Large user-base but friendships/create limited to 800/hr

[AxelSayegh]

Hi,

I’m not sure if this is a common theme, but Twitter Support are being unresponsive and somewhat rude just pasting stock responses and closing tickets mid conversation.

We’ve been having a lot of difficulties pivoting our application to a new one due to some kind of blacklisting that seems to be happening on Twitter REST API 1.1:

Our old app is an account management app which allows users to filter twitter searches and people and then follow/unfollow them, and the friendships/create endpoint started to “Temporarily Lock - code 326” our client’s accounts (requiring mobile phone call to reactivate) no less than once a day with around 20 follows/user, even though Twitter have reviewed our app multiple times and state that we’re NOT suspended/blacklisted in any way.

So we assumed some kind of ‘follow churning’ is happening due to people randomly following other and as such have created a NEW APP, which generates a FIXED and very FINITE list based on artificial intelligent (ML) selection and twitter search results after clients provide their requirements and setup their searches so they can later interact with the results (follow/like/retweet).

We’ve reviewed the developer’s policy, and follow rules, and we’re sure that the new app doesn’t violate it in any way, and have limited our users to a very finite list of people who they can follow, without any follow scheduling, churning, or automatic following. For most users that’s less than 100 actions a day.

Nevertheless, the new app was blacklisted and limited to about 800-1000 follows application wide, so for each 1 hour window not even a single friendships/create request goes through for any user.

We’ve tried opening a case with Twitter and they simply replied we have no limitations on the new app, and we cannot comment on the rate limiting and such to developer. A new ticket got an automatic response saying the app is being blacklisted. No response yet!

What can we do to resolve this?

Any help would be much appreciated. Any ideas on who we can speak to a human who can read replies rather than a copy/paste/block bot, or further escalate the case?

Our next move is to email our 1.4 million clients describing how Twitter are being unfair and forcing us out of business.

[andypiper]

It is late where I am so apologies for the short answer but are you sure your app complies with the automation policy and rules? That sounds like the most likely source of friction based on what I can briefly understand of your use case.

[AxelSayegh]

Hi Andy,

Thank you for replying.

Truth is, we’ve been working with Twitter API since 2009, so I can fairly say that we are sure we’re compliant.
The problem, when we open a case, and try to reach out to Twitter staff, we get copy-paste answers saying that there are no restrictions on our apps (new or old) and the case is immediately closed, last discussion, the Twitter staff didn’t allow is to even respond to the last message we received, but rather suspended our app without even reviewing it.

The support ticket clearly contains review required material: “what our app does”, “how”, “clear statements of how we prevent mass following of random users”…etc, also keeping in mind, that the old app was being reviewed about once a year, without it failing to comply with Twitter’s regulations.

FYI:
https://tweepi.com/sigma/app/#!/sign-up
https://tweepi.com/app/#!/packages#features

Truth be told, we are very frustrated with the fact we’re not even told what we’re doing wrong, and given a chance to fix it, which we believe is not aligning with ‘fair use policy’ of the API.

Thank you in advance for any support and help you can provide, we appreciate it.
Alex Sayegh - CTO Tweepi

[amerkawar]

Thanks for the reply.

More information can be found in the letter we sent our subscribers earlier today:
http://mailchi.mp/tweepi/twitter-issue-update-introducing-new-tweepi-sigma

Hope to hear back from you with some good news, or at least to get a chance to talk to a human rather than copy/paste replies.

Much appreciated,
Amer Kawar
CEO and Founder of Tweepi

[andypiper]

Given there is a specific case here this is not the appropriate forum for discussion. Please continue to use existing tickets and channels to discuss user and application specifics. Thank you.

[andypiper]