Actually, Andy, I think this is a developers’ issue, especially considering that the account was locked again this morning. And, again, all friends are gone. It is exactly like yesterday.
It must be either a system issue or an app issue, therefore on-topic.
I may be doing something wrong but darned if I know what it might be. All scripts are over 6 months old and never caused issues.
Also, there is no procedure in place for asking why an account is locked. I’m not even sure if the locking causes the friends to disappear or the disappearing friends are seen as a massive abuse of the API. I would suspect the former since the app is not write-restricted. Or, possibly, this is a new tactic meant to replace write restrictions?
I cannot be the only one experiencing this.
Perhaps if I explain what my app does?
Using Twitter lists and searches, I build up a list of potential people to follow.
That list is filtered to better target people I am interested in
A keypress then dribbles out a follow every 2 minutes to avoid annoying the rate-limits and to avoid wild swings in follower/following counts. It is not an aggressive follow, I limit to 200 a day max
After a 5-day grace, anyone not following back is deemed to have no interest in my stuff. A keypress again dribbles out unfollows every two minutes for the same reasons as above
Immediately prior to an actual follow or unfollow, a final check is done so as to not unfollow a follow or re-follow a follow
Once someone has been followed and unfollowed, they are removed from potential follows for 30 days so as to not annoy anyone.
