Can Somebody Explain Why Instagram Doesn't Just Tighten up Follow Filters?

Noah Hawryshko

Noah Hawryshko

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Hi BHW,

I'll make this quick. So a good amount of people are doing the follow method nowadays on Instagram to get traffic, right? Why doesn't Instagram just put strict filters on following, so that you can only follow 50 people a day instead of 1k? What legitimate user would need to follow more than 50 people per day?

This seems so simple to me, so I know I'm missing something. The question is, what is it?
 
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same would apply to twitter and facebook - who follows 1k on twitter or has 4999 friends on FB ? they might just need us to spam lol
 
jh0w4n1z said:
same would apply to twitter and facebook - who follows 1k on twitter or has 4999 friends on FB ? they might just need us to spam lol
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It's been eating at me for so long. When I was learning IM I was content in realising that there's probably a good reason that I didn't see, but as I learn more and more, the anti-spam filters of social media are looking stupider and stupider.

I mean, instead of devoting resources to blacklisting PVA area codes, and employing spiders to follow links through 301's and JS redirects, why not do the easy stuff first? Why not just stop people from following 1k a day and having 5k friends?

I've NEVER been more bothered by an IM question than I am right now.
 
Because they fear that users will leave their platfrorm, all social media platfrorms are in competition

Imagine if one day instagram would limit the number of follow to 50, a lot of users will simply go to another image based social media (pinterest, tumblr etc)
And in the next 30-60 days someone will create an exact replica of instagram but without the follow limit and all people from instagram will slowly move to this new platform

A lot of people want to be popular specially on social media, the bigger number of follower the better, one way to do this is posting quality content, shoutouts etc

The other efficient way to get followers is simply to follow others and wait for them to follow you back, almost everybody that uses social media knows that not only marketers

So if they limit the numbers of follow, users will just leave
 
JasonGraham said:
Because they fear that users will leave their platfrorm, all social media platfrorms are in competition

Imagine if one day instagram would limit the number of follow to 50, a lot of users will simply go to another image based social media (pinterest, tumblr etc)
And in the next 30-60 days someone will create an exact replica of instagram but without the follow limit and all people from instagram will slowly move to this new platform

A lot of people want to be popular specially on social media, the bigger number of follower the better, one way to do this is posting quality content, shoutouts etc

The other efficient way to get followers is simply to follow others and wait for them to follow you back, almost everybody that uses social media knows that not only marketers

So if they limit the numbers of follow, users will just leave
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But in my opinion, that just doesn't make sense. I think this because a very small amount of legitimate users (<1%) are going to ever want to follow more than 50 people per day, so the restriction will never affect them in the first place. Why would somebody want to follow hundreds of people per day? I just can't see a legitimate reason why that would ever happen, and thus, I think lowering the follow limit will make spam 90% less effective while not affecting 99% of the population of IG.
 
JasonGraham said:
Because they fear that users will leave their platfrorm, all social media platfrorms are in competition

Imagine if one day instagram would limit the number of follow to 50, a lot of users will simply go to another image based social media (pinterest, tumblr etc)
And in the next 30-60 days someone will create an exact replica of instagram but without the follow limit and all people from instagram will slowly move to this new platform

A lot of people want to be popular specially on social media, the bigger number of follower the better, one way to do this is posting quality content, shoutouts etc

The other efficient way to get followers is simply to follow others and wait for them to follow you back, almost everybody that uses social media knows that not only marketers

So if they limit the numbers of follow, users will just leave
Click to expand...
This. Following large numbers of people is not just an activity for bots, most normal users looking to become "popular" follow much more than 50.

And don't forget many (if not most) legitimate businesses are botting (or at least extremely active) on social media. These are in many cases the content mills at the center of entertainment, if you push them away exactly what Jason said will happen. Don't forget businesses and social media exist in a symbiosis through osmosis, there is no shortage of other platforms.
 
Noah Hawryshko said:
But in my opinion, that just doesn't make sense. I think this because a very small amount of legitimate users (<1%) are going to ever want to follow more than 50 people per day, so the restriction will never affect them in the first place. Why would somebody want to follow hundreds of people per day? I just can't see a legitimate reason why that would ever happen, and thus, I think lowering the follow limit will make spam 90% less effective while not affecting 99% of the population of IG.
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You underestimate the number of people that want a high number of follower and that are willing to just press follow (without a bot) as much as they can.

