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Twitter Followers Vanish Amid Inquiries into Fake Accounts

nytimes.com

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Re: Twitter Followers Vanish Amid Inquiries into Fake Accounts

#21

Post by scrollaway »

jacquesm wrote: post #15
yourdonut wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as an ex-Facebook growth employee, fake accounts actually hurt growth and are actively sought out and removed by a dedicated team. Think about it--if a user receives a bunch of fake friend requests, it's a bad experience. This is one of the (many) reasons MySpace died--because of the onslaught of porn-promoting accounts that they never cleaned up until it was too late.

Twitter is full of those porn promoting accounts. Typically this is an account with some female name and a profile pic of a person in a state of undress following lots of popular accounts. Twitter doesn't even take them down if you complain about them. Very annoying.

Not just porn. My account with ~150 followers was, out of the blue and within a week, followed by a dozen different "startups". Every single one of them follows tens of thousands of people in the hopes of getting followed back. It's pathetic.

Re: Twitter Followers Vanish Amid Inquiries into Fake Accounts

#22

Post by mehrdadn »

hirundo wrote: post #4
tinbad wrote: post #2

It's so obvious that social platforms with business models based on number of ads/impressions like Twitter/FB are not incentivized enough to remove fake accounts, yet there seems to be very little public discussion or outrage about it. I agree with Mark Cuban here [1], they should do more to make sure each account has a real user behind it, even if it means less revenue. It's just the right thing to do. [1] https://t…

The only practical way to do that is to take a credit card and run a test transaction against it. If Twitter had tried that it would have died in the nest. People wouldn't take the risk for an unknown benefit. A large portion of their current tweeters still wouldn't, or couldn't provide such proof.

> The only practical way to do that is to take a credit card and run a test transaction against it.

Doesn't really work everywhere in the world.

Re: Twitter Followers Vanish Amid Inquiries into Fake Accounts

#23

Post by scrollaway »

metalliqaz wrote: post #18
Nav_Panel wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is a brand considered a "real name and real person"?

I don't see why not. A brand is owned by a company. That company has a registered name and real people working the social media accounts.

Guess we'll have to get rid of those guys then:

* https://twitter.com/ReactJS

* https://twitter.com/postgresql

* https://twitter.com/officialcatfact

Re: Twitter Followers Vanish Amid Inquiries into Fake Accounts

#24

Post by netsharc »

nindalf wrote: post #9
tinbad wrote: post #2

It's so obvious that social platforms with business models based on number of ads/impressions like Twitter/FB are not incentivized enough to remove fake accounts, yet there seems to be very little public discussion or outrage about it. I agree with Mark Cuban here [1], they should do more to make sure each account has a real user behind it, even if it means less revenue. It's just the right thing to do. [1] https://t…

> .. FB are not incentivized enough to remove fake accounts What makes you think Facebook isn't prioritizing this? I'm not questioning whether you're right about this, just curious about what made you draw this conclusion.

"Hey, $MAJOR_CORP, advertise with us, you'll reach millions of your target market! Just pay $X."

"So how many of them are real and how many of them are fake accounts?"

"We work very hard to make sure Facebook is free of fake accounts."

"That's not the answer to my question.".

Re: Twitter Followers Vanish Amid Inquiries into Fake Accounts

#25

Post by intopieces »

scrollaway wrote: post #17
tinbad wrote: post #2

It's so obvious that social platforms with business models based on number of ads/impressions like Twitter/FB are not incentivized enough to remove fake accounts, yet there seems to be very little public discussion or outrage about it. I agree with Mark Cuban here [1], they should do more to make sure each account has a real user behind it, even if it means less revenue. It's just the right thing to do. [1] https://t…

> It's just the right thing to do. That sounds like a sweeping statement with little forethought when you're talking about a platform that enabled protests in dictatorial regimes. Step back here: Fake users, sold by the thousands to give credibility and a megaphone to whoever shells out money: bad. Identity verification: A solution with many consequences to be weighed before jumping on the bandwagon. And dictatures a…

Enabled protests in dictatorial regimes, sure. But let’s not overstate social media’s positive impact: nearly a decade after the Arab Spring, few governments outside of Tunisia look markedly different.

The ability of state actors to use social media to spread propaganda should also be considered in our tally of social media impact. The jury is still out on whether they are a net good.

Re: Twitter Followers Vanish Amid Inquiries into Fake Accounts

#26

Post by wambotron »

tinbad wrote: post #2

It's so obvious that social platforms with business models based on number of ads/impressions like Twitter/FB are not incentivized enough to remove fake accounts, yet there seems to be very little public discussion or outrage about it. I agree with Mark Cuban here [1], they should do more to make sure each account has a real user behind it, even if it means less revenue. It's just the right thing to do. [1] https://t…

But why does it matter to a general user if there are real or fake users behind twitter accounts? It makes no difference to me whether I have fake followers or not, as I'm not going to be forced to see anything they're posting (or not posting). I can just ignore them and follow who I want.

It seems like it only matters from an investment stance.

Re: Twitter Followers Vanish Amid Inquiries into Fake Accounts

#27

Post by CPLX »

scrollaway wrote: post #21
jacquesm wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter is full of those porn promoting accounts. Typically this is an account with some female name and a profile pic of a person in a state of undress following lots of popular accounts. Twitter doesn't even take them down if you complain about them. Very annoying.

Not just porn. My account with ~150 followers was, out of the blue and within a week, followed by a dozen different "startups". Every single one of them follows tens of thousands of people in the hopes of getting followed back. It's pathetic.

I'm not sure that's quite the same thing. That seems to be an example, at least somewhat, of using the platform as intended.

If your profile is public, and they decide to follow it, in part, to make you aware of their existence, perhaps that's a feature not a bug, given that the main use for the thing is to connect with accounts and follow them and discover content.

Re: Twitter Followers Vanish Amid Inquiries into Fake Accounts

#28

Post by metalliqaz »

scrollaway wrote: post #23
metalliqaz wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why not. A brand is owned by a company. That company has a registered name and real people working the social media accounts.

Guess we'll have to get rid of those guys then: * https://twitter.com/ReactJS * https://twitter.com/postgresql * https://twitter.com/officialcatfact

Why? Same applies.

Re: Twitter Followers Vanish Amid Inquiries into Fake Accounts

#29

Post by code4tee »

What’s even worse is that advertisers end up paying a lot of money to advertise to these bots. In an early ad campaign with Twitter we quickly realized a lot of our spend on “engagements” was engagements with bots. We pulled the plug on Twitter spend really quick.

This has been a known problem for a while and Twitter has done little to fix it at scale. Given that they make their money on these paid “engagements” there are going to be a lot of people taking a real close look at this. Interesting days for Twitter ahead.

Re: Twitter Followers Vanish Amid Inquiries into Fake Accounts

#30

Post by roymurdock »

tinbad wrote: post #2

It's so obvious that social platforms with business models based on number of ads/impressions like Twitter/FB are not incentivized enough to remove fake accounts, yet there seems to be very little public discussion or outrage about it. I agree with Mark Cuban here [1], they should do more to make sure each account has a real user behind it, even if it means less revenue. It's just the right thing to do. [1] https://t…

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

-Upton Sinclair

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