Many Twitter Users Discovering They Are Spam Accounts
By Kyle Koster

There's never a dull moment on Twitter as every day users dial up the microblogging site to find main characters and re-adjust their expectations of functionality. Today the giant Magic 8-Ball in the sky shook itself around and spit out a reality where many accounts logged in to discover that some of their account features have been temporarily limited because their accounts appear to be in violation of Twitter's spam policy.
They've been sentenced to three days and zero hours of not being able to follow, like, or retweet. And many of them are profoundly confused by the decision.
Now, how did I violate Twitter’s spam policy?? Lol. pic.twitter.com/5TcipzQHY7
— KEITHAN (@iamKeithan) June 27, 2023
WHAT???? I read twitter’s spam policy and I’ve never engaged in any of these violations! Twitter is starting to turn into an unhappy experience! pic.twitter.com/p8N1rwQYw8
— Kathleen Lamoureux💜 (@NumerologyZone) June 27, 2023
Twitter'ın spam politikalarını ihlal ediyormuşum. Sadece bir trolcüğe doğru bilgiyi verdim. pic.twitter.com/shPG1sK9XK
— Bu konuda bilgim yok (@OKOKOKYES) June 27, 2023
This must be either because i reported multiple spam responses or because i retweeted Minneapolis City's stolen trailer too many times.
— Teresa 💙😸 ⚽📖☕ (@GumbyGrrl) June 27, 2023
You go, @TwitterSupport - keep Twitter safe from people who are helping. pic.twitter.com/0xLclVS4x4
What spam?
— MiggyMack 🙂 (@MiggyMackAttack) June 27, 2023
Dafuq. @Twitter pic.twitter.com/emol55aHkq
@Twitter what is going on?
— Ataga (@TheAtaga) June 27, 2023
Why the limitation?
Who did I spam? pic.twitter.com/h0REdvSK9s
Apparently it is affecting a lot of people, not just the fellas; search twitter for spam policy... That's the best Elon at the buttons pic.twitter.com/ygaKbAplFO
— Michael Pain 🇧🇪 I may sound British but I'm not (@MarcBogaert2) June 27, 2023
You get the idea.
Elon Musk has been focused on purging spam accounts since his early days negotiating the Twitter deal, even tweeting that the agreement was “on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users” before that eventually got sorted out.
A few days ago, Slate chronicled the process of trying to defeat the bots or die trying and emerged quite dubious about the whole thing. What's happening right now seems to be the strongest action to date and is being met with some pushback from those affected who are surprised to learn that they are spam. Always tough to think you are a human and discover you aren't even real. Can mess you up good.
Of course, it's important to stress the caveats of it being very early and the lack of sourced reporting on exactly what's going on. But that's not really any solace to those who got a surprising message and don't have full capabilities right now.