Story:

U.S. President Barack Obama has more than 19.5 million fake Twitter followers.

Analysis:

Circulating messages and few news articles as well report that the U.S. President Barack Obama has more than 19.5 million fake Twitter followers who do not correspond to real people. Yes, it is a fact!

It is a common practice for celebrities, politicians, start-up companies, aspiring rock stars, and anybody looking for fame and much social media presence to buy large blocks of Twitter followers. There are many websites and services that sell Twitter followers by the thousands, and even Facebook likes and YouTube views.

This practice has become so widespread that StatusPeople.com, a social media management company has a Web tool called the ‘Fake Follower Check’ that it says can show up how many fake followers you and your friends have. In a related article on The New York Times published in August 2012, it was reported that the Fake Follower Check web tool had shown that 70 percent of President Obama’s nearly 19 million followers are fake. Again, in September 2013, mail Online (dailymail.co.uk) talked about the same tool saying 53 per cent of Obama’s 36.9 million Twitter followers – or 19.5 million – are fake. It also published a list of U.S. politicians with many fake followers, which you can see in Image Gallery. As of this writing, when we checked using the same tool, President Barack Obama had 59% fake, 31% inactive and only 10% good Twitter followers.

Rob Waller, a founder of StatusPeople, said that the tool examines Twitter relationships, “Fake accounts tend to follow a lot of people but have few followers. We then combine that with a few other metrics to confirm the account is fake.”

So if the tool is accurate, as of this writing, President Obama has more than 23 million fake Twitter followers in his 39 million plus followers. However, it should be noted that Obama’s Twitter account is run by Organizing for Action (OFA), a nonprofit organization which advocates for the agenda of the U.S. President. When contacted to reply on these messages about fake Twitter followers, mail Online reported that the White House did not respond.

The social network presence has become a status symbol. Perhaps.

Hoax or Fact:

Fact.