Q. What does Twit Cleaner do?
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It analyses the profiles & tweets of every single person that you follow, looking for certain patterns of behaviour (people not talking, being overly repetitive, common spam tactics, posting the same links repeatedly, etc).It's then up to you to decide who to save & who to unfollow.
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Click How Do I look to Twit Cleaner. This will work if you're signed in to the site here (ie, you can see your Twitter icon top left of the page). If not, click sign-in, allow us access and then you'll be able to see how you look.You can also see how you look by clicking "How do I look to Twit Cleaner" either from the front page of the site (once logged in) or direct from your Twit Cleaner report.
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When we first talk to Twitter so we can analyse your account, Twitter prints up a message. We have absolutely no control over that (unfortunately). This is the default message from Twitter, and the minimum level of access allowed. In other words, we can't give ourselves any less control, even though we don't need, use or want a lot of it.Our privacy page tells you in great detail exactly what we do with your account.
Even though it's a bit scary, this is a good message. Why? Because it tells you exactly what every single Twitter application can do to your account. Sign up for a silly game? They can do all that stuff. Want to store pictures on a site? Click a "sign in with Twitter" button ANYWHERE on the Internet? Yep, all those places can do all that stuff.
This is exactly why I recommend regularly going through your Twitter applications page and revoking access to any application you're not using (yes, including us).
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Firstly, to find out exactly why they're on the report, just move your mouse over their picture - it'll bring up a tooltip with an explanation.Secondly, if you have a handpicked list, then (to you) nobody on it is dodgy, of course not.
Thirdly, it's important to understand, Twit Cleaner doesn't say someone is or isn't a spammer. It analyses a whole lot more than that. What it does is identify certain types of behaviours. Your friend (or favourite celebrity, bot, etc) is on the report because they behave in ways that are deemed potentially dodgy. Look at the category headings for more information. Of course, this doesn't mean you should unfollow them if you don't want to.
One example would be someone who gets excited & posts the same tweet 10 times in a row. Ok, so it's your old school buddy being funny. That's fine, but MOST of the time when this happens, it's spammy (or boring), which is why it was flagged.
It's ok, simply click on their icon to save them & they won't be unfollowed. It's that simple.
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Absolutely. We scan your Twitter list only with your permission & if Twitter says it's ok. Twitter uses a thing called OAuth (that link will open in a new window), which is really just a fancy way of saying a) we never get your password, & b) you can shut Twit Cleaner out completely at any time by going to your Twitter page, clicking Settings, then Applications, then Revoke Access.Additionally, we keep full records of everything that happens here, so if you make a mistake, don't sweat it, we'll happily revert for you (ie, zero harm can come to your account).
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Take a deep breath. It's ok. We've got it covered. When you click an icon on your report & it gets a line through it? We've recorded your request to unfollow. We'll take care of everything else from there.We do the unfollowing slowly so that we don't use up all your API calls (the number of 'actions' Twitter allows you to do per hour). If we did that, you'd be more-or-less locked out of Twitter.
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Hitting refresh (F5) refreshes the report, but doesn't change your previous requests. We've still got them, & we will still unfollow for you. It's just that the report isn't quite as sexy as it could be, just yet. I'm getting there.I suggest waiting a while, and then request a new report. That will show you the correct updated information. Oh, and don't hit refresh next time *wink*
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Nothing. Just like the instructions say, in big friendly letters at the top of the page: You click, we unfollow. There's no button to click afterwards. There's no "Are you sure?" verification annoying you after every click (coz frankly, people switch off & ignore those super fast anyway).If you make a mistake, just click the icon again & we'll refollow for you (also, the line will go away). If you re-click within 10 seconds, we won't have unfollowed for you yet so there'll be no change to your account at all.
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The possible categories are:Dodgy - spam phrases, @ spamming, duplicate links, duplicate tweets, app spam, advertising networks etc
Absent - No updates in a month, fewer than 10 tweets, deleted & suspended accounts.
Repetitive - High numbers of duplicate tweets or links
Flooding - So high volume you can't see anyone else
Non-Responsive - No interaction, those that follow back < 10%, streams that are all feeds (facebook, twitterfeed etc)
Little New Content - Retweeting lots or just posting quotes
Not Very Interesting - People who talk about themselves a lot, or aren't followed back very much
Q. But I like following celebrities (news bots/whatever)! Are you going to remove them?
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Of course not! You get final say on everything. The categories are just a guideline (ie, the report is descriptive, not prescriptive). There will always be people that appear that you want to keep following. Twit Cleaner allows you to easily find who to unfollow, the choice is always yours.A.
This is covered in crazy detail in the privacy policy, but in brief:- So we can DM you when your report is ready
- As an identification method (so no-one else can look at your report)
- So we can do any unfollows/blocks/etc you ask for
- To enable us to give you a MUCH better report (eg by removing people you've talked to)
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Because a typical thing spammers do is set up scripts that auto-unfollow anyone that unfollows them. They don't care who you are, they just want a high follower count. You've lost nothing by getting rid of them. Now you have time & space to focus on real people.A.
Two possibilities. First, you've blocked or deleted cookies (unlikely, since you wouldn't have got far without them). Second, most likely, you've revoked access to Twit Cleaner (to fix, go here)Why do we need access? For security - this proves via Twitter that you are who you say you are. It stops any old person from looking at your report.
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Several reasons. Firstly, it's a huge amount of data to wade through. Secondly, Twitter's servers only operate at a certain pace. We can't move faster than them (much as we'd like to). That said, we're finding sneaky ways of speeding the process up every day.Q. I don't have time to wade through all these people right now. Can I come back & finish my report later?
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Of course! Twit Cleaner stores a cookie on your computer that keeps track of where you're up to - all the people you've selected. Come back any time & you can continue right where you left off.A.
That's a popular request. Unless there's a compelling reason, I'd recommend simply using TwitBlock which is designed specifically to analyse your followers so you can block them.A.
There's a couple of reasons we won't be providing that service. Firstly, people that don't follow you back aren't necessarily dodgy or otherwise low quality. In other words, they don't fit into the basic premise of Twit Cleaner - that of increasing the quality of your Twitter experience.On a more practical note, following a ton of people then unfollowing those that don't follow back (& repeating ad nauseum) is something called churning. It's a key spammer trick, & why would we want to make life easier for spammers?
Churning is something Twitter really frowns on. As such, they have systematically stopped every application out there that used to provide this service (eg Twitter Karma, Manage Twitter, etc). So, adding it to Twit Cleaner would be a good way to guarantee we were shut down immediately.
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Click here. That'll wipe your Twit Cleaner related OAuth cookies so you can sign on through Twitter again. Sometimes things get a bit confused, a clean start won't hurt anything (we'll still remember your report selections) but will sort out most problems. If you're still having issues, just drop me line.A.
Well, that's a statement, not a question, but that's ok too. If you don't want to pay, you don't have to. You can take the report & do anything you like with it. What would be nice as thanks is a simple little tweet out to your followers telling them about Twit Cleaner. We've even made it super easy for you - all you have to do is click a button on the report... & thank you!A.
Ahh! One of my all time favourite questions! It's people like you that keep this happy little engine ticking along. The easiest way is via paypal (which takes either a paypal a/c or any major credit card)May I also take this moment to say how fantastic you're looking today? Yes, yes you really are! And thank you very much.