Loading Profile...
How can I let someone to follow me but not vice versa?
It doesn't work anymore. I used to be able to let someone to follow me without me following them. Now it seems that Follower must be also the followee as well. If I delete them on my "Following" list, they'll also get deleted from my "Followers" list. OK i'm getting a heading saying the Follow word. Can you please help?
I’m frustrated
15 people have this question
I have this question, too!
Tell me when someone answers.
The more people who ask this question, the more it gets noticed.
The more people who ask this question, the more it gets noticed.
The best answer from the company
-
This is definitely one of the more broken parts of our service. The fact that we force a reciprocal relationship for protected folks is definitely not easy to understand. While, I believe, the behavior has always been this way for protected folk, some changes a while back made this a bit more visible.
It is our intention to fix it. Unfortunately, it is a difficult change, so I don't have a specific timeline for the fix. I would guess it's days-weeks not weeks-months, however.
As soon as we can, we will change this.
The company and 6 other people say
this answers the question
The best answers from everyone
-
Ping! Hey Twitter staff, it would be great to hear one of the following:
1 - Oh My God, we're so sorry. Didn't realize the problem. Fixing immediately
2 - Yes, sorry about that. We're aware of it and it's on our list of things to fix soon.
3 - Yep, unfortunately, it's a complex issue and we're not sure if we'll be able to do anything about it
4 - We appreciate your situation but this is the way we intended for Twitter to work and don't see that changing
5 - Go to hell, buddy
Given that you guys are actually active in other topics, I have to imagine that either you're completely missing replies to older topics or your implicit response equates to the last option.
Some sort of word from you would help all of us private account people decide whether we should go and set up a second account to deal with this problem, hang tight or dejectedly go find some other service.
I’m frustrated
6 people say
this answers the question
-
"Wouldn't it be nice if we can also "Hide" a friend's tweets for a while?"
This would be an awesome little feature. Part of the problem I have is in blocking all of these people, I have to remember to add them later after their little game is over or they return from a conference I'm not attending. That of course will never happen faithfully.
Sure, I'll probably re-add those people organically when I remember that they exist on Twitter and I find that I miss their updates, but it's an inexact science that's a little stressful since 1) I have to block so many people and 2) doing so removes their ability to follow me.
"I think the problem may be because Twitter is trying to keep this application as simple as possible by not implementing too much features. But they need to also realize that this cannot compromise with the user experience!"
Totally. As any network grows, it's complexity must increase or restrict/self-select its usage patterns. Frankly though, this change for *only* private accounts actually made the system more complex and not less.
"Hello, can the twitter staff hear us?"
I'm not so sure about this and am scratching my head to figure out why no official reps have chimed in on this thread when they are active on others.
5 people say
this answers the question
-
Inappropriate?hi caweena,
is your Twitter account also 'caweena'? If it is, my guess it's because your account is protected. In order for someone to follow you, you must also follow them in order for them to view your tweets (b/c you made your account protected)
Hope this helps.
1 person says
this answers the question
-
Inappropriate?Is that really true? If so, I have to say that it puts a MAJOR dent in the private account feature. There are a number of people who I know and don't mind if they follow my tweets, but for God sake I don't want to get theirs. (People use Twitter differently, no commentary at all about my feelings for the actual person.)
If this is the case, I would urge the Twitterarti to reconsider.
I’m disappointed
-
Inappropriate?This (and the need to constantly make decisions about who to *allow*) made me turn the privacy function off. It's kind of a drag.
I’m kinda bummed.
-
Inappropriate?I still have my privacy set to "on". Not sure why since the rest of my life is so public. But I'm funny that way. And I guess my philosophy is that I only allow people to follow me who I know and thus wouldn't mind following them.
I’m paranoid in strange ways.
-
Inappropriate?"This (and the need to constantly make decisions about who to *allow*) made me turn the privacy function off. It's kind of a drag."
Oh I'm fine with that part. It's not like approving people is an urgent matter or anything. I just do the sweep anytime I'm actually on the Twitter site and notice there are requests pending.
Amy, I totally agree and am in the same boat as you. I *like* to be free to say anything I want on Twitter without prying eyes (hi Google) leering in.
It's a shame though that I have completely block access to **my** updates from people I know and like solely on the basis that I don't necessarily agree with or appreciate the way they are currently using Twitter (e.g. people who primarily use it to converse or to cross-post content from their other sites or who may be live-twittering a conference they are attending or who are participating in a Twitter-based MMORPG... Kill me...) -
Inappropriate?Hence, I had deleted my twitter account. BUT, they still keep my account around for another 6 months until they will completely delete it from their server. Twitter has serious privacy concerns to their users.
I’m frustrated
-
Inappropriate?caweena, that's relevant to this thread how exactly? If anything I think Twitter's doing a fantastic job on protecting people's privacy. In fact, in my case, TOO fantastic of a job...
-
Inappropriate?Jay Allen, I dont see why I can't add another message to my own thread. Twitter
still cannot fix the problem that I first pointed out, and I've had it. -
Inappropriate?Hi caweena. Actually, your best bet for getting attention to your concern about privacy is to start a new thread. If you do that, the Twitter reps will get a notification about it. Buried here in this conversation about Following it has less impact and less chance of being seen by someone who might be able to help you.
-
Inappropriate?Caweena, I didn't mean to come across as attacking. I was actually genuinely confused. When I initially replied to this thread, I thought we shared the exact same problem. Even now as I read what you originally wrote, it still seems like the exact same problem: Twitter being overly aggressive about enforcing privacy.
