A colleague told me about something this morning which is colloquially known as ‘Twitter Jail’. Inmates of this online-Alcatraz might be incarcerated for breaching the threshold of how many tweets you are allowed to send in an hour, or for following too many people relative to the number who are following you.
So what is Twitter-Jail? Well, essentially your account becomes ‘read-only’. From what I understand, the tweeting limit is 100 tweets per hour, or 1,000 in a day. You cannot send any more tweets or retweets, and you cannot follow any more people. This may last from anywhere between half an hour, to several hours.
Having never been convicted of, nor indeed perpetrated a Twitter crime so grave that it warranted being chucked in the slammer, I am unsure of what happens to repeat offenders. Is it a case that the more you contravene the laws, the longer the ban you receive? At what point do The Powers That Be at Twitter HQ decide that enough is enough and block your account permanently?
If you are a prolific tweeter and have a treasured following – especially if you are running accounts for businesses – it would be wise to invest in some sort of backup solution. With SocialSafe’s new Twitter download functionality you are able to archive and easily browse through your tweets, mentions, message, followers and people you are following.