Twitter working to remove fakes from follower counts

Twitter has announced it will remove suspicious accounts from follower counts. It warned that the number of followers displayed on many profiles may go down as a result.

“Over the years, we’ve locked accounts when we detected sudden changes in account behaviour. In these situations, we reach out to the owners of the accounts and unless they validate the account and reset their passwords, we keep them locked,” said Twitter.

It is these locked accounts that will be removed from follower counts.

“Most people will see a change of four followers or fewer; others with larger follower counts will experience a more significant drop.”

“We understand this may be hard for some, but we believe accuracy and transparency make Twitter a more trusted service.”

Twitter said account behaviour it looks for includes tweeting a large volume of unsolicited replies or mentions, tweeting misleading links, or if a large number of accounts block the account after mentioning them.

When it detects suspicious activity, Twitter may lock the account.