From the official Twitter blog:
Posting links to Twitter is great and we encourage people to do so. However, spammers are posting links on a whole different scale and they’re doing something else we call Aggressive Following. This behavior entails following thousands of other accounts in the hope of reciprocation and it really peeves Twitter users because many of us are sensitive to our Follower count—we don’t want email notifications triggered by spammers and we don’t want to see our avatar on their profile page.
Those who have created thousands of accounts, posted thousands of the same link, or aggressively followed way too many people, stand out like a sore thumb to our support team because they are usually blocked by hundreds or thousands of well behaved Twitter users. This simple feedback is one of the ways we detect and delete spam accounts but there are also preventative measures and more we could be doing.
I recently found myself unable to follow people back on Twitter. I have a practice of following people back who follow me. Also, once or twice a month, I will go on a following spree and add new people to my timeline. The last time I went on a following spree was back in May. Part of using Twitter means following new people. I tend to use Twitter in bursts. This is just my style. There are no posted rules of conduct for following or un-following. I just sort of wing it. If there were posted rules or guidelines, I would follow them.
On Monday night, @eeUS was the the first person to alert me to this being a Twitter-wide problem affecting many users and DM’d me the following links this morning:
ZDNet: Twitter anti-spam efforts go overboard
Twittermaven: Do we hate spam that much?
The problem with punishing people for breaking undisclosed or ambiguous rules is that learned helplessness will set in.
Studies using electric shocks as a source of pain show that once people have been taught helplessness by being given shocks at random, unpredictably, and beyond their control, they no longer try to avoid the pain. The subjects in the experiments came to believe that all future shocks would be beyond their control, like the earlier random shocks, so why bother trying to escape?
Is Twitter becoming a Seligman experiment? Are Twitter users going to be randomly punished based on some undisclosed set of rules or algorithm? How can we connect our actions on Twitter with the results? If blocking users from following people back is the solution to Twitter’s scalability issues, then many people are going to feel helpless and just give up.
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to interview Twitter user @jesatiu, who discovered himself experiencing the exact same issue that I and many others were having:
Mark Davidson: So when did you first notice that you can’t follow people back on Twitter?
Jesse: Yesterday.
Jesse: Happened twice, just thought they had somehow blocked me—wasn’t sure why—don’t think many do block me, I’m a pretty nice guy.
Mark Davidson: I experienced the same problem and so have others!
Jesse: Today it’s been about ten different people. I started looking hard for those I don’t follow, as a test.
Jesse: So far have not been able to add anyone.
Mark Davidson: Have you tried refreshing your browser and trying again?
Jesse: Yeah. but haven’t cleared cache yet
Jesse: I have logged in and out couple times.
Mark Davidson: That’s a good idea. Perhaps I’ll try clearing my cache as well. Seems though, it’s more likely to be server-side.
Jesse: Think so…
Jesse: OK just now twitter to @jpostman—his reply is only one in my tab.
Mark Davidson: How long have you been using Twitter for?
Jesse: About a year I’d say, maybe a bit less… all of this year for sure.
Mark Davidson: Would you consider yourself to be a spammer or a bot? lol!
Jesse: Not at all—I’m twitterati according to @guykawasaki.
Jesse: My posts w/ link ratio is extremely low, and all my content is original.
Mark Davidson: However, I’ve noticed that you follow a lot more people than follow you. Do you think that might be the reason?
Jesse: I thought about that, but I’d never seen any declaration from twitter tos to believe that would cause an issue.
Mark Davidson: True. Me either!
Mark Davidson: Have you put in a Twitter Help ticket?
Jesse: At least a technical one—however it might make users wary—no ticket as of yet.
Mark Davidson: I put in a Help ticket but I haven’t received a response back yet.
Mark Davidson: I think I’m losing Followers over it. People probably think I’m being rude or elitist. I normally follow everyone back!
Mark Davidson: What effect is this having on your Twitter usage?
Jesse: Yeah I hear you. just got reply back from one user who I couldn’t add. had asked her straight out if she blocked me, she said no and indicated she can’t DM me…also, her reply replaced joel’s as the only one in my tab! lol…so I can access only the latest reply.
Jesse: Effect is that I’m spending valuable time figuring it out…lol…but I understand and am compassionate about free service… I love twitter. I wish we would make it “employee owned” so to speak.
Mark Davidson: Wow. That’s kind of limiting at the very best. Hopefully Twitter will get it fixed soon and we can all return to our normal social interaction. I understand that Twitter has been experiencing a lot of outages because of scalability issues but…
Mark Davidson: By reducing the features that made Twitter successful in the first place and now this, all they are doing is making Twitter unusable. It seems like they are punishing their biggest users!
