How Does Twitter Detect Automation?

[Rolf LeStrange]

Twitter suspended one of my accounts recently and I appealed it without admitting to any automation, so they sent me an apology. As a result, my following count dropped to 0 and I ended up losing 407 followers because of it. I am concerned if I were to use some of these practices for corporate social media management and I want to know how to avoid detection flawlessly.

How does Twitter detect automation?
They said that a bot detects automated accounts (ironically). One mistake I've made in the past was messaging others on Twitter while automating follows. I wonder if they may record the time between follows and if it's all identical, then they know something's up. I might have to get a more sophisticated automation software. I wanted to ask the BHW community if anyone knows more about this.

Please let me know if you have any feedback regarding Twitter's automation trap.

 

[Sergey Yermak]

I have similar issue. I wrote some bot for auto following and my accounts gets locked out periodically for automation (about once in 2-3 days - and then I need to verify sms code or reset password).
Not sure yet, but may be its about different IP adresses (my bot is hosted on a VPS in another country and I also browsing twitter from my pc).

 

[AdeptiAds]

Twitter doesnt inspect strictly on automation. It only requires the recognition of a CAPTCHA image during registration. After gaining the login information bot can perform most human tasks by calling Twitter API

 

[Bluearrow]

They probably have some sort of check list I guess. Most bots use IE like when people do it manually its mostly Firefox or Chrome. They probably can compare locations, OS etc too. Plus if bot runs 24/7, then it's another flag.

 

[Sergey Yermak]

Well for follow/unfollow my bot emulating browser requests. I'm not sure if is it safe to use api calls for this or it is more risky.

 

[LeroyS]

I think its a combination of IP, frequency of action and volume of action as well as multiple actions simultaneously. If its something 1 human couldnt possibly do, that'll be a flag. I use mass follow in chrome and have been safe with a 4100ms delay between follows, but I let it go without doing other things at the same time. I think there is also some sort of hueristic profiling, too, because if the account behaviors change drastically, they flag that as well. Following and unfollowing at the same time is a dead giveaway, though.

 

[Rolf LeStrange]

I found this as well, for anyone that wants more info: http://www.cs.wm.edu/~hnw/paper/tdsc12b.pdf

 

[LeroyS]

Wow! Thats some valuable info right there! Nice That's the first time ive ever seen this acknowledged-

"Thus, a high follower-to-following ratio is a sign of spamming behavior. Grier et al"- Im gonna have to really check this out.

 

[heartofgold]

It's random..

Your account will get locked even if you do something mundane like tweet 10 times or follow 10 people.

 

[Deleted member 657006]

there no gurantees with any account at all.

no one can promise a account will last x amount of time .

you run the account day buy day and pray they dont go down .

that it fact .

twitter even delete randomly

manually doing it all seems to make accounts last longer but there no guarentees

this is why internet business is liked or not liked as a marketer .

you need a business twist for clients to just keep them happy .

can even be a backup of all there twitter jnfo and ppl they did have on there account anythink showing you care incase of a full shutdown.

 

[Donbuffy]

there no gurantees with any account at all.

no one can promise a account will last x amount of time .

you run the account day buy day and pray they dont go down .

that it fact .

twitter even delete randomly

manually doing it all seems to make accounts last longer but there no guarentees

this is why internet business is liked or not liked as a marketer .

you need a business twist for clients to just keep them happy .

can even be a backup of all there twitter jnfo and ppl they did have on there account anythink showing you care incase of a full shutdown.

Exactly my point!

 

[Mel_Rose]

I've encountered this problem a lot trying to use Follow Liker bot with twitter. It seemed like no matter what settings I tried to use, how large or how small (like 10 likes a day even) got the accounts flagged and triggered a 'suspicious activity' message where I had to verify it was me etc etc. I have no idea how they are doing it but it's impressive. All of your theories sound possible though. Is there a good way to grow twitter accounts?

 

[majestic33]

I found this as well, for anyone that wants more info: http://www.cs.wm.edu/~hnw/paper/tdsc12b.pdf

I'll have to read that :O

 

[Sergey Yermak]

I've encountered this problem a lot trying to use Follow Liker bot with twitter. It seemed like no matter what settings I tried to use, how large or how small (like 10 likes a day even) got the accounts flagged and triggered a 'suspicious activity' message where I had to verify it was me etc etc. I have no idea how they are doing it but it's impressive. All of your theories sound possible though. Is there a good way to grow twitter accounts?

Still struggling with this, tried following 10 people per 2hour timespan, and got account locked out...

 

[paulkersey2017]

They detect Api calls, even the so called human bots like follow liker ...still use json api calls. if you exceed around 160 calls per hour, you will be flagged. do one thing per hour. not following/tweeting at the same time.

 

[heartofgold]

I don't think they even know. Sometimes the "alarms" go off if you tweet just once or only follow one person. lol