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Florida Firm Sells Twitter Followers and Bots That Retweet Celebrities, Executives, and 'Influencers' (nytimes.com)
Over the weekend, The New York Times published an expose on an obscure American company called Devumi that sells Twitter followers and bots that automatically retweet celebrities, executives, social media "influencers" and anyone else who will pay. From the report: Devumi sells Twitter followers and retweets to celebrities, businesses and anyone who wants to appear more popular or exert influence online. Drawing on an estimated stock of at least 3.5 million automated accounts, each sold many times over, the company has provided customers with more than 200 million Twitter followers, a New York Times investigation found. The accounts that most resemble real people reveal a kind of large-scale social identity theft. At least 55,000 of the accounts use the names, profile pictures, hometowns and other personal details of real Twitter users, including minors, according to a Times data analysis.
[...] The actor John Leguizamo has Devumi followers. So do Michael Dell, the computer billionaire, and Ray Lewis, the football commentator and former Ravens linebacker. Kathy Ireland, the onetime swimsuit model who today presides over a half-billion-dollar licensing empire, has hundreds of thousands of fake Devumi followers, as does Akbar Gbajabiamila, the host of the show "American Ninja Warrior." Even a Twitter board member, Martha Lane Fox, has some. Hours after the report was published, New York attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, opened an investigation into Devumi. "Impersonation and deception are illegal under New York law," Mr. Schneiderman said. "We're opening an investigation into Devumi and its apparent sale of bots using stolen identities."
[...] The actor John Leguizamo has Devumi followers. So do Michael Dell, the computer billionaire, and Ray Lewis, the football commentator and former Ravens linebacker. Kathy Ireland, the onetime swimsuit model who today presides over a half-billion-dollar licensing empire, has hundreds of thousands of fake Devumi followers, as does Akbar Gbajabiamila, the host of the show "American Ninja Warrior." Even a Twitter board member, Martha Lane Fox, has some. Hours after the report was published, New York attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, opened an investigation into Devumi. "Impersonation and deception are illegal under New York law," Mr. Schneiderman said. "We're opening an investigation into Devumi and its apparent sale of bots using stolen identities."
This is a very well researched NYT article. I can imagine this required quite a bit of data mining and analysis and must have been fun to investigate. Especially impressive the time charts illustrating the patterns which give away when followers were bought. I'm glad this is investigated as it would really bother me personally to have my profile been sold like in the case of Jessica in the story. Just one thing about the appearance of the article on the website: I know it looks cool with all this dynamic build up of the diagrams and pages. At the moment, as a reader I feel lost in a maze of dynamic text buildup and never know whether I have missed something. as scrolling modifies the page constantly. Still, this story is an eye opener.