Are You Risking Twitter Account Suspension?
January 21, 2010 by BuzzEdition
Filed under Social Media, Twitter
Seems the person in charge of Twitter’s suspension button has been a little trigger happy lately. You have all seen the messages of panic flow through the streams just as I have. With all the spammers still busy tweeting away, the Twitter staff must have something that is triggering these suspensions. Makes you wonder what each suspended user was doing that caused the death of their account. Could you be nearing the dreaded suspension? Something you may be doing right now could be digging your Twitter grave. Here I present a few reasons that could be the end your Twitter fun.
1. Are You Spamming People Inadvertently?
Are you spamming people with links? Do you find yourself sending the same link to several people in a row begging them to RT your new post or find? Begging for votes for some contest? Begging to support your cause or charity? I have seen this happen with even high profile users. They simply take the same link and the same sentence and spam it to everyone trying to get their service, blog, or latest charity seen.
No matter what the reason, it’s against Twitter Terms of Service to repeatedly spam users like this and you can be suspended. If you are following the user you send these messages to, they will be less than thrilled to receive one, but if you are not following the user, it often is enough to warrant a quick block of your account.
Keep in mind the users contacted in this graphic have been spammed and are not spammers.
2. Are You Churning Your Followers?
I knew it was happening before, but until I turned off auto-follow several months ago and now manually view each twitter profile, I did not know how bad it was. I set up my new follow emails to be sent to me by twitter, and I check the folder daily to follow people back. Often I will see two or three emails from the same person. At first I thought it to be a Twitter glitch, but after getting emails from people I was already following on a weekly basis, I realized, I was being churned. Their goal? They want to land on the front page of followers in hopes they will get seen by others. Where they fail? I end up unfollowing these people, and often times blocking them to stop the incessant emails and the extra work load for me.
Churning people by following and unfollowing is against Twitter Terms of Service and will land you a suspended account once the pattern is revealed.
3. Are You Mass Unfollowing?
Following groups of people and then unfollowing them a day later or even a week later when they do not follow you back is against Twitter Terms of Service. Jesse Stay of SocialToo even posted on his blog that Twitter was ending services that unfollow users. Many people recently suspended were actually suspended for this reason. A pattern was picked up by Twitter staff of this behavior, and the accounts were suspended.
I realize why Twitter is doing this, as I see on a daily basis spam accounts created that follow nearly 2000 people, then rapidly drop those people that don’t follow back. When Twitter puts an official stop to this script use, it makes it so much tougher for these spam accounts to grow. I have been ridding my own personal account of these spammy accounts by blocking them. Often they only have a few tweets and thousands of followers. My main purpose in blocking these spam accounts is something I read in an article about how Google ranks tweets. Basically Google considers follows an endorsement, and I definitely am not looking to endorse this behavior, or associate with it.
4. Are You Spamming Users With DMs?
I used to get this same message on nearly a daily basis from several different users. Often I would get it 10 to 15 times a day. I had to block the users one by one to stop the incessant demanding I attend this event. But it’s not just this event, DM spam for quizzes, mafia invites, and other spammy offers used to haunt my Direct Message inbox. I must thank Jesse Stay again for his incredible Spam Filter offered with SocialToo that allows me to block, unfollow or ignore useless DMs such as these automatically by keywords and phrases.
Spamming people with DMs can get you suspended on Twitter, most likely from the large numbers of blocks you will generate from people fed up with the spam.
5. What Does Twitter Consider Spam ?
You may not use the Twitter service for the purpose of spamming anyone. What constitutes “spamming” will evolve as Twitter responds to new tricks and tactics by spammers. Some of the factors that are taken into account when determining what conduct is considered to be spamming are listed below, with entries for those you are probably least aware of in italics.
