Friday, May 10, 2013

Fake Twitter followers and ReTweet experiments via Fiverr.com

Summary:  Instructive to readers to consider the number of "fake followers" a user may have before you consider him or her an authority simply based on their high follower count. 

So before I started experimenting, I had about 5,500 mostly real Twitter followers.  I decided to check out my scores here: https://twitter.com/PainPoint/status/332209041206030337 and document them for posterity.


So 94% of my current (~5,000) Twitter followers are real and active! Thank you all for sticking with me!  My purpose of this blog post is to document my recent experiments with Fiverr.com, primarily in the context of the dozens if not hundreds of "Twitter Services" available on the site. I fully expect that after my experimentation I will have more fake followers and plenty of robot induced retweets that are also meaningless. I really just wanted an excuse to play around with Fiverr, so here we go!

Fiverr Experiment #1:
Goal: Get a specific Tweet of mine ReTweeted
@PainPoint Tweet: https://twitter.com/PainPoint/status/331873640712921088

Fiverr Order:
User "bestofwitter" http://fiverr.com/bestoftwitter offers: "I will retweet your message to 250,000 users and add 2,500 real followers to your account for $5"
So I gave it a shot... and I "earned a retweet" by @JenPersonal who has over 250,000 "followers" as she claimed, but checking via: http://fakers.statuspeople.com/ shows that only 15% of her followers are actually "real" people... So I canceled my order.... and now have 2,500 additional "followers" who are most likely robots.  Hi all new robots!  Total cost: $0

Fiverr Experiment #2:
Goal: Get a specific Tweet ReTweeted (new link below)
@PainPoint Tweet: https://twitter.com/PainPoint/status/331875704394350594

User "tweet_retweet" http://fiverr.com/tweet_retweet offers: "8,000 ReTweets from 8,000 accounts for $5".. so I gave it a shot and 8,000+ retweets on the above. I cancelled my order after learning all 8,000 are from fake accounts... I guess I didn't read the fine print... but thanks all you robots for the meaningless retweets!  Total cost: $0

Fiverr Experiment #3
Goal: Get a specific Tweet ReTweeted (new link below)
@PainPoint Tweet: https://twitter.com/PainPoint/status/332230539731939328

User "w3websolutions" http://fiverr.com/w3websolutions promises "200 real retweets by real people with real profiles"

He delivered over 100 ReTweets, but all were all fake users.. Are you sending a theme here? Canceled Order... Total cost $0

Fiverr Experiment #4
Goal: Get a specific Tweet ReTweeted (same link as Experiment #1)

Fiverr Order:
User "buylikes" http://fiverr.com/buylikes promises to add 100 Real Twitter ReTweets within 20 hours"

I got the 100 ReTweets, but they all sucked... by fake profiles. Canceled order; Total cost $0.

Fiverr Experiment #5
Goal: Get more Twitter followers for my "Robot" account https://twitter.com/painpoints

User "twitter_likess" http://fiverr.com/twitter_likess promises 20,000 new followers!

Oh wait.. they are all fake? Canceling order because they are not "real looking" as stated. Total Cost $0. Now I have lots of fake followers on my robot account @PainPoints - WooHoo!

Fiverr Experiment #6
Goal: Get more Twitter followers for my "Robot" account https://twitter.com/painpoints

User "facebook_ac" http://fiverr.com/facebook_ac promises 10,000 High Quality and Real Looking Twitter followers within less than 24 hours"

I had to disagree and cancel my order.. these new followers are not at all real looking to me. Total Cost $0

Fiverr Experiment #7
Goal: Get more Twitter followers for my "Robot" account https://twitter.com/painpoints

User "minter050" http://fiverr.com/minter050 offers 10,000 Top Quality Twitter Followers.

I didn't consider all these fake robots as top quality... so I canceled the order. Total Cost $0

Fiverr Experiment #8
Goal: Get more Twitter followers for my "Robot" account https://twitter.com/painpoints

User "best_seller" http://fiverr.com/best__seller promises 15k "real looking" followers delivered within 15 days.

I'm canceling the order because they their robot accounts are not looking real as stated. Are other Twitter users really this naive? Total Cost $0

Fiverr Experiment #9
Goal: Get a specific tweet ReTweeted (new link below)
@PainPoint Tweet: https://twitter.com/PainPoint/status/332247910018334720

User "tweets_asap" http://fiverr.com/tweets_asap promises to Tweet to their 350k Twitter followers.

As you guessed it, I canceled the order because their ReTweets were all by Robot accounts.. at least they were more convincing robots here. Total Cost $0

Conclusion:
I hope this post was at least instructive to readers to consider the number of "fake followers" a user may have before you consider him or her an authority simply based on their high follower count. I hope that I've proven how easy it is to manipulate follower counts and ReTweets using artificial means at low or no cost.  Unfortunately to my Fiverr Experiment #1, I have now increased from 1% to 36% of my followers as fake accounts!  But hey, don't I look cooler now that I have almost 8,000 followers?

I think this post also proves that I have way too much time on my hands.

1 comment:

  1. Interesting to note that those excess fake followers are gone again. Those are some well engineered twitter robots that unfollow after completion!

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