Twitter admits 'unfollowing bug'

Twitter users are being affected by a bug which is causing them to ‘unfollow’ fellow tweeters without their permission.

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Twitter is struggling with an 'unfollow bug'. Credit: Photo: Alamy

The microblogging company has now admitted that there is a problem. A Twitter spokesman said: “This is a bug, and our team is working to fix it.”

The bug is causing Twitter users to randomly unfollow people without account holders’ prior consent or knowledge. Twitter has advised affected people to visit its support page and go to fellow tweeters’ profile pages to check whether they are still following them or not.

Labour MP and fanatic tweeter, Tom Watson, has been affected by the bug and tweeted: “I thought I was doing something wrong,” and then linked to an advice column on the topic, published by Jeremiah Owyang, a technology industry analyst writing for TechCrunch.

Owyang wrote: “I wonder how many businesses, personal, and casual relationships are strained by the bug haphazardly unfollowing. It causes us to give pause and question the stability of the Twitter infrastructure, usage of my personal data and social network, and what important messages I may have missed from my trusted Twitter network.”

Thousands of users have been tweeting about their experiences of the unfollow bug and their reaction to it.

Adam Rifkin, the co-founder of a conversation website Pandwhale, tweeted, “Is it me or has Twitter's unfollow bug been going on for a while? Why is this such a hard bug to fix?”

While Janet Davis, an art and design historian, posted: “Twitter's always done it. [It's] worse in recent weeks.”