TWITTER's Latest Purge Sees Accounts Like Barack Obama And Katy Perry Lose Millions Of Followers

Twitter's primary account took the brunt of the impact – dropping 12 percent from 62.85 million to 55.35 million followers.

<img src="https://media.8ch.net/file_store/c7ffe23992e89386df32c16546b7e4784ae499da5754c250e3929590d96bd12f.jpeg" style="max-height:640px;max-width:360px;">

<span style="margin-top:15px;rgba(42,51,6,0.7);font-size:12px;">Credit:<a href="http://www.https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/6768563"> The Sun </a></span>

Katy Perry, the most followed person on Twitter, just lost 1.5 million followers

<img src="https://media.8ch.net/file_store/16fdd116ac1f7888e58c21b50de06be431cba2543b9dc50458dc8dba8ece2db9.jpeg" style="max-height:640px;max-width:360px;">

<span style="margin-top:15px;rgba(42,51,6,0.7);font-size:12px;">Credit:<a href="http://www.https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/6768563"> The Sun </a></span

Taylor Swift lost around 2 million followers

<img src="https://media.8ch.net/file_store/934ec647b2c63527116a7db4b0fddb2c93e22802728ebb4a3295c442acebcb57.jpeg" style="max-height:640px;max-width:360px;">

<span style="margin-top:15px;rgba(42,51,6,0.7);font-size:12px;">Credit:<a href="http://www.https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/6768563"> The Sun </a></span>

Justin Bieber lost 1.4million followers

<img src="https://media.8ch.net/file_store/a106904d6331e044f57845589a4c0cf8be1a12074246b9e83c806ffc86054ba7.jpeg" style="max-height:640px;max-width:360px;">

<span style="margin-top:15px;rgba(42,51,6,0.7);font-size:12px;">Credit:<a href="http://www.https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/6768563"> The Sun </a></span>

Christiano Ronaldo dropped 1.6 percent

<img src="https://media.8ch.net/file_store/3c92f1bdfefd585ec240b30545f0677c287d09b57d6edd462b871f027ce51859.jpeg" style="max-height:640px;max-width:360px;">

<span style="margin-top:15px;rgba(42,51,6,0.7);font-size:12px;">Credit:<a href="http://www.https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/6768563"> The Sun </a></span>

Ellen DeGeneres saw her followers dip by 2 million

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey lost 200,000

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">(I lost 200k followers )</p>&mdash; jack (@jack) <a href="https://twitter.com/jack/status/1017490510678614017?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 12, 2018</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

The company announced Wednesday that it was wiping suspicious profiles from follower Accounts – with the Washington Post noting that 70 million accounts in total had been axed.

"Most people will see a change of four followers or fewer; others with larger follower counts will experience a more significant drop," said