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This is a big one from the house of Twitter. Its announced limits on how users can automate tweets, as a step to combat spam & bots.
According to a post on its official blog, developers are now banned from using any system that simultaneously posts “identical or substantially similar” tweets from multiple accounts at once, or makes actions like liking, retweeting, & following across multiple accounts at once. Twitter will remove these options from its own TweetDeck app, & 3rd-party developers have until March 23 this year to comply.
Here are excerpts from the post:
One of the most common spam violations we see is the use of multiple accounts and the Twitter developer platform to attempt to artificially amplify or inflate the prominence of certain Tweets. To be clear: Twitter prohibits any attempt to use automation for the purposes of posting or disseminating spam, and such behavior may result in enforcement action.
Do not (and do not allow your users to) simultaneously post identical or substantially similar content to multiple accounts. For example, your service should not permit a user to select several accounts they control from which to publish a given Tweet.
- This applies regardless of whether the Tweets are published to Twitter at the same time, or are scheduled/queued for future publication.
- As an alternative to posting identical content, you can Retweet content from one account from the other accounts you wish to share that post from. This should only be done from a small number of distinct accounts that you directly control. Please note that bulk, aggressive, or very high-volume automated Retweeting is not permitted under the Automation Rules, and may be subject to enforcement actions.
Do not (and do not allow your users to) simultaneously perform actions such as Likes, Retweets, or follows from multiple accounts. For example, your service should not permit a user to select several accounts they control to follow a specified account.
- For additional information on aggressive or inorganic following behavior, please refer to this developer forum post.
- For additional information on the appropriate use of automation for replies and mentions, please refer to this developer forum post.
The use of any form of automation (including scheduling) to post identical or substantially similar content, or to perform actions such as Likes or Retweets, across many accounts that have authorized your app (whether or not you created or directly control those accounts) is not permitted. For example, applications that coordinate activity across multiple accounts to simultaneously post Tweets with a specific hashtag (e.g. in an attempt to cause that topic to trend) are prohibited.
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While we continue to permit cross-posting outside information (such as weather alerts or RSS feeds) to Twitter using automation, you should only post this content to one account you control.
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As a sole exception to this rule, applications that broadcast or share weather, emergency, or other public service announcements of broad community interest (for example, earthquake or tsunami alerts) are permitted to post this content across multiple accounts who have authorized an app.
