Twitter’s Phony Follower Problem Persists

Despite changes implemented by Twitter management following Elon Musk’s takeover, the issue of phony followers persists.

According to new data from dappGambl, as much as 10% of the followers of accounts about crypto influencers and companies are fraudulent.

Musk introduced Twitter Blue, an $8 monthly subscription for verification, in April 2023 to increase the platform’s revenue while making bots and false accounts unprofitable to operate.

However, months later, dappGambl’s investigation revealed that up to 10% of the most-followed cryptocurrency accounts’ followers are fraudulent.

Crypto accounts with the most fake followers. Source: DappGambl

Regarding the official accounts of cryptocurrency tokens and ecosystems, Shiba Inu SHIB had the highest percentage of false followers at 10.26%, or 80,000 accounts, followed by Avalanche AVAX with 8.14% fake followers and Polygon MATIC with 7.55%, or 73,000 fake accounts.

Crypto influencers with the most fake followers. Source: DappGambl

DappGambl hypothesized that the relationship between Twitter accounts and their false followers is contingent on the tokens’ prevalence. By analyzing the social sentiment behind crypto accounts, dappGambl discovered:

“Dai (DAI) is the most loved (popular) coin on Twitter whilst XRP (XRP) is the most hated (unpopular).”

The crypto community on Twitter generally views Dai as the “future of money,” whereas it tends to associate XRP with fraud. Samson Mow is the crypto influencer and entrepreneur with the greatest proportion of false followers among his total following.

There are currently 26,000 phony accounts following Mow, representing 10% of his total Twitter following. Jack Dorsey, a co-founder of Twitter, has 560,000 (8.62%) false followers, while Nayib Bukele, president of El Salvador, and Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, each have nearly 6.5% bogus followers.

Other prominent figures with substantial fake followers include MicroStrategy co-founder Michael Saylor (6.16%), Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (5.58%), and Tesla CEO Elon Musk (4.76%), among others.

Other notable figures with significant numbers of phony followers include MicroStrategy co-founder Michael Saylor (6.16%), Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (5.58%), and Tesla CEO Elon Musk (4.76%).

According to the total number of followers, over 6,7 million false accounts presently follow Musk, who is attempting to eliminate the issue.

Methods for identifying false accounts include examining the account’s creation date, profile image, bio, and messages, as well as the account’s followers and those it follows.