Earlier this year, The New York Times investigated fake followers on Twitter showing very clearly that it was a problem. It’s hard to believe that Twitter didn’t already know about the scale of the issue, but after the story, the social service finally started to work on the problem.
Nicholas Confessore and Gabriel J.X. Dance for The New York Times:
An investigation by The New York Times in January demonstrated that just one small Florida company sold fake followers and other social media engagement to hundreds of thousands of users around the world, including politicians, models, actors and authors. The revelations prompted investigations in at least two states and calls in Congress for intervention by the Federal Trade Commission. In interviews this week, Twitter executives said that The Times’s reporting pushed them to look more closely at steps the company could take to clamp down on the market for fakes, which is fueled in part by the growing political and commercial value of a widely followed Twitter account.
This is statistics driving positive change instead of just advertising. I’m ready for more of this.
