A recent post on Twitter Status states that from now on, Twitter user will not be able to follow more than 1000 people per day:
For some time, we’ve limited the number of accounts that a single person can follow in a day to 1000. A few days ago, we found that this limit was not being consistently applied and we started enforcing it for all users.
While there are technical reasons behind having some limit on following activites, this per-day limit exists to discourage spamminess. Also, it is unlikely that anyone can actually read tweets from thousands of accounts which makes the mass following activity disingenuous.
We understand that there may be exceptions where mass following is needed in excess of the daily limit: for example, some API applications or for the ability to exchange direct messages. There are also some who think it’s simply polite to follow back other accounts.
While there are technical reasons behind having some limit on following activites, this per-day limit exists to discourage spamminess. Also, it is unlikely that anyone can actually read tweets from thousands of accounts which makes the mass following activity disingenuous.
We understand that there may be exceptions where mass following is needed in excess of the daily limit: for example, some API applications or for the ability to exchange direct messages. There are also some who think it’s simply polite to follow back other accounts.