So says a Tweet. Funny
On Aug 2, 1:51 pm, MJ <[email protected]> wrote: > politicsMost of Newt Gingrich s Twitter Followers Are FakeBy John Cook > Aug 1, 2011 4:05 PM > Yesterday Newt Gingrich laid out a new argument for why he should be the GOP > presidential nominee: He's got the most Twitter followers. But according to a > former Gingrich staffer, he bought them. > Gingrichcomplained yesterdaythat the press is ignoring his prodigious Twitter > audience: "I have six times as many Twitter followers as all the other > candidates combined, but it didn't count because if it counted I'd still be a > candidate; since I can't be a candidate that can't count." Which is true! > Gingrich currently boasts 1,325,842 followers, whereas competitors Mitt > Romney and Michele Bachmann have yet to crack 100,000. > But if Newt is winning the Twitter primary, it's because of voter fraud. A > former staffer tells us that his campaign hired a firm to boost his follower > count, in part by creating fake accounts en masse:Newt employs a variety of > agencies whose sole purpose is to procure Twitter followers for people who > are shallow/insecure/unpopular enough to pay for them. As you might guess, > Newt is most decidedly one of the people to which these agencies cater.About > 80 percent of those accounts are inactive or are dummy accounts created by > various "follow agencies," another 10 percent are real people who are part of > a network of folks who follow others back and are paying for followers > themselves (Newt's profile just happens to be a part of these networks > because he uses them, although he doesn't follow back), and the remaining 10 > percent may, in fact, be real, sentient people who happen to like Newt > Gingrich. If you simply scroll through his list of followers you'll see that > most of them have odd usernames and no profile photos, which has to do with > the fact that they were mass generated. Pathetic, isn't it?That's quite a > different explanation for Gingrich's Twitter popularity than the one offered > bythis Politico story on the subject: "[I]t's his personal touch: He tweets > and manages his Twitter feed himself, his campaign confirmed to POLITICO. All > told, he has tweeted 2,611 times in the 29 months since he joined the site." > While it would be impossible to survey all of Gingrich's followers, a cursory > glance immediately turned up a fewaccountsthat featured odd names, no > personal information, no followers, no posts, and a small follow list. And > there's certainly ahealthy market out there for buying Twitter followers, > either by hiring a company to strategically follow accounts that will follow > you back or by paying for dummy accounts. If Gingrich did goose his Twitter > numbers, it would help explain why he has, for instance, more than twice as > many followers as Sarah Palin, which just doesn't sound right. > The Gingrich campaign didn't respond to a message seeking comment. > UPDATE: A couple folks have pointed toone possible explanation for Gingrich's > high follow count-- he is on Twitter'srecommended follow list, a privilege > that has launched other political accounts to similar heights. But not all -- > John Boehner and Sarah Palin are both on the same list as Gingrich, and > neither one comes close to approaching his numbers. > [Photo via Getty > Images]http://gawker.com/5826645/most-of-newt-gingrichs-twitter-followers-are-fake -- Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more.
