Twitter cutting millions of suspicious accounts
Nicholas Confessore and Gabriel J.X. Dance
Twitter will begin removing tens of millions of suspicious accounts from users’ followers Thursday, signaling a major new effort to restore trust on the popular but embattled platform.
The reform takes aim at a pervasive form of social media fraud. Many users have inflated their followers on Twitter or other ser- vices with automated or fake accounts, buying the appearance of social influence to bolster their political activism, business endeavors or entertainment careers.
An investigation by The New York Times in January demonstrated that just one small Florida company sold fake followers and other social media engagement to hundreds of thousands of users around the world, including politicians, models, actors and authors. The revelations prompted investigations in at least two states and calls in Congress for intervention by the Federal Trade Commission. In interviews this week, Twitter executives said that The Times’ reporting pushed them to look more closely at steps the company could take to clamp down on the market for fakes, which is fueled in part by the growing political and commercial value of a widely followed Twit- ter account.
Officials at Twitter acknowledged that easy access to fake followers, and the company’s slowness in responding to the prob- lem, had devalued the influence accumulated by legitimate users, sowing suspicion around those who quickly attained a broad following.
“We don’t want to incen- tivize the purchase of followers and fake accounts advertisers, which increasingly rely on social media “influencers” — mini-celebrities who promote brands and products to their followers — to reach customers. In recent months, advertising and marketing firms have put pressure on Twitter, YouTube and other platforms to help ensure that influencers have the reach they claim. Last month, the consumer goods giant Unilever, which spends billions of dollars a year on advertising, announced that it would no longer pay influencers who purchased followers and would prioritize spending advertising dollars on platforms that took steps to stamp out fraud.
In an interview Tuesday, Unilever’s chief marketing officer, Keith Weed, praised Twitter for its decision. “Peoto artificially inflate folple will believe more and lower counts, because it’s read more on Twitter if they not an accurate measure know there is less bot activof someone’s influence on ity and more human activthe platform or influence ity,” Weed said. “I would in the world,” said Del Harencourage and ask others vey, Twitter’s vice president to follow.” for trust and safety. “We For Twitter, the reform think it’s a really importcomes at a critical moment. ant and meaningful met- Though it is a smaller comric, and we want people to pany with far fewer users have confidence that these than Facebook or Google, are engaged users that are Twitter has been sharply following other accounts.” criticized for allowing abuse
The market for fakes was and hate speech to flourish also hurting Twitter with on its platform. Beginning today, many users, including those who have bought fake followers and any others who are followed by suspicious accounts, will see their follower numbers fall.
While Twitter declined to provide an exact number of affected users, the company said it would strip tens of millions of questionable accounts from users’ followers. The move would reduce the total combined follower count on Twitter by about 6 percent — a substantial drop. had not known where they were going when they made the journey in 2016. The 12 women and their manager A candidate from a politi- left Ningbo, China, where cal party opposed to the Talthey worked at a restaurant iban was killed in a suicide run by the North Korean govbombing late Tuesday as he ernment, in April 2016, arriv- campaigned in northwestern ing in South Korea two days Pakistan. At least 12 people later. The South’s governwere killed and dozens were ment promptly announced wounded, several of them their defection, which was critically, police and hospital the most sensational in years, officials said. There was no involving a large group of immediate claim of respon- people who, as workers sibility, but immediate susabroad, belonged to the picion fell on the Pakistani North Korean elite. Taliban. The candidate who was killed, Haroon Bilour, belonged to a prominent political family from Peshawar who was running for a provincial assembly seat.
PAKISTAN
NORTH KOREA
A United Nations official on Tuesday called for an investigation into whether 12 North Korean waitresses were brought to South Korea against their will, saying some had told him they was an archaic holdout from India’s colonial era. “We are asking for a declaration that our rights are protected,” one of the lawyers, Mukul Rohatgi, argued before five judges. The court will most likely reach a verdict in a few weeks.
UGANDA
Ugandan police on Wednesday used tear gas and bullets to break up a street protest against a new tax targeting social media users. Two protesters were arrested in downtown Kampala, the capital, after a scufIndia’s Supreme Court fle in which some policemen on Tuesday started hear- were assaulted, said Luke ing a challenge to one of the Owoyesigire, a spokesman world’s oldest laws criminalfor Kampala police. The proizing consensual gay sex, test was organized by a popa debate that has raised ular lawmaker, Kyagulanyi broader questions about how Ssentamu, a pop star who is far to extend equal rights in one a group of singers who the country. Lawyers represay the tax will have negasenting a cluster of gay and tive impact on the marketlesbian Indians who peti- ing of their music. tioned the court said the law, known as Section 377,
INDIA