2 min read
It’s not confirmed if the feature will eventually roll out or not. But Twitter has confirmed is that it tested a feature where it suggested people you should unfollow. The way it will work is Twitter will see your patterns of activity. And people you are least interacting with will be suggested as possible candidates for Unfollow. You don’t have to take Twitter’s word for it. And just ignore what they suggest much like you do when they suggest you whom to follow. But it’s interesting why a social media company, where more is always better than less, is even considering such a possibility.
A possible explanation could be that 2018 is a lot more different from 2008. A decade ago everything about social platforms was new. The modes of engagement were undiscovered and we didn’t know if anything could be used for bad. In a decade, we have learned the lessons. And while social media companies creating an abundance of possibilities for interaction is generally good, it could have its own adverse circumstances.
That’s precisely the reason Twitter recently did a crackdown on bot accounts. People around the world, including many from Pakistan, lost a huge chunk of their followers base.
Not everything could be about welfare of the society though. And certainly not as the solo reason when you are working in hyper-growth focused tech company. The business side of this story is to possibly increase the engagements between existing users. While more people to follow can expand your area of interest and things you are aware of at any given time. It significantly hurts how many people you can actually engage with. Too much choice is bad. If you follow 200 people on Twitter, it’s more likely that you will engage with them more. Compared to say if you have 2000.
