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Twitter bans third-party apps violating their API rules

Paawan Sunam

01 Feb 2019 00:00 IST

Updated On 01 Feb 2019 08:02 IST

New Update

Twitter banned these three apps - ManageFlitter, Statusbrew, Crowdfire for repeatedly violating their API rules.

A Twitter spokesperson stated to TechCrunch that, “We have suspended these three apps for having repeatedly violated our API rules related to aggressive following & follow churn. As a part of our commitment to building a healthy service, we remain focused on rapidly curbing spam and abuse originating from use of Twitter’s APIs.”

Stopping spam and abuse that comes from the use of our APIs plays a big part in keeping Twitter healthy. These apps received previous warnings for violating our API rules and have been suspended. They can reapply for access with a new app that's compliant.
— Twitter Comms (@TwitterComms) January 31, 2019

ManageFiltter for $12 to $49 per month, sold a feature to rapidly follow relevant people to gain new followers. Crowdfire charged $75 per month to offer auto-DM feature(banned by Twitter) to generate follow notifications. Statusbrew, offered a feature to unfollow people who don't follow back for $25 to $416 per month.

Also Read: Twitter is testing a feature to show news on priority in the feed

Spam is increasing at an alarming rate. Users paying to gain engagement on the platform damage it's authencity. The banned apps will no longer be able to follow or unfollow people or take any other actions.

Aggressive following (in the hopes of reciprocation) is a violation of the rules. Spam followers, illegitmate engagement and more of such activities make an account look more influential even if it's not and increases automated activities and makes the platform less human.

Fake engagement is meaningless and the whole purpose of the platform dies when conversations engaged in are not genuine.

Twitter feature TechCrunch platform API spam Engagement people unfollow follow fake 'notifications' Conversations activities Apps Actions abuse relevant Following influential Purpose rules Aggressive Aggressive following API rules auto-DM automated automated activities CrowdFire Fake engagement follow or unfollow generate genuine illegitmate engagement ManageFlitter reciprocation Spam followers spokesperson Statusbrew