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by icedpulleys 5531 days ago
> I recently had to make changes to my own service because the Twitter API policy team didn't like me telling people who unfollowed them.

Just curious: which section of the Twitter API ToS do you read as restricting notifying them of people that unfollowed them? I know that the API policy explicitly prohibits automated unfollowing and restricts automated following, but haven't ever seen anything that addresses notifications of a someone unfollowing another user.
1 comments
shazow 5531 days ago
They referenced Section II.4.B, namely since native Twitter apps don't "organically display" unfollows, you should not as well.

> Respect the features and functionality embedded with or included in Twitter Content or the Twitter API. Do not attempt to interfere with, intercept, disrupt, filter, or disable any features of the Twitter API or Twitter service, and you should only surface actions that are organically displayed on Twitter.

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icedpulleys 5530 days ago
Ah, that does seem to follow from the quoted section. Thanks for referencing it, I appreciate it.

It's a big bummer as a potential Twitter-hacker, too. I can see why they wouldn't want clients & add-ons to surface unfollows, but it blankets quite a bit of functionality, and then it comes down to an issue of selective enforcement. Sigh.

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shazow 5529 days ago
You're welcome.

The way I read it is "don't do things we don't already do" which is a really bad constraint, effectively forbidding any kind of innovation. I can understand the spirit of their selective desire to address this specific violation, but I'm not convinced it's as much of a problem as they're making it to be.

Oh well.

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