Obama has millions of fake Twitter followers
By David Jackson, USA TODAY
Updated 35m ago
A new Web tool has determined that 70% of Obama's crowd includes "fake followers," The New York Times reports in a story about how Twitter followers can be purchased.
"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."
Notes the Times:
If accurate, the number of fake followers out there is surprising. According to the StatusPeople tool, 71 percent of Lady Gaga's nearly 29 million followers are "fake" or "inactive." So are 70 percent of President Obama's nearly 19 million followers.
Republican
opponent Mitt Romney has far fewer Twitter followers -- not quite
900,000 -- but it's a good bet that some of them are fake as well.
Both campaigns have denied buying Twitter followers.
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