Last week Twitter removed its auto-follow feature, deeming it “disingenuous.” What’s that mean, exactly? And since Twitter is still allowing celebrities and high-profile users use the auto-follow feature (upon request), why can’t the rest of us?
Let’s take a quick step back and look at what the auto-follow feature is. As a Twitter user, you’re able to follow other users in order to receive their updates on your home page or your mobile phone, depending on your settings. If you follow another Twitter user, it’s most likely because you care about what they have to say and you’d like to keep up with their updates. But sometimes, you follow other Twitter users for reciprocity reasons. It’s the nice thing to do, to return-follow, when someone cares enough about what you have to say in order to follow you.
This reciprocity was one of the primary reasons behind adding an auto-follow option, which Twitter extended to a test group of users for a trial run. But the test run apparently didn’t go so well, as Twitter has decided to pull the auto-follow feature for all but high-profile users, stating the following, reports WebPro News:
“We’re going to discontinue autofollow because this behavior sends the wrong message. Namely, it is unlikely that anyone can actually read tweets from thousands of accounts which makes this activity disingenuous.”
When Twitter says that the auto-follow feature is being used for disingenuous reasons, it’s most likely saying that users are taking advantage of the auto-follow merely to follow more users and potentially get more followers. But unless you’re hoping that other users have added the auto-follow option, there’s no point in simply following a bunch of users in hopes of receiving a return auto-follow. Users already follow a bunch of others in hopes for a follow-back, and that’s irrevrant to the auto-follow feature. Twitter has also installed a follow limit depending on your follow/follower ratio in order to curb this particular behavior.
But is the noted disingenuous use of the auto-follow feature the real reason behind Twitter’s decision, and it it Twitter’s place to decide that a feature should be pulled just because some users are using that feature in a way that may be different from its intended function?
If Twitter is in fact taking away the auto-follow feature to discourage spammers, then Twitter should just say so and leave it at that. Removing the feature for beta testers and enabling it for celebrities and high profile users actually sends the wrong message. These celebrity and high profile users are most likely to be the most disingenuous users of all.
Even if its not intentional, high profile users have the most followers, and will therefore follow the most if thy enable the auto-follow features. This also means they’re highly unlikely to be able to engage the bulk of the users they’re following, as the sheer mass of them is overwhelming without hiring someone to help out (also disingenuous, eh?).
The silver lining in this all is the fact that third party applications still offer auto-follow capabilities, which run through Twitter’s API instead of directly from Twitter itself. Check out applications like Tweetlater in order to set up auto-follow features and more.
note: image credit nndb