POLITICAL leaders manipulate Twitter to increase followers?

Chandigarh, July 10, 2013: The Gujarat chief minister and BJP leader Narendra Modi is being promoted as having highest number of followers on Twitter (18,61,742). However the reality is that he is misleading the nation by manipulating Twitter, as 61% of his followers were found fake in a sample survey today.

The false followers are being created by a cyber team working for Modi having more than 150 employees. This is another mode of corruption being carried out by political parties and their leaders to woo and misguide voters. Among other leaders of BJP, Sushma Swaraj, who otherwise has a clean image, is also having 54% fake followers. This is shocking!

A sample survey conducted by SpecttrumNews.com today revealed that not only Modi, but his close rival on Twitter, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor is also having around 33% fake followers. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and J&K chief minister OmarAbdulla are having hardly 10% fake followers. The Specttrum survey found 28% fake followers in AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal’s account. 

It was a big news recently when few TV channels and newspapers claimed that Modi has been leading the show on Twitter and has left Tharoor behind, who boasts of 18,29,962 followers. It was being interpreted as this will increase the chances of Modi’s victory in the 2014 general election. Even the media houses did not bother to check the authenticity of the followers. 

But, sadly the whole ‘achievement’ revolves around manipulation of this micro-blogging social media website. SpecttrumNews.com did a random online survey of latest 100 followers of each of the above leaders’ Twitter handles. The fake followers have not tweeted even once and they have zero followers. Clearly, such false accounts were made just to follow these leaders to boost the followers count. This is just like buying voters in real life in cash or kind.

Modi joined Twitter in 2009 and in 2010, had one lakh followers. In November 2011, he had four lakh followers. A year later, on 27 October 2012, he touched the one million mark. His followers on Twitter increased exponentially after that. Modi tweeted to thank all his followers as “These are not mere numbers but it signifies your love and affection. Heartfelt thanks to all.”   

However, all the love and affection Modi is overwhelmed with is not all genuine. He has appointed a team to manage his social media accounts and troll his critics on Twitter. Many top Tweeters, including senior journalists and writers, often complain about these trolls and get disturbed now and then.

Narvijay Yadav, Editor, Specttrum News said, “People buy or create false followers to increase their influence. Celebrities do this frequently. However, misleading people by such tricks is equal to a crime, when the person in question is going to play important role in the future of the country. Anybody can check the above trend anytime by just pressing the followers’ button of Modi, Tharoor, Sushma or anybody else to check the authenticity of the followers.”