Twitter has banned the widespread practice of auto following other Twitter users, as well as bulk following Twitter users. If you’re following users in an automated fashion in any way, you had better stop it right now. Or risk losing your Twitter account. I have seen a lot of users who are following the exact number of people who are following them: and it’s obvious that those users are doing it in some sort of automated fashion, using a tool to do it. Again, stop using those apps to auto follow people back, or risk losing your Twitter account entirely.
Sylvain Carle, a Twitter developer, announced this important change on the Twitter developer blog on July 3rd. It was kind of ‘buried’ in his update, which also included another terms of service policy change, which is the fact that “hosting datasets of raw Tweets for download is prohibited”.
So, what does this mean? This means that you cannot auto follow people or use an app or website to follow people in bulk.
What should you go do right now to make sure that your Twitter account is compliant with the new Terms of Service (TOS)? Here is what I would do RIGHT NOW to make sure your Twitter account isn’t suspended:
1. Log into Twitter.
2. Go to your Twitter Settings:
3. Go to the Applications settings.
4. Review all of the Twitter apps that you have authorized. If you have ANY apps that you’ve authorized that does anything that’s automated and following people in any automated fashion, revoke access to that app.
While you’re at it, for security purposes, I would also consider revoking access to any app that you know you haven’t used in a few months. No need to keep it around and give it access to your Twitter account. I personally found a few that I just don’t need or use anymore.
Twitter updated the “rules of the road” so to speak, on July 2nd. You may want to read the Twitter Automation Rules and Best Practices.