By now, many people have discovered they can boost their social life and express themselves by using social media site Twitter. Some have discovered they can speed up the process by creating phony Twitter followers.
According to two Italian researchers, fake?Twitter following?has become a multi-million dollar business. One can get 1,000 phony followers for under $20. And this research says this market is by no means limited to the underworld.?Major corporations from Pepsi to Mercedes-Benz?have been called?out for suspicious?number of Twitter gains and losses in one day, so have some U.S. politicians, even celebrities. There are over 20 million fake Twitter followers out today. And last year, as a conservative estimate, $40 million dollars were made from fake Twitter followers.
The difference between Twitter and Facebook is that Facebook requires emails for sign-up. Twitter, it’s a lot easier to pull off phony followers. Do I have a problem with this? Yes and no. From a business standpoint, I understand why people and corporations would use this boost. You may not get that many likes on Facebook, but if you got a bunch of Twitter followers, real or not, you suddenly look really good! On the other hand, it’s not really the same as getting real life people as followers. In some ways, it almost feels like cheating. Plus, Twitter is working to get rid of fake followers, so they’re not going to last long anyway. So what do you think of fake Twitter followers: a good thing or a fraud?