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Is it possible to force someone to unfollow you on twitter. Use-case: I want to follow my ex-girlfriend, but I don't want her to follow me. If I block her, I guess I can't see her tweets. also, I would rather not use any 3rd party tools like follow her on RSS and block her.

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3 Answers

up vote 7 down vote accepted

You could block her, which I think will remove her from your followers list. Then you could unblock her. Of course, at that point she can follow you again, but it seems only fair that if you can follow her tweets, she can follow you.

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Thanks for the tip, but not sure if block works that way. Also, nothing is fair with this girl. – grm Oct 4 '10 at 18:53
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let's hope she doesn't read this... – alexanderpas Oct 4 '10 at 21:29
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Block indeed works this way; it breaks both follows and prevents the other person from following you. Unblocking doesn't restore the follows, it simply allows the other person to follow you again. So block-unblock should do the trick. – Guillermo Esteves Oct 4 '10 at 23:01
But she can see if you start following her again if she has the notifications set to alert her when someboby new starts following her. – Alex Aug 15 '11 at 16:12
If you want that person not to follow you again, just keep that person blocked. – Bonsi Scott Jan 5 at 12:18
up vote 4 down vote

No you cannot. Twitter is an application for sharing. She has a right to follow anyone she wants if the person allows them to. Blocking is the only way to technically prevent her from following you.

Here is a suggestion of what you can do instead.

You can change your settings to protect your tweets

Only let people whom I approve follow my tweets. If this is checked, your future tweets will not be available publicly. Tweets posted previously may still be publicly visible in some places.

Then add her to a list. Allowing for a quick link to her profile.

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Thanks, but I would rather just force her not to follow me. Isn't it possible to force someone to unfollow you on twitter? – grm Oct 4 '10 at 20:44
No it is not possible to do that. That would be counter-twitter like. You are just going to have to deal with it. – phwd♦ Oct 4 '10 at 21:04
ok thanks. I'm pretty sure this was possible before. – grm Oct 4 '10 at 22:00
No it was not. It was possible by exploit to force follow someone using accept username not the reverse. – phwd♦ Oct 4 '10 at 22:08
up vote 1 down vote

You can be sneaky about this - create a new twitter account to follow her, then block her on your main account.

It's not possible to control who follows you outside of the block tool.

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