Popularity on social media is a bit questionable at best. It’s like sitting at an imaginary ‘cool kids’ table in high school–and I do mean imaginary. However, there are those who use the number of followers on Twitter as a gauge of something. What, I don’t know, but something. At any rate, the question is, “How many people on Twitter are actually real people?”<\/p>\n
Breitbart<\/a> posted an article on Wednesday reporting that nearly half of President Joe Biden\u2019s 22.3 million Twitter followers are fake accounts. One wonders who set up these fake accounts and why they were set up.<\/p>\n The article reports:<\/p>\n Software company SparkToro<\/a> found that 49.3 percent of accounts following the official @POTUS Twitter account are \u201cfake followers\u201d or inauthentic accounts known as bots, according to\u00a0a report<\/a> by Newsweek.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The same analysis reportedly<\/a>\u00a0also found that more than 14 million accounts that follow Biden\u2019s personal @JoeBiden Twitter account are either fake or insufficiently active.\u00a0Therefore, a\u00a0crackdown on fake Twitter accounts could see users like Biden lose a huge number of followers.<\/strong><\/p>\n SparkToro reportedly defines fake followers as \u201caccounts that are unreachable and will not see the account\u2019s tweets (either because they\u2019re spam, bots, propaganda, etc. or because they\u2019re no longer active on Twitter).\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n The news of Biden\u2019s fake Twitter followers comes after Tesla founder Elon Musk, who is\u00a0currently trying to buy Twitter, expressed concerns about the number of bots on the social media platform.<\/strong><\/p>\n Musk has since announced<\/a>\u00a0that his $44 billion\u00a0acquisition of Twitter cannot move forward until the number of bot accounts on the platform is independently confirmed.<\/strong><\/p>\n The SpaceX CEO tweeted that his offer was based on \u201cTwitter\u2019s SEC filings being accurate,\u201d and he believes bots could account for 20 percent of the platform \u201cor *much* higher.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n All of this has come to light because of Elon Musk’s plan to purchase Twitter. The article at Breitbart notes that uncovering these numbers may actually be part of Elon Musk’s negotiation process to acquire Twitter. Knowing that Elon Musk is a successful businessman who knows how to negotiate, that is entirely possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Popularity on social media is a bit questionable at best. It’s like sitting at an imaginary ‘cool kids’ table in high school–and I do mean imaginary. However, there are those who use the number of followers on Twitter as a … Continue reading