Twitter to remove suspicious accounts from follower counts

NEW YORK – Twitter says it will begin removing suspicious accounts it has locked from its counts of users’ followers.

Twitter users are likely to see a reduction in their follower counts in the coming days. For many, this will amount to a reduction of four followers or less. But large accounts of celebrities and public figures could see bigger drops.

An account that’s been locked can’t tweet, like or retweet posts, and it won’t be shown ads.

The company said Wednesday that the move will not affect its number of monthly or daily active user figures. In the first three months of the year, it had 336 million active users.

Twitter has been working to remove fake accounts, bots and abusive posts from its service.