Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, has beaten former US President Donald Trump in the terms of percentage of fake followers on Twitter.
The report claims Trump, Modi, and Pope Francis are the most followed accounts on Twitter in the world. However, PM Modi has outnumbered the other two when it comes to fake followers on Twitter.
Modi is accounted to have 60% of his 41 million followers ‘fake’ while 59% of Pope’s 17 million followers are called fake. In comparison, Former President Trump has 39% of his 49.9 million followers fake.
The report questions PM Modi’s real following and popularity on social media. If taken into account, he perhaps may not be the most followed world leader on Twitter. It also suggests that his Twitter presence has been exaggerated with the help of fake followers on social media that propagate his agendas. Also, researchers have the opportunity to examine his purported against his real social media presence.
Finally, Modi beats Trump ji & the Pope. pic.twitter.com/2ZtrkhT11U
— SonaliRanade (@sonaliranade) January 25, 2021
Fake followers include internet bots- an automated application used to imitate the working of accounts of actual humans- imitating them and inactive followers.
According to Outlook India, PM Modi’s following increased by seven million in less than 30 days that prompted the magazine to run an audit of the PM Modi’s account.
Read more: Nearly 80% of Maryam Nawaz’s Twitter followers are fake: Chohan
Meanwhile, Pakistani leader, Maryam Nawaz of PML-N was said to have 80% of her Twitter followers fake. The findings were revealed in October 2020.
Online analysis of Vice President PML-N Maryam Nawaz’s Twitter account revealed that behind the politician’s vast fan following, there is serious evidence to suggest that it is the result of systematic use of online bot and/ or fake accounts. Punjab information minister, Fayyazul Hasan Chohan, alleged that 80% of Nawaz’s Twitter followers are “fake”.
“Breaking the key figures down, the thread highlighted that out of a total of 5,592,493 followers on her Twitter account, it can be observed that approximately 1 million accounts have no followers whatsoever, 743,906 accounts have only a single follower, and 1,439,946 accounts have between 2 to 5 followers; which leaves approximately 2,408,000 followers that could potentially be termed as partially organic in nature”, reported Siasat News Pakistan.
Read more: Twitter marks tweet of BJP member as ‘manipulated media’
“In terms of the organic online activity of these alleged bot accounts, it can be observed from the thread that 2,031,918 accounts have yet to post a single tweet, 685,416 accounts posted only a single tweet, and 1,006,024 accounts have posted between 2 to 5 tweets in total. This is entirely reflective of the fact that a large chunk of these accounts are inorganic, and have only been used to “like” and “retweet” Maryam Nawaz’s activity on the platform, and to artificially inflate her growing number of followers”, added Siasat News.