More than half of President Obama’s 19 million Twitter followers are fake, a newly released report reveals. More than 70 percent of Lady Gaga’s 29 million followers are fake.
The New York Times reports that a British start-up firm has developed a new Web tool that can detect which followers are real and which ones are fake or have been purchased. Both Obama and presidential rival Mitt Romney have been accused of having scores of fake Twitter followers in recent days.
“The practice has become so widespread that StatusPeople, a social media management company in London, released a Web tool last month called the Fake Follower Check that it says can ascertain how many fake followers you and your friends have,” the Times reports.
“Fake accounts tend to follow a lot of people but have few followers,” said Rob Waller, a founder of StatusPeople. “We then combine that with a few other metrics to confirm the account is fake.”
Almost every Twitter account has a “small percentage of fake followers, because, unlike Facebook, anyone can follow you — from a genuine friend to a computer-generated account set up to promote pornography,” writes todayonline.com.
It is this type of freedom that creates a fertile ground forthe sale of Twitter followers. There are a legion of websites that offers thousands of Twitter followers for a sum of money.
Republican opponent Mitt Romney has far fewer Twitter followers — nearly 1 million — but percentages state that some or many of his followers are also fake.
For the record, both campaigns have denied buying Twitter followers.
Buying fake followers for entertainers would be a way to enhance their street credibility, increase their influence as well as revenue in terms of advertiser and sponsorships.