From Twitter
markdavidson @Spodjed I always follow everyone back. For me Twitter is more about communication than broadcasting. Waiting for a fix. Hope it comes soon.
markdavidson Just an FYI, many of us are currently not able to follow people back @chrisbrogan, @pprlisa, and myself for example. Frustrating.
pprlisa @BethHarte 0011000111 00000111 11111111111100!!! AND 0001111 001 take that
pprlisa @akaMonty 001111 0000111111 1111000 well Twitter thinks I am a bot, so I am playing the part 
akaMonty @pprlisa Borg maybe, but not bot!
SayAnythingJen frustrated that i can’t follow anyone…@sayanythingkari is my new cohost and new to twitter
eeUS @chrisbrogan We, people last night, and @pprlisa were just talking about that last night. I think it might be some algorithm that’s weird
eeUS @chrisbrogan that twitter’s using to try to find bots. Seems to be random.. Maybe you should look into it? Ask @pprlisa, she contacted @twitter
femaleprodigy @pprlisa yeah i would pin you as a spammer too.. just kidding about
pprlisa @mediaphyter thanks for the post Jennifer - hopefully this will help a little - I have been IDd as a spammer…I AM NOT A BOT!!!
JoeCascio @pprlisa A Bot, huh? You’re going to have to work on your robot dance moves now.
pprlisa @mediaphyter I know, I am SO sad that I cant follow anymore people - i have begged @Twitter to remove me from the spammer list - ahhhh
GeekMommy @sendchocolate - are you capable of adding new followers right now? Just trying to figure out the threshhold here
GeekMommy Okay, if you’re unable to follow folks like I am - I started a GetSatisfaction thread. http://tinyurl.com/6keymb
GeekMommy @Mommiedearest - I get emails of new followers, but I can’t follow them back… driving me crazy! 
eeUS @JamiMiami Hi Jami, @pprlisa ’s making trouble again today
JamiMiami @eeUS she is isn’t she? What has she done now? @pprlisa have you been banished? We’ll come & save you.
GeekMommy @sopan - they just implemented new anti-spam stuff, but it seems to be impacting other folks like me too. :\
GeekMommy @chrisbrogan - think it’s a bit of a glitch based on their new anti-spammer policies. b/c I have same issue & not following as many as you
GeekMommy @sopan - heh. I mean, if it’s blocking @chrisbrogan, then I’m in good company! it also did the same to @creativesage yesterday.
GeekMommy @julesac - thank you!! and I’m sorry I haven’t followed back yet - Twitter is keeping me from doing so
GeekMommy @saxdiva - thanks for the feedback - apparently, it’s something to do with larger numbers :\
tindle @markdavidson I like that way of thinking..there are a lot of Broadcasters around here..clearly, they don’t understand the Earthman’s ways..
helenmosher @markdavidson I follow people back when they actually converse with me.
Spodjed @markdavidson Sorry to hear about the “follow” problem. Sometimes you have to reload the member’s page and then the follow function works.
markdavidson Hmmm. @GeekMommy, @pprlisa, @chrisbrogan, and @SayAnythingJen it would seem, can’t follow anyone back either. I sent in a HALP! ticket.
markdavidson For more info on the “Hey, what the heck! I can’t follow people back!” issue, I’ve starred a bunch of blurbs in my Favorites. The new whale!
Spodjed @markdavidson Couldn’t agree more… “…Tweeter is more about communication than broadcasting.”
markdavidson So if anyone un-followed me because I haven’t followed you back, I apologize. I follow everyone back… if and when I can.
markdavidson @helenmosher And why wouldn’t someone choose to converse with you? That’s just crazy! Your timeline rocks!
markdavidson @Spodjed Tried refreshing. Still can’t follow back. It seems that anyone above a certain follower count is experiencing a similar issue.
chrisbrogan Oh neato. Twitter has capped the amount of people I can follow.
iFroggy @chrisbrogan Any excuse not to follow me, eh?! 
Just kidding.
IdoNotes @chrisbrogan I cant imagine they would pick a number like 10996 for a max allowed to follow number. Maybe 11K is where it is set
sopan @GeekMommy @chrisbrogan mentioned earlier that Twitter wasn’t letting him follow more people too. Is there a max # you can add?
helenmosher @markdavidson dunno, but i have a lot of lurkers, and I’m content to let them lurk cause I have enough trouble following my timeline.
helenmosher @markdavidson but when they reply, I follow back. (And thanks for the compliment!)
Spodjed @markdavidson Probably Twitter has installed some following quota because of spamers.
jesatiu @annepmitchell do you have me blocked? or, is twitter not working? im not being able to follow folks anymore? anyone else having this issue?
jesatiu help. why can’t i follow people? anyone else having this issue? help…i found some cool local folks and it won’t let me add them~>?!
jesatiu @markdavidson thank you-was starting to think i had some sort of “block this guy bullseye” on my back. hoping i’d not pissed off that many;)
jesatiu @markdavidson - pleasure discussing twitter’s anomaly. hope they straighten it out! will send in a ticket, too. best, Mark.
Stumble it!
