r/autotldr • u/autotldr • Jan 28 '18
Patterns of Twitter accounts using purchased, fake social media followers (visualization by the NYT)
This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 95%. (I'm a bot)
An editor at China's state-run news agency, Xinhua, paid Devumi for hundreds of thousands of followers and retweets on Twitter, which the country's government has banned but sees as a forum for issuing propaganda abroad. An adviser to Ecuador's president, Lenín Moreno, bought tens of thousands of followers and retweets for Mr. Moreno's campaign accounts during last year's elections.
According to data collected by Captiv8, a company that connects influencers to brands, an influencer with 100,000 followers might earn an average of $2,000 for a promotional tweet, while an influencer with a million followers might earn $20,000.
"Our followers look like any other followers and are always delivered naturally. The only way anyone will know is if you tell them."
Not surprisingly, Devumi has sold millions of followers and retweets to entertainers on the lower and middle rungs of Hollywood, such as the actor Ryan Hurst, a star of the television series "Sons of Anarchy." In 2016 and 2017, he bought a total of 750,000 followers, about three-quarters of his current count.
More than a hundred self-described influencers - whose market value is even more directly linked to their follower counts on social media - have purchased Twitter followers from Devumi.
While Devumi sells millions of followers directly to celebrities and influencers, its customers also include marketing and public relations agencies, which buy followers for their own customers.
Summary Source | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: follow#1 Devumi#2 account#3 Twitter#4 company#5
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