A large Twitter following was once the barometer of success, but an online tool has showed not everything is as it seems.
According to TwitterAudit, some Wagga identities are attracting “fake” accounts while others are doing a good job of keeping the spammers at bay.
Former reality TV stars Sarah Wentworth Perry and Sandra Nixon fared worst, with more than a quarter of their followers described as “fakes”.
Sports stars Joe Williams and Alicia Quirk were better off in the ‘fake stakes’.
While famous people and senior politicians always attract a lot of fakes, the prime minister’s “audit score” was particularly poor, with almost half his followers described as “fake”.
Likewise, opposition leader Bill Shorten had a dismal score of 64, but Riverina MP Michael McCormack outperformed both leaders, with a score of 88.
However, low audit results don't necessarily mean users have ‘propped up’ their accounts with paid followers.
“This scoring method is not perfect but it is a good way to tell if someone with lots of followers is likely to have increased their follower count by inorganic, fraudulent, or dishonest means,” its creators said.
TwitterAudit takes a random sample of 5000 Twitter followers for a user to calculate its authenticity score. It judges whether a follower is fake based on number and dates of tweets and the ratio of followers to friends.
Stephen Mudd
Stephen Mudd is a journalist for Fairfax Media west of the great divide. He loves music, dogs and travel.
Stephen Mudd is a journalist for Fairfax Media west of the great divide. He loves music, dogs and travel.
