In fairness, most new accounts are follow-spammers... of course the bots are probably better at working around the limits in place.

I followed about ~10 people, and about half of those came from Twitter's own follow suggestions. I'd understand if I followed 2500, but it was a nominal and fairly reasonable amount.

If I were interested enough to create a Twitter account, I would start by following a bunch of people I'm interested in, RSS style. I most likely wouldn't post very much, if at all.

How many potential new users fit this pattern, are caught by the 'bot' filter, and are shut out of the platform, I wonder?

Same experience for a writer friend, convinced him he could get some following on Twitter, created an account got promptly locked and to boot the phone confirmation never came through.

Also Twitter sucks, that's why it won't grow, it's mostly bots anyway. (I would know, I wrote tons for it, laughably easy to grow massive accounts under their nose)

Do you think it's strange to complain about

1) Twitter requiring a phone number during signup

2) Twitter having a lot of bots

in the same message? How are they supposed to curb bot registrations if not by checking email/phone combo? I get it that it's trendy to complain about Twitter, but why employing self-contradictions for that?