So your previous message confused me because you now seem to be complaining about not *enough* privacy. Anyway, I didn't mean to come across as rude or anything. I was just looking for clarification.
But as Amy said, if you have a different issue now, start another thread. I'd be interested to hear the detals.
I’m sitting
-
Inappropriate?Oh Amy, a point of order. So assuming I have the SAME problem as the one caweena posted, am I better off replying as I did or starting a new thread myself?
-
Inappropriate?Ideally, we try to avoid duplicate posts in the system. But I can see how you might be tempted to start a new post when you feel like an existing one isn't getting further attention. You've actually caused me to see a big hole that needs to be addressed! We should have some kind of mechanism for users to nudge assigned reps when an old thread needs attention again -- particularly when there was never employee involvement to begin with. If there had been employee involvement in this thread, then that employee would receive notification when new replies are posted.
Hmmmm....
Thanks for the food for thought!
I’m pondering...
-
Inappropriate?Hi Jay.
You can also click the "I have this question too" button at the top of this page.
That will boost this topic to the top of the active topics list in twitter.
I’m hoping this helps
-
Inappropriate?Ah! thanks for the tips guys. Glad I could provide for your mental snack.
I’m satisfied!
-
Inappropriate?Hey Twitter folks, this is starting to become a major problem with Ze's (@#^*@#) colorwars. As it is, I'm blocking (calling 'unfollowing' exactly what it actually is) a number of people every day **who are friends**, have requested to follow me and I've accepted. When they re-request, noticing that my updates are no longer accessible to them, what do I do? Email/IM/call to tell them that I can't allow them in because THEY post too much? That's just dumb.
Can I get an explanation of why things are the way they are and a response on whether or not you plan to change this? And please don't say it's for privacy reasons. If I am **asked** whether to allow someone to follow me and I accept, you have done your job and any lack of privacy is my own fault.
I’m annoyed...
-
Inappropriate?I feel like I should more clearly state why this issue upsets me so much by saying that first and foremost, **I LOVE TWITTER**. It's the one single application that is open 100% of the time whether I'm casually surfing or working under deadline. It has fundamentally changed the way that I -- a consultant working from home by myself -- keep in touch with my friends and know what's going on in their lives and them mine.
So, in order to deal with the explosion of new uses for Twitter (including turning it into an full-scale MMORPG), I am faced with having to choose between four unpleasant possible actions:
1. **Block** everyone who uses Twitter in a fashion that I find distracting/unpleasant
2. Create and post to a second public Twitter account so that people can follow me unilaterally
3. Make my private Twitter account public
4. Stop using Twitter
The last two options are simply non-starters. The second is actually ideal for a number of reasons (which I'd be happy to explain if you like) but currently **extremely difficult** due to the fact that it requires re-auth on both the website and all clients and our mobile phones can only be used on a single Twitter account. This creates massive friction of interaction that makes Twitter much less pleasant to use.
I love Twitter and I want to be able to use it as much and as freely as I have in the past. I also want *others* to use it just like they have in the past, are today and will in the future, whether as a means of personal communication, reblogging and self-marketing, MMORPG or anything else they (or I) dream up. Yet, it is this single issue that is causing us private account users to punish others for how they use Twitter. That's just not right.
I’m frustrated
-
Inappropriate?Offering the ability for users to create separate Twitter "channels" (called identies by the poster but I think that confuses the issue) would solve the problem above btw.
http://getsatisfaction.com/twitter/to... -
Inappropriate?These replies are great btw! I think allowing user to define "channels" or groups for different access level would be a nice way to solve this problem. Hello, can the twitter staff hear us?
I’m hopeful for this possible solution
-
Inappropriate?I hear ya... I've tried 1, and 3, and finally 4 on your list. The color war did drove me crazy too, so I had to block that person for posting too much. Sad because we don't have any ability to control other people's incoming tweets. Wouldn't it be nice if we can also "Hide" a friend's tweets for a while?
I think the problem may be because Twitter is trying to keep this application as simple as possible by not implementing too much features. But they need to also realize that this cannot compromise with the user experience!
I’m a frustrated ex-twitter
-
Inappropriate?"Wouldn't it be nice if we can also "Hide" a friend's tweets for a while?"
This would be an awesome little feature. Part of the problem I have is in blocking all of these people, I have to remember to add them later after their little game is over or they return from a conference I'm not attending. That of course will never happen faithfully.
Sure, I'll probably re-add those people organically when I remember that they exist on Twitter and I find that I miss their updates, but it's an inexact science that's a little stressful since 1) I have to block so many people and 2) doing so removes their ability to follow me.
"I think the problem may be because Twitter is trying to keep this application as simple as possible by not implementing too much features. But they need to also realize that this cannot compromise with the user experience!"
Totally. As any network grows, it's complexity must increase or restrict/self-select its usage patterns. Frankly though, this change for *only* private accounts actually made the system more complex and not less.
"Hello, can the twitter staff hear us?"
I'm not so sure about this and am scratching my head to figure out why no official reps have chimed in on this thread when they are active on others.
5 people say
this answers the question
-
Inappropriate?Just cross-linking these because they seem to be very related: http://getsatisfaction.com/twitter/to...
-
Inappropriate?merlin mann refers to this feature as "a snooze button." hit it and you don't hear from that person for 2 weeks. it's a great idea. and actually, it wouldn't be too hard for someone to use the API to build a version of Twitter that has one. any takers? -
Inappropriate?Yeah, I'm with Jay. There are times when I'd just like to ignore someone for a while but not risk offending them by "blocking" them altogether.