20 percent of Twitter accounts are fake: Research

A study by two social networking experts shows that the number of fake accounts on Twitter is significant. It far exceeds the figure announced by Twitter during the presentation of the results. According to the document, this figure is close to 20%. Elon Musk put the Twitter takeover on hold after the social network’s announcement.

On social networks, the number of “followers” or subscribers is very important. Indeed, influencers and public figures rely on this figure to demonstrate their importance. For example, influencers market marketing campaigns more expensively (product placement, sponsorship, etc.) because their audience is potentially large. It’s like the ratings for a television channel or the number of page views for a site.

So imagine that this indicator is incorrect. It is the whole system of influencers that is being shaken up. It is well known that this indicator can be “manipulated”† Some influencers “buy” followers to inflate this indicator. Two goals: sell the audience better and attract followers. Because it inspires trust in real users. You are more likely to follow a person who is followed a lot than a complete stranger. It’s logic. Whoever says ‘buy followers’ also says ‘fake followers’.

Research says nearly 20% of Twitter accounts are fake

So fake accounts exist on social networks. It’s not just robots for marketing purposes. They could also be bots whose purpose is to spam my users (with anything that might involve spam, such as scams and theft of information or money). During the latest presentation of the results, Twitter announced that this phenomenon was marginal and less than 5% of accounts involved Which angered Elon Musk, who suspended the Twitter takeover.

Following this, SparkToro and FollowerWonk, two experts in Twitter account analysis, published a survey on the percentage of fake accounts. And the figure is much higher than Twitter. In reality, it reaches 19.42%† The survey is based on several indicators, such as the age of the account, the presence (or not) of a profile picture, the presence and length of the biography, the number of messages sent, the recency of the last message, the number of accounts followed or the location of the account.

More than 7 out of 10 subscribers to Elon Musk’s account are said to be fake!

For example, more than a dozen indicators are crossed and analyzed. And according to the two experts, the number of fake accounts would therefore be four times higher than the statements made by Twitter. Also, the percentage of fake followers of Elon Musk would be significantly higher: more than 70%. Experts explain that emblematic accounts like Tesla’s boss are prime targets. Of course, there can be false positives in this calculation. The study authors admit that they only count the visible activity of an account and not the simple connection. And that’s what we hope for Twitter.