Hi folks, we wanted to comment a little bit on the follow-farming label. We automatically label anyone with specific hashtags or keywords in their bio as follow-farmers as these hashtags or keywords have been observed to be widely used in follow-farming campaigns.
We also label based on specific activity on your account: For example, following a starter pack won't get you labeled, but accounts which engage in things like follow parties, widely advertise follow-backs, or create started packs for the sole purpose of rapidly increasing follower account will.
More widely, this means that participation in any system intended to result in a large number of people following them within a short period of time will lead to participating accounts being labeled.
Follow-farming is a serious problem and a vector for scams, conspiracy theories, and disinformation operations, as operators of these take advantage of follow-farming systems to gain large numbers of followers. This is particularly true within affinity group follow-farming type systems.
Users who participate in follow farming are likely to be exposed to and subsequently repost and / or share, disinformation, scams, and influence operations without realizing it.
We realize that many of the accounts that get labeled for follow-farming are authentic and well-meaning, but as participants in follow-farming systems, they are vastly more likely to be exposed to and spread information starting from inauthentic accounts.
Mar 30, 2025 18:55The label is for users who wish to reduce their exposure and risk to the sorts of operations which proliferate through these systems. This is all—the label is not a value judgement of anyone's individual account.
One additional note: There is absolutely nothing wrong with accounts that have lots of followers but only follow a small number of accounts. These accounts have followers because they post content people find interesting.
