Twitter to remove suspicious accounts from follower counts

Twitter says it will begin removing suspicious accounts it has locked from its counts of users’ followers.

"We are committed to building trust and encouraging healthy conversation on Twitter. Follower counts should be meaningful and accurate. We are removing locked accounts from follower counts," said Twitter on a post.

Twitter users are likely to see a reduction in their follower counts in the coming days. For many, this will amount to a reduction of four followers or less. But large accounts of celebrities and public figures could see bigger drops.

An account that’s been locked can’t tweet, like or retweet posts, and it won’t be shown ads. "What are locked accounts? When we see sudden changes in behaviour, we lock accounts. We reach out to the owners of the accounts and unless they validate the account and reset their passwords, we keep them locked with no ability to log in," said Twitter.

The company said on Wednesday that the move will not affect its number of monthly or daily active user figures. In the first three months of the year, it had 336 million active users.

"What does this mean for your follower count? Most people will see a change of four followers or fewer; others with larger follower counts may experience a more significant drop," wrote Twitter in one of their posts.

Twitter has been working to remove fake accounts, bots and abusive posts from its service.