That's weird. I don't have that problem (4.7k followers), but that seems arbitrary.
I was very sad to lose some good friends when I left Twitter, but I'm pleased to find lots of interesting people here. You are certainly one of them.
However, on the subject of "ugly Americans", it would benefit many of my neighbors to travel even to other parts of the USA nevermind somewhere overseas. I wonder if other large countries have that problem too.