[patrickas]

I think you are making a big deal out of nothing.

There is no social pressure to actually follow them on twitter, no one will be offended if you totally ignore the sentence on the page.

Where as in your example it is socially awkward to refuse to give your number to some guy asking it because they want to be your friend.

[muppetman]

True, my example in reality doesn't really match with an article.

And yes, I am probably making a big deal out of nothing. My reason for posting this comment was to see if others felt the same way, it appears they don't. My bad. I'll end with this: The people with large follower count's aren't the same ones that have to go asking for them.

[patrickas]

No problem. Actually just in case chrysb's answer is too vague, the reason you see this pretty often is that Dustin Curtis ran an experiment a couple of years ago, which was heavily discussed on HN, in which he concluded that adding the sentence "You should follow me on twitter here" made him get the most click through rate.

http://www.dustincurtis.com/you_should_follow_me_on_twitter....

[muppetman]

I hadn't seen this. Thanks for the link.