If you have a Mastodon account and follow someone, the follow button will sometimes display a "Follow request sent" message.
Usually this is because the other account has follow approval switched on, which means its owner will manually decide whether to accept your follow request. This kind of account has a padlock 🔒 icon next to it on its profile page.
However... Mastodon also displays this "Follow request sent" message if something has gone wrong with the follow, especially if you're trying to follow someone on a non-Mastodon server.
Partially broken federation often causes Mastodon to display this message, for some reason.
If you see "follow request sent" when you try to follow someone, and they don't have a padlock 🔒 on their profile page, then it's likely that the follow didn't work properly.
If a follow doesn't work properly, try unfollowing them (or cancel the follow request), wait a bit, then click "follow" again.
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