twitterFollowerCuratorBot.php

<?

	//
	// AUTO KEYWORD-BASED FOLLOWER CURATION BOT (by @levelsio)
	//
	// File: twitterFollowerCuratorBot.php
	//
	// Created: May 2021
	// License: MIT
	//
	// Dependency: https://github.com/abraham/twitteroauth via Composer
	//
	// Schedule/cron: @hourly
	// 
	// 1) This script goes through your new followers and curates them to pre-emptively remove trolls
	// 2) It checks their name, bio, location etc. for specific keywords
	// 3) If it matches, it blocks them, then quickly unblocks them, which results in them automatically unfollowing you
	// 4) This means they won't see your tweets anymore in their timeline
	// 5) It also mutes them so you won't see their tweets anymore either
	// 6) Extra features are unfollowing based
	// 		a) low follower count (<10)
	//		b) no profile image
	//		c) account created in last 30 days
	// 7) It avoids removing big followers (>10,000 followers)
	// 8) Tip: you can also curate entire cities, for ex I auto remove followers from San Francisco because I think they live in a bubble and their tweets are usually annoying to me
	// 9) It saves the amount of people removed or approved in ./blockedCount.txt and ./approvedCount.txt, and saves cache in ./approvedUserIdsCache.json to avoid re-checking the same followers
	//


	// <config>
		// <Twitter app credentials>
			$consumer_key='';
			$consumer_secret='';
			$user_token='';
			$user_token_secret='';
		// </Twitter app credentials>

		// <keywords to match>
			// change this with your own keywords you want to match users on to unfollow
			$keywords=array(
				'biden',
				'trump',
				'san francisco',
			);
		// </keywords to match>

	// </config>


	error_reporting(E_ALL);

	$approvedUserIds=json_decode(file_get_contents(__DIR__.'/approvedUserIdsCache.json'),true);
	if(!is_array($approvedUserIds)) {
		$approvedUserIds=array();
	}

	require(__DIR__.'/vendor/autoload.php');
	use Abraham\TwitterOAuth\TwitterOAuth;

	if($connection = new TwitterOAuth($consumer_key, $consumer_secret, $user_token, $user_token_secret)) {
	}
	else {
		echo "(!) Cannot connect to Twitter";
		exit();
	}

	$self = $connection->get("account/verify_credentials");
	
	$self=json_decode(json_encode($self),true);
	$selfId=$self['id'];

	if(!$response=$connection->get('followers/ids',array('count'=>100))) {
		echo 'Error';
		exit();
	}

	$newlyFollowingUserIds=$response->ids;

	if(empty($newlyFollowingUserIds)) {
		echo "Bad response empty ids: ".json_encode($response);
		exit;
	}

	foreach($newlyFollowingUserIds as $userId) {
		
		if(in_array($userId,$approvedUserIds)) {
			echo $userId." already approved ";
			echo "\n";
			continue;
		}

		echo "😴 Sleeping for 5 seconds...";
		echo "\n";
		sleep(5);

		if(!$user=$connection->get('users/show',array('user_id'=>$userId))) {
			echo 'Error';
			exit();
		}

		echo '==========================';
		echo "\n";
		echo '#'.$userId;
		echo "\n";
		echo 'name='.$user->name;
		echo "\n";
		echo 'screen_name='.$user->screen_name;
		echo "\n";
		echo 'description='.$user->description;
		echo "\n";
		echo 'location='.$user->location;
		echo "\n";
		echo 'followers_count='.$user->followers_count;
		echo "\n";
		echo 'default_profile_image='.$user->default_profile_image;
		echo "\n";
		echo "\n";

		$suspiciousUserFlags=0;
		if($user->default_profile_image) {
			$suspiciousUserFlags++;
			$blockReason="they have no profile image set";
		}
		if($user->followers_count<10) {
			$suspiciousUserFlags++;
			$blockReason="they have a low follower count <10";
		}
		if($user->protected) {
			$suspiciousUserFlags++;
			$blockReason="they have a private account";
		}
		if(strtotime($user->created_at)>strtotime("-30 days")) {
			$suspiciousUserFlags++;
			$blockReason="they have an account created in the last 30 days";
		}

		$userKeywordMatches=array();
		foreach($keywords as $keyword) {
			if(
				stripos(str_replace(' ','',$user->name),$keyword)!==false
									||
				stripos(str_replace(' ','',$user->screen_name),$keyword)!==false
									||
				stripos(str_replace(' ','',$user->description),$keyword)!==false
									||
				stripos(str_replace(' ','',$user->location),$keyword)!==false
			) {
				array_push($userKeywordMatches,$keyword);
				$blockReason="their name, bio or location has a blocked keyword match";
			}
		}


		// <if big follower, ignore suspicious and keywords>
			if($user->followers_count>10000) {
				$userKeywordMatches=0;
				$suspiciousUserFlags=0;
			}
		// </if big follower, ignore suspicious and keywords>


		if(!$userKeywordMatches && !$suspiciousUserFlags) {
			file_put_contents(__DIR__.'/approvedCount.txt',file_get_contents(__DIR__.'/approvedCount.txt')+1);
			echo "✅ Approved, adding to approved cache";
			echo "\n";
			array_push($approvedUserIds,$userId);
			file_put_contents(__DIR__.'/approvedUserIdsCache.json',json_encode($approvedUserIds));
			echo "😴 Sleeping for 5 seconds...";
			echo "\n";
			sleep(5);
			continue;
		}

		if($userKeywordMatches) {
			echo "❌ Flagged new follower @".$user->screen_name.", matching on: ".implode(', ',$userKeywordMatches);
			echo "\n";
		}
		if($suspiciousUserFlags && $user->default_profile_image) {
			echo "❌ Flagged new follower @".$user->screen_name.", looks suspect due to no profile image";
			echo "\n";
		}

		if($suspiciousUserFlags && $user->followers_count<10) {
			echo "❌ Flagged new follower @".$user->screen_name.", looks suspect due to low follower count";
			echo "\n";	
		}

		// <blunble>
			echo "❌ Blocking new follower @".$user->screen_name." to make them unfollow";
			echo "\n";

			$response = $connection->post('blocks/create',array(
				'user_id' => $userId
			));

			echo "😴 Sleeping for 5 seconds...";
			echo "\n";
			sleep(5);

			echo "❌ Unblocking new follower @".$user->screen_name." to make them unfollow";
			echo "\n";

			$response = $connection->post('blocks/destroy',array(
				'user_id' => $userId
			));
		// </blunble>

		// <mute>
			echo "❌ Muting new follower @".$user->screen_name;
			echo "\n";

			$response = $connection->post('mutes/users/create',array(
				'user_id' => $userId
			));
		// </mute>

		file_put_contents(__DIR__.'/blockedCount.txt',

			file_get_contents(__DIR__.'/blockedCount.txt')+1

		);

		$followersCount=$followersCount-1;

		echo(
			"🧨 Removed new follower https://twitter.com/".$user->screen_name." because ".$blockReason."\n".
			"Keyword matches: ".implode(', ',$userKeywordMatches)."\n".
			"Follower count: ".$user->followers_count."\n".
			"No profile image: ".$user->default_profile_image."\n".
			"Blocked count :".number_format(file_get_contents(__DIR__.'/blockedCount.txt'))."\n".
			"Approved count :".number_format(file_get_contents(__DIR__.'/approvedCount.txt'))."\n"
		);

	}


?>

In case you like the idea, but not into running this script yourself, I made this (from scratch) into a product https://becausecurious.me/twitter_follower_curation/