Confused about Rate Limits

[mostinterestuff]

As part of our Marketing efforts, I have to manage 4 or 5 Twitter accounts.

Since I know how to code, I figured I’d make myself a dashboard, configure the content I want posted, users I want to follow, etc.

From that Dashboard I can conveniently configure for all my accounts without having to switch.

Problem is, the account was blocked for some kind of Twitter Terms, but it’s not clear to me what I did wrong.

I’m only posting content around 3 times in one hour, and maybe following 20 or 30 users. I also make it so those users that haven’t changed their picture are unfollowed (automatically).

It’s way faster to just follow the users we like (seem like our demographic) and then upon inspection it may be that they are not very good or real users. I want to avoid the drag of having to go into each profile and analyzing the user when there’s an API for that.

Any ideas what may be happening or how I can figure out EXACTLY why my account got blocked (so I can stop doing it…)?

[abraham]

We can’t help with account specific issues in this forum. Please see the support article on suspended accounts for next steps: https://support.twitter.com/articles/15790

[mostinterestuff]

My account was already unsuspended, I’m not requesting help with that. Just help understanding how the rules work.

[mostinterestuff]

Update: Twitter hasn’t suspended my account anymore, but the behavior I’m seeing now is that my Access Token is being deleted every time I Unfollow a user using the API.

I can use the API to tweet and follow other people, but at the first Unfollow it all breaks. I’m wondering why is there a way to Unfollow users through the API if then Twitter is going to ban you for it.

There’s no explanation as to why this is happening, I just figured it out by trial and error. In order to dis-encourage some bad practices, Twitter is breaking the API for those of us that want to use it in a good way. So it seems the only way one can Unfollow other users is through the site/app (which has a very bad UX as it asks you to confirm every time) and apparently only as many users as they will allow (which is also a secret). So if one day you decide you want to unfollow everyone, there’s no way to do that, you have to do it slowly day by day until they block you and pray your account won’t be suspended… Having a hard time understanding how this makes sense

[andypiper]

It’s really difficult to comment on the specifics here, unfortunately.

You do describe your app as taking automatic actions, and that’s not allowed per the automation rules, so I suspect that is the issue.

Many of these kinds of app or account suspensions are managed via an automated system (Botmaker) that uses adaptive learning and rules to handle behaviours, so it is not always possible to explain a specific cause of a suspension.

You’re welcome to open a ticket with the platform support team if you need to do so.

[mostinterestuff]

Thanks, I disabled the behavior that seemed to bring problems, as the last thing I want to do is break the rules and get banned. I’m just automating it for efficiency (isn’t that what automation is about).