Twitter 'Unfollow' Bug Acknowledged

Have you ever tried to follow someone on Twitter and, moments later, realized that Twitter has rudely unfollowed them for you?

If this "Unfollow" button bug has been plaguing you for far too long, fear not: Twitter has finally directly acknowledged the issue and, in short, said it's working on it.

Jeremiah Owyang, an industry analyst writing for TechCrunch, raised his unfollow woes with a Twitter rep, who responded, "This is a bug, and our team is working to fix it."

In addition, Owyang's contact directed him to the Twitter Help Center, which already has a "Bug Alert" note featured on the page of one of its "Top Issues" topics, "I'm Having Trouble with Following."

The note states,

Bug alert: A person you've recently followed shows in your following tab, but appears with a follow icon so it looks like you're not following them [...] Visit their profile if you'd like to confirm you're following them. Engineers are working to resolve the issues listed above. Thanks for your patience!

The Telegraph pointed out that some Twitter users have taken to tweeting about the issue, including Labour MP Tom Watson, who tweeted:

I thought I was doing something wrong! RT @LouLouK Coping With Twitter’s Unfollow Bugtechcrunch.com/2012/03/27/unf… via @techcrunch

— tom_watson (@tom_watson) March 28, 2012

Adam Rifkin, co-founder of discussion site PandaWhale, asked his followers:

Is it me or has Twitter's unfollow bug been going on for a while? Why is this such a hard bug to fix? techcrunch.com/2012/03/27/unf… (cc @troutgirl)

— Adam Rifkin (@ifindkarma) March 28, 2012

While this latest Twitter glitch can be a bit annoying, compared to the "mouseover bug" back in 2010, which launched pop-ups and automatically redirected users who merely moused over links to third-party sites, this seems to be a minor inconvenience.

Read the rest of Owyang's post on TechCrunch to get some tips on how to deal with the awkward aftermath left by Twitter's "Unfollow" bug, and then let us know: Have you ever been affected by the bug?

If you're looking to spice up your Twitter stream, check out these hilarious comics who you're probably not following (and not just because of the unfollow bug).

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• Mike Birbiglia

• Kevin Christy

• Morgan Murphy

• Jessi Klein

• Name

  @georgelazenby's identity is unknown.

• Richard Hoale

• Sam Grittner

• Sean Tejaratchi

• lauren caltagirone

• Lauren Greenberg

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Comments

[novenator]

07:46 PM on 03/28/2012

This seems to have been going on at Twitter for years honestly. Good friends that I know very well would "unfollow" now and then, and after I asked them, they had no idea how it happened.

[DSevere]

12:12 PM on 03/28/2012

Glad they're finally addressing this, we use Twitter extensively and this is really annoying.

[Ollie Bee]

11:35 AM on 03/28/2012

Ok, how about adding a method to get rid of unwanted followers? You know, like OLD Twitter?

[Left with Nothing]

12:10 PM on 03/28/2012

You have too many people following your every word? ha ha

[Ollie Bee]

04:09 PM on 03/28/2012

Honestly, I guess it's OCD, lol. Like if I can unfollow people I should be able to remove folks from my list of followers. Blocking them seems so harsh. I don't want to ban you from my life, I just don't need you in my circle, lol.