X / Twitter – #NOSMH

Ever look over your Twitter follows and wonder, “when in the hell did I follow that account?” The answer could be, never.

Are you being made to follow accounts by some sneaky hack or #Twitter algorithm? No. Here are some common reasons this happens.

1. You followed an account and they changed things up themselves. Some times people have older “seasoned” accounts and when they start a new venture they may use that older account and rebrand it for their current project. So you may have followed someone who was all about gardening for a few years, then they began selling used Goodyear radial tires on eBay. Or, they have moved into an online business and all of a sudden your business account is following an OnlyFans account posting samples daily.

2. People buy and sell accounts, despite the Twitter rules. What? Are the Twitter police going to nab them? No. The security checks are in the Twitter platform and they can smoke out some types of account manipulation but it is likely the secondary market will continue traffic in Twitter accounts.

3. Alternatively accounts do get hacked by bots. A cyber criminal isn’t sitting there doing a deep dive on your pet names or first home address. However, brute force hacking of accounts makes up a great deal of Twitter traffic and Twitter security’s time. – turn on secondary authentication and use an authentication app on your smart device (google auth app/etc.) Also, we have recently seen an attempt by Apple iOS and the Android OS to incorporate that functionality directly into the saved passwords feature they offer. I wouldn’t rely on that yet.

People Check Who You Follow

While it can be a drag, it makes for a better Twitter experience to occasionally prune your follows. There are automated means to look for dead accounts (haven’t posted in however long), spam accounts, non-followbacks (keep an eye out for a short blog about this shortly) , etc. These can be super effective, but they can also lead to the Twitter algorithm restricting your account from locking you out, to forcing verification or even de-emphasizing you (aka “shadow banning”).

So I recommend taking that spare time you are twiddling around doing nothing while waiting for the next thing to happen and click on your profile, click following and scroll WAAAYYYYY back in your follows and start unfollowing.