Twitter’s New Feature Now Suggests Who You Shouldn’t Follow — Convenient or Biased?

Hayley Bennett
Sep 5, 2018 · 2 min read

In a recent article written by Johnny Lieu of Mashable titled “Twitter tests unfollow suggestions for accounts you don’t interact with much”, Lieu describes the new feature that Twitter is now testing out — suggesting people to unfollow. The company is only testing this new feature with a select few people, but from what those people have posted to Twitter about their experience, fellow Twitter users are not happy. Lieu included a few screenshots in his article that the test group had posted to Twitter, showing some of the “unfollow suggestions” they received, and many perceived these suggestions to be biased, and even racist. Twitter claims that the algorithm used to determine which accounts should be “unfollowed” is based solely off of how much you interact with those accounts; the less you interact with them, the more likely they are to appear in your unfollow suggestions. However, this explanation is not sitting well with many Twitter users.

Image: Parker Evans, Twitter

The main issue with this new feature is that we don’t really know why certain people are being suggested over others for who you should unfollow. Is it truly because you haven’t interacted with that particular account as much as Twitter thinks you should? And if the algorithm is true, one has to wonder how this will affect brands and businesses that rely on followers for their promotions. One does not have to interact with an account to read their posts and buy their products, however, if Twitter starts suggesting that you unfollow brands you don’t interact with, these brands could start to see their follower numbers rapidly decline. With less followers, these brands will have fewer people to market to, leading to a potential decrease in sales. Overall, this new feature does not sound promising for any party involved, and could lead to potential harm for businesses if this feature really is here to stay.

Article Referenced: https://mashable.com/article/twitter-unfollow-suggestions-button/#GPJe7OfyfiqS

Hayley Bennett

Written by

Telecommunications major at the University of Florida with an specialization in Journalism.

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