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A president, an actress from Scandal, an American Idolcontestant, and a star quarterback were just four of the many influential figures found to have purchased fake Twitter followers, via a New York Timesinvestigation published Saturday.
But while these acts are shady and can influence the results of something — from getting a customer service complaint in front of Volvo to a presidential campaign — they are often overlooked by the platforms themselves.
SEE ALSO:Why Twitter's future just got even darkerTwitter says it does invest in fighting bots, as in false or spam accounts. But it doesn't always suspend users that are purchasing fake engagement to spread their messages or just tout their reach. That policy comes even as the Timesfound evidence of influential figures using a service called Devumi to purchase followers and shared that information with Twitter.
Twitter's resistance to immediately suspending or punishing these acts is, in part, a result of the company's inability to detect who is responsible, a Twitter spokesperson explained to the Times.
DJ Snake's followers were apparently purchased by his former manager. Martha Lane Fox, a Twitter board member, said a rogue employee used Devumi at least seven times to buy followers for her account.
"We take the action of suspending an account from the platform very seriously," the spokesperson said. "At the same time, we want to aggressively fight spam on the platform."
The Timesitself set up a new Twitter account and spent $225 on 25,000 followers. The team found that the first 10,000 followers appeared like real people. That's in part because Devumi will scrape the dormant accounts of real people to create fake profiles.
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Unfortunately for those victims of impersonation, Twitter does not proactively review accounts to see if they're impersonating other users, like what has been done to a real person named Jessica Rychly, who was featured in the Timesstory. Instead, Twitter looks for accounts that are violating the company's anti-spam policies, a Twitter spokesperson told the Times. All of the sample accounts the Times provided to Twitter were shut down, however.
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As the Times notes, Twitter could enact some safeguards such as running an anti-spam test for new accounts. A recent report from the University of South California and Indiana University claimed that as many as 48 million of Twitter's active users are automated accounts impersonating real people. The company told theTimesthat number is "far lower."
For now, it seems that Twitter is focused on abuse and hate speech rather than stressing about celebrities paying for fame.
While Twitter could have included a more aggressive response to the Timesstory, something about taking action against these actions, and yeah, there's the fact that these services have been around for years, the company did issue a blanket pledge shorty after the investigation published:
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Read more about the black market of social media engagement here.
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