and those, who are utterly appalled and in disagreement.
Though, if you have a popular Twitter account, isn’t it preferable to have an accurate and true follower account, rather than having a count that is completely off due to inactive accounts that do not contribute any value whatsoever? Sure, your follower account may have decreased, but at least you know it is not because you did anything wrong on your end. In addition, you are now left with real followers, who are actually valuable. Furthermore, if your Twitter account is popular, your follower account will gradually increase again. What’s the point of having fake followers?
Twitter has said that the majority of people will lose approximately four followers. However, the more followers you have the more likely you are to notice a significant drop in your Twitter follower count.
There are some Twitter users that have Tweeted about losing followers. Some have lost 200 followers, while another Twitter account by the name of VirtualAstro tweeted that he lost over 4,000 followers in less than an one hour. Another Twitter user lost 200k followers.
It’s understandable that these Twitter users are upset. But, the fact of the matter is that it was all an illusion. Again, isn’t it better to have true, valuable Twitter followers?
If it’s of any consolation, once Twitter began its purge of sorts, within the 1st 15 minutes, President Donald Trump lost more than 100,000 followers… “and justice for all…”
Heads up: Twitter accounts will continue to notice a drop on followers as Twitter continues cleaning house of fake, spammy and inactive accounts that have never been validated.
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