Symmetric Follow and Second Twitter Accounts

A short twitter conversation:

Meg Fowler (megfowler) Dec 30, 11:59 AM

@mknell many I know who follow thousands have other accounts for the few tweeters they *actually* read — they auto follow as a pretense.



Stowe Boyd (stoweboyd) Dec 30, 12:52 PM

@megfowler The autofollow thing is the dirty little secret of the 1K+ following crowd. They either do 2nd account or other filters.

Meg Fowler (megfowler) Dec 30, 12:56 PM

@stoweboyd or they only read their @’s anyway, like the rest of us. it’s a pretense under the guise of “community” that I don’t get.

Stowe Boyd (stoweboyd) Dec 30, 01:03 PM

@megfowler There’s a pretty strong undertow about symmetric following, but it’s dumb: a populist utopianism where everyone’s speech is equal

megfowler Dec 30, 01:09 PM

@stoweboyd the idea behind it is great, but nearly impossible to accomplish. I respect it when people admit they’re too human to do it.