Can I mass-unfollow people on Insta and Twitter?

September 22, 2024 6:46 AM

I need to drastically cut my social media use, so I'd like to unfollow everyone who doesn't follow me back on Instagram and Twitter. Is there a fast way to do this?

Unfortunately I follow several thousand accounts on each platform, and unfollowing them manually is time consuming (plus, stupid Instagram doesn't even accept the unfollows- the number drops when you do it, but the unfollowed accounts come back the next day, eff you Zuck!)

Google shows are a few "mass unfollow" tools, but they look scammy. Anyone have one they actually know for sure is legit? Thanks!

posted by nouvelle-personne to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

The problem I’ve run into with many tools, even legit ones, is they rely on an API to work and Meta and Twitter routinely break their APIs to make third party tools unreliable and drive usage back to their ecosystem. Thanks enshittification.

Another problem you may run into is that those services also default to an algorithmic feed. So even if you unfollow a whole ton of accounts, you’re just going to get the firehose of what the algorithmic feed wants to show you… including those accounts.

An alternative to try for decreasing your social media use is to set a time limit. I’m not sure what android has to offer, but iOS has screen time controls where you set a limit for apps. I have TikTok set to 30 minutes (though I think I’m going to drop it to 15). You can bypass the limit, of course, but I do find that “oop, you’re done” kind of prompt does help put it away for the day.
posted by eekernohan at 6:59 AM on September 22

What @eekernohan said. Meta's algorithms are created to try to keep you on the app. I'm sure it's the same for Twitter/X. So if you follow thousands of accounts or just dozens the feed will be such that things are out of order, interspersed amongst "featured" posts, full of ads, and so on.

Essentially whatever you do you're just dipping your toes into a ocean of sewage whenever you use these feeds.

I try to keep my following count to about 100 on Instagram, and am following some accounts to specifically find out about events and releases. I'm on the app for about 5min per day and the default view will show me things in an "order" such that a post from an account of the form "we're having an event today/tomorrow" won't show up in my feed until a few days later, meaning i've missed it. It's massively frustrating.

The walled gardens have killed RSS and chronological ordering, and I fucking hate it all.

Set a timer.
posted by lawrencium at 11:48 PM on September 22

Open a new account. Tell your trusted friends and family it is you. Only follow those you want to follow post purge of old account.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 3:28 AM on September 23

What JohnnyGunn said, except in my case it was important to me to have one new account for ONLY people I know irl, and one new account ONLY for art/artist/specific brand/industry accounts I want to stay in the loop with.

That way, if I needed one itch scratched (ex. looking for cute new photos of a nibling), I wouldn’t get sucked into a whole other vortex of unrelated but enticing content (ex. fun upcoming show just announced presale).

I found this suited my needs very well for limiting endless scrolling, helped me be more intentional about what specific goal I wanted to achieve when I logged on, and limit specific triggers or distractions depending on my needs any certain day
posted by seemoorglass at 2:18 PM on September 23