Zero tolerance towards manipulation, says Twitter after Rahul Gandhi shoots letter

After Rahul Gandhi wrote to Twitter, alleging a dip in his followers, the microblogging platform said that it has a zero-tolerance approach to platform manipulation and spam.

In response to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s letter to Twitter CEO Parag Agarwal to highlight the company’s “unwitting complicity in curbing free and fair speech”, the microblogging website said that it has a zero-tolerance approach to manipulation and spam.

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Rahul Gandhi had said that while the number of his Twitter followers increased by 4 lakh on average for the first seven months of 2021, the growth had come to a halt after his account was suspended for eight days in August last year.

“Twitter has a zero-tolerance approach to platform manipulation and spam. We fight spam and malicious automation strategically and at scale with machine learning tools, and as part of those consistent and ongoing efforts to ensure a healthy service and credible accounts, follower counts can and do fluctuate,” a Twitter spokesperson said.

“We remove millions of accounts each week for violating our policies on platform manipulation and spam... While some accounts notice a minor difference, in certain cases the number could be higher. We understand this change can be concerning, but we believe accuracy and transparency make Twitter a more trusted service for public conversation,” the spokesperson said.

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“As part of this process, we regularly challenge accounts to validate or confirm account details or to complete a CAPTCHA test. Accounts that fail to complete a challenge within a specified period of time may be suspended or stay in a locked state and will not count toward follower counts,” the spokesperson added.