* If you have followed a large amount of users in a short amount of time;
* If you have followed and unfollowed people in a short time period, particularly by automated means (aggressive follower churn);
* If you repeatedly follow and unfollow people, whether to build followers or to garner more attention for your profile;
* If you have a small number of followers compared to the amount of people you are following;
* If your updates consist mainly of links, and not personal updates;
* If a large number of people are blocking you;
* The number of spam complaints that have been filed against you;
* If you post duplicate content over multiple accounts or multiple duplicate updates on one account;
* If you post multiple unrelated updates to a topic using #;
* If you post multiple unrelated updates to a trending or popular topic;
* If you send large numbers of duplicate @replies;
* If you send large numbers of unsolicited @replies in an attempt to spam a service or link;
* If you add a large number of unrelated users to lists in an attempt to spam a service or link;
* If you repeatedly post other users’ Tweets as your own;
* If you have attempted to “sell” followers, particularly through tactics considered aggressive following or follower churn;
* Using or promoting third-party sites that claim to get you more followers (such as follower trains, sites promising “more followers fast,” or any other site that offers to automatically add followers to your account).
The key here is to always follow the Twitter rules to ensure you don’t get banned from the service you enjoy so much. Don’t accidentally fall into the spam trap. Complete list of Twitter Rules available here.
Popularity: 100% [?]
I am very thankful to this topic because it really gives great information ‘**
Notice that a large group of people can get together and get yoususpended without reason and without you ever seeing it comming.
* If a large number of people are blocking you;
* The number of spam complaints that have been filed against you;
twitter has no check to see if there is a real reason for spam complaints or mass blocking.
Like in any organizations rules are set to follow. The suspension of Twitter account is base on what have you done or the damage you have done. Rules are rules and everyone must agree to obey all of it. Consequences awaits for every action taken.
Good publish, adding this to my personal blog now, thanks.
So is there any way at all that I can re-open my account? Please reply to me ASAP. Thanks(;
this girl on twitter is trying to suspend my friend for no reason and she said twitter DMed them about suspending her account and this girl is really rude and keeps stalking me and my friends on twitter even though we blocked her she still finds ways to talk to us!
her username’s are
@SomedaywithJb and @somedaywithJDb
f## this dude if you follow all this rules where is the freedom than they making more and more rules after couple years nobody is gonna use twitter anymore and because twitter is now most popular community that does meand that they have to be arrogant
My twitter account SonomaCntyHomes was suspended without warning, so I’ve been trying to figure out why. Can’t get anything but auto-responses from the twitter help desk and it’s been over a week!
Reading the twitter terms of service didn’t help one iota, but your list helped — thanks! The item I think I violated was: * If your updates consist mainly of links, and not personal updates;
Still don’t understand why this would be considered a “mortal sin” but at least now I have a clue…
Thanks!
I can’t open my twitter account @IAmNahreshi. I don’t know if it was hacked or just suspended but I they say that my username and password does not match, well in fact I did not change anything in my account.I don’t want to start over because it took me a long time to have all of those followers. How can I get it back? Please help me! Please. contact me @IAmNahreshii. that’s my other twitter account. Thanks!!!
Isnt that what twitter Is made up for? To follow people and tweet about stuff? Im confused…
I’m so frustrated, I just started my blog and set up a twitter account that I have been using totally ligit and after less than a month it got suspended. The only reason above that might apply is including the same link – the only reason I include the same link is that my blog seems to keep the same shortened link for each post…although I would say that it was fewer than 60% of my tweets that included the link…argh! Anyone have tips on getting a suspended account turned back on?
My twitter account was suspended just because a canadian iphone application maker had the same trademark name as my username. They said I was violating their rules therefore my account was suspended. textnow was my username
This happened to me I’m not sure how long I’ll be banned for or if I’ll ever get my account back
has anyone ever got there account back?
Yes. It takes about a month.
A month? For how many months? But are you sure that you can get your twitter account back?
This happned to me
I think Anonymous should get a hold of Twitter. They have become more Twit-like in their aggressive suspension of regular accounts.
Thanks, this is good info, but right now, Im suspended 4 NOTHING, and I have not done what you have said:(
How can i get back my account?
Good lord the block for a lot of reasons! I’ve been banned thrice in the same night for simply replying and being a trending topic!
i think my account was suspended because i was following too many people
Ravi´s last [type] ..MicroSoft Launches So.Cl World Wide
Then Twitter so suspend @SomedaywithJB and her second account @somedaywithJDB she asked told this girl ” Heyyy dont change you’re icon, i really want to save you’re picture!” ( The picture was of her BTW)