Search-engine-optimization specialist Brent Csutoras reports that over the weekend, Twitter forbade him from following any more users after he hit 2,000. Twitter made the rule to fight spam. Here's how spam works on Twitter: A SEO specialist — sorry, "social media marketer" — creates a Twitter account and then begins following as many people as possible. These people, when they see they're being followed, are naturally flattered and tend to return the favor, following the spam account. Then the spammer proceeds to bombard all its new followers with keyword-rich links about its products, hoping Google's search engine crawlers will notice. Some evidence shows that if a user has enough followers of their own, Twitter will allow them to follow more than just a mere 2,000.

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