Fake Twitter accounts may be driving up Mitt Romney's follower number

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Fake Twitter accounts may be driving up Mitt Romney's follower number

Rory Carroll in Los Angeles
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 9 August 2012 13.50 BST

Most of Mitt Romney's newest Twitter followers are fake, according to an investigation of bogus social media accounts.

A pay-for-follower service most likely drove the presumptive Republican nominee's recent and dramatic spike in online followers, concluded Baccardua Labs, a digital security company.

The widely reported surge in tens of thousands of new followers for @mittromney from 21 July – which provoked commentary and suspicion – appeared to have been purchased from a dealer, it said: "We believe most of these recent followers of Romney are not from a general Twitter population but most likely from a paid Twitter follower service."

The analysis, part of a wider investigation into what the report called the underground Twitter economy, found telltale signals that about a quarter of the new followers were less than three weeks old and had not tweeted. Some 80% were less than three-months-old.

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Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/09/fake-twitter-accounts-mitt-romney

[Judi Lynn]

1. How shabby is this new trick? Fake followers. They have to be desperate.

Even though it's disgusting, it's interesting hearing they would seek even this kind of bogus disguise.

Of course you'd have to pay to create the appearance people are interested in Romney.