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.
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.
Conservatives target people and mass-block them knowing their target will be suspended. Twitter couldn’t care less & I’ve written a letter to them with nothing but gibberish (greeking) and Boone read it because twitter is almost all bots. They have zero customer service and don’t care if they further victimize people who where the target of malicious mass-blockings. That makes them as bad as the lowlifes who gang up to intentionally block people. Any company that has zero concern for people will soon be out of business and a better, more competent one will replace it.
It doesn’t matter the political leaning. I’ve been suspended at least three times more from liberals than from conservatives.
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!
Heather, me, too! @Goya225
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
i just got suspended off twitter but its either because ive been replying to alot of people or i sent one tweet with the same trend in it? could that be the reason? https://twitter.com/#!/danielsahyounie <this is what i tweeted. also how long will it take? will i get my account back?
What if your being someone that your not. Example : pretending to be a relative of a celebrity. Wgat do you do then???
my aCcount was suspended @wapu25 ..pls help.. nOw i knOw the rules
If you have a business don’t rely on Twitter. Look what happened to Myspace. Now Justin Timberlake has poured millions into a total rebuild of Myspace to make it much much better.
I was suckered in by a pack of Trolls into responding and in my defense Twitter banned me. I was even defending attacks on media presenters.
I was prior generating genuine content that people found interesting (no it wasn’t porn etc)
Because my interest was primarily politics I did follow hashtag streams for obvious reasons. I wasn’t a business and always had pure intent.
If you are running a business set up a few accounts, one for followers.
One for promotional info but don’t send out a gazillion tweets as people wont read it.
One disposable account for abusing trolls attacking you.
Always lead any potential customer away from Twitter over to your website and other media because Twitter don’t respect any contribution you may make.
When the trolls come switch to another account and let them have it as Twitter just delete their own content drivers
Twitter are listening to trolls Twitter self reporting algorithm because they are too dumb to work out they are cannibalizing their best & brightest contributors.
Have an exit strategy
Is my acct under suspension, or not? If so, I have read your rules of conduct, and may have inadvertently erred by following more people/organizations, than I am choosing to have follow me. I was unaware of, and did not clearly understand this caveat. Now I do. Additionally, I also was unaware that my content had to be all tweets from my activites personally, and not just and only RT. Again, being brand new to Twitter, in my excitement, I just did not understand.
If you want to choose to suspend my account over these 2 item violations which were 100% UNINTENTIONAL, and innocent, then go ahead. I hope, though, that you will re-instate my account which I have 98% abided by ALL of your rules because that is just who I am as a person, human being, and self-respecting woman~!
Waiting to hear from you ASAP,
@Goya225
Twitter now blocks people who follow too many people continuously. You shoud be careful while following people and also while clicking on links people send you. its an open fact that millions of twitter get hacked daily.
Ankith@ geek news´s last [type] ..Ubuntu for Tablets Announced, Developer Preview to be Released on Thursday
I have just had my account suspended 3 days prior to an election.
My posts were to some degree repetitious but they were a political message which would reach different demographics at different times of the day across the under hahstags.
If you check the spam act political communication is exempt of the spam act.
There were no monies derived from the tweets. About 10-20 per day. There was no personal attacks and many tweets that were @ were television programs.
It also appears Twitter is removing posts with hyperlinks to particular websites which may impact powerful lobby groups in the US. So much for free speech.
Meanwhile the porn spam bots continue under the same has tag along with the some vial language poster with he most vitriol of language.
Id say I was reported by someone with enough sway to have me canned 2 days prior the election.
I cant see Twitter surviving under this reporting model. Business will need several accounts to prevent suspension.
Now that Twitter are implementing advertising it will only take one of the other big dotcoms to release and improved version before complete collapse.
If I were business I wouldn’t invest the time with such volatility in the reporting procedure.
It appears someone with power has had me suspended at a whim.
I cant see Twitter sustaining long term business.
Its a lot to lose.
I think it is kind if silly for them them suspend you if you have less people then you follow. don’t want a ton of people following me.. I was suspended last night and I have no idea why, I did the appeal thing and hopefully it won’t take long to get it back.
Help me im suspended
this was help ful my friend got suspeneded i looked it up and i saw this and i looked at it and now i know why she got suspeneded
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)