The risk is too high for instagram, even if it would affect only a certain percent of instagram users (could be 4% could be 20%) they risk having a viral effect were everybody is mad at instagram and decides to leave
 
JasonGraham said:
You underestimate the number of people that want a high number of follower and that are willing to just press follow (without a bot) as much as they can.

The risk is too high for instagram, even if it would affect only a certain percent of instagram users (could be 4% could be 20%) they risk having a viral effect were everybody is mad at instagram and decides to leave
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I think I see the rationality behind it now. So, to clarify, you think that because even completely legitimate users use the "follow" method to get followers, it therefore would affect a significant portion of the user base, right? And because IG wants to avoid a possible PR nightmare and doesn't want to lose 3% to 5% of their user base, they just put up with it at the cost of some spammy links that don't really damage the site in any way.

Does that sound correct?
 
Who cares? Why you spend time thinking about those things.

Go make money instead.
 
Yes, i think it would affect a signicant portion of the user base
If they change the follow limit from 1000 to 50 per day, it will get noticed right away and i think a lot of big websites will be talking about it and they risk a lot
 
reydj24 said:
Who cares? Why you spend time thinking about those things.

Go make money instead.
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It matters because understanding the underlying concepts behind what makes social networks do what they do is essential to making money through them. Having a good understanding of the concepts we're discussing helps in troubleshooting, in anti-spam updates, in algorithm changes, in estimating the longevity of a given flaw, and on spotting and capitalizing on other observed flaws for maximum profit.
 
reydj24 said:
Who cares? Why you spend time thinking about those things.

Go make money instead.
Click to expand...
For instance, right now Facebook has a near-perfect virtual number blacklist, yet Instagram accepts almost every number that comes it's way. One can spot and capitalize on this flaw by using virtual numbers for Instagram and real numbers for Facebook. However, because Facebook owns Instagram, one can estimate that this flaw likely won't be around for long, and have a backup solution prepared for when the anti-spam detection methods are updated, and Facebook applies it's virtual number filter to IG.

Things like that. If you don't understand underlying concepts, you're going in dark and you'll get flagged faster, make less money, and be less efficient and resourceful.
 
Noah Hawryshko said:
For instance, right now Facebook has a near-perfect virtual number blacklist, yet Instagram accepts almost every number that comes it's way. One can spot and capitalize on this flaw by using virtual numbers for Instagram and real numbers for Facebook. However, because Facebook owns Instagram, one can estimate that this flaw likely won't be around for long, and have a backup solution prepared for when the anti-spam detection methods are updated, and Facebook applies it's virtual number filter to IG.

Things like that. If you don't understand underlying concepts, you're going in dark and you'll get flagged faster, make less money, and be less efficient and resourceful.
Click to expand...

Ah, now I see where you coming from.

Yeah you should be prepared, but I'll let you know for example that there are a lot of people (teenagers, girls ...) that are following just to have more followers and be more popular. Same things for FB, they can't ban everything that involves "some" activity.

And I suggest you to talk some things in private (limits,footprints), because bhw is well known and the fb/ig guys are reading it.
 
Obviously their data indicates it would impact an unreasonable number of real users; on FB I see a lot of real users with 5k friends. They're doing a good job with filters that only impact extreme outliers and spare regular users - the MO is clearly NOT a spam war at any cost, but to rid as much as possible without impacting real user experience.
 
reydj24 said:
Ah, now I see where you coming from.

Yeah you should be prepared, but I'll let you know for example that there are a lot of people (teenagers, girls ...) that are following just to have more followers and be more popular. Same things for FB, they can't ban everything that involves "some" activity.

And I suggest you to talk some things in private (limits,footprints), because bhw is well known and the fb/ig guys are reading it.
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Don't worry, it's already crossed their mind a dozen times and they're likely in the process of doing it as we speak. After everybody started doing Cryogenesis PVA method in his IG thread, they've been steadily ramping up their mobile anti-spam. Cryogenesis post had way more publicity than this one, and it's no secret that virtually every number in existence works for IG PVA.
 
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