Twitter Is Blocking Services That Sell Fake Followers

Twitter wants to make the platform spam free, and in a bid to do so, the social media company has started cracking down on services that offer paid services to gain followers.

Twitter has cut off API access to three such companies that are famous for helping users increase their number of followers using automated bots.

First spotted by Matt Navarra from TheNextWeb, Twitter revoked API access from Manage Flitter, Crowdfire and Statusbrew as a part of its plan to ban such services.

#BreakingNews
WOW…!
Twitter has killed API access for popular social tools @ManageFlitter, @Crowdfire & @Statusbrew + possibly others.

I'm told it may be permanent and could be catastrophic for their business pic.twitter.com/bORaznPmqe

— Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) January 31, 2019

Speaking to TechCrunch, a spokesperson confirmed that Twitter is indeed taking action against notification spammers —

“We have suspended these three apps for having repeatedly violated our API rules related to aggressive following & follow churn. As a part of our commitment to building a healthy service, we remain focused on rapidly curbing spam and abuse originating from use of Twitter’s APIs.”

Twitter’s policies state that an activity will be deemed as spam “if you have followed and/or unfollowed a large number of accounts in a short time period, particularly by automated means (aggressive following or follower churn).”

Spam is a grave issue on social media platforms, and it hampers human interaction by diluting the quality of content on any website. Instagram has already declared it illegal to obtain followers using automated bots and has banned such companies from its platform.

Also Read: Facebook Defends ‘Research’ App; Says Kids Consented To Data Collection