Twitter Stops Counting Locked Accounts As Followers

Anyone with a decently sized presence on Twitter should prepare to lose a few followers. The microblogging social network announced Wednesday that it would fundamentally change the way follower counts work. The change is not especially severe, though the way Twitter chose to word the announcement could be misleading at first.

The company announced in a Tweet on Wednesday that locked accounts will no longer count towards a user’s follower count.

Twitter explained the change in greater detail in a company blog post. The main point Twitter users need to know is that only accounts that Twitter locked due to suspicious activity are included in this updated policy. Accounts that users deliberately make private to avoid attention from friends, family or employers (colloquially known as “locked accounts”) will still count towards a follower count.

In the blog post, Twitter said the change will make follower counts more accurate and meaningful.

“Most people will see a change of four followers or fewer; others with larger follower counts will experience a more significant drop,” Twitter said. “We understand this may be hard for some, but we believe accuracy and transparency make Twitter a more trusted service for public conversation.”

The variety of locked accounts that Twitter will stop counting as followers are not necessarily fake accounts or spam bots, according to the company. Instead, these are accounts that were originally created by real people but suddenly changed in nature, prompting Twitter to lock them. If the original owner does not confirm control of the account, it stays locked.

This is part of a broader effort by Twitter to crack down on fake, abusive or otherwise bad accounts. Twitter’s shares fell by eight percent on Monday after a report that the site was purging a million or more accounts from the site per day. A 2017 study found that, at the time, as many as 48 million accounts on the site were fake.