Twitter has declared that the number of followers a user has on the platform was a visible feature. A Twitter spokesperson referred to the issue on Thursday after The Wall Street Journal reported that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had written to the company's CEO in December. Rahul told CEO Parag Agarwal his handle had not had any new followers since it was briefly suspended in August 2021. Rahul had alleged Twitter had been “unwittingly complicit” in curbing free speech in India.
A Twitter spokesperson was quoted by ANI as saying “Follower counts are a visible feature and we want everyone to have confidence that numbers are meaningful and accurate. Twitter has zero-tolerance approach to platform manipulation and spam.”
The spokesperson noted, “We fight spam and malicious automation strategically and at scale with machine learning tools, and as part of those consistent and ongoing efforts to ensure a healthy service and credible accounts, follower counts can and do fluctuate.”
The Twitter spokesperson added, “We remove millions of accounts each week for violating our policies on platform manipulation and spam... While some accounts notice minor difference, in certain cases no. could be higher.”
Twitter encouraged people to refer to its latest transparency center update for more context.
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BJP IT operations head Amit Malviya took a jibe at Rahul over his complaint. Malviya tweeted on Thursday, “Rahul Gandhi has written to Twitter complaining that his followers count has not increased since his account was temporarily suspended in 2021… Rahul doesn’t get audience in the real world and now virtual world too! What next? Write to EC and complaint for not getting votes?”
Interestingly, another popular Twitter handle also complained of a “freezing” of follower count. Journalist Barkha Dutt, who has 7.2 million followers, tweeted on Thursday, “Cant say about Rahul Gandhi's Twitter account and his specific complaint but I can confirm a freezing of my follower count; it has not moved more than two years plus @paraga - and once again its the absence of transparency on big tech platforms thats the real travesty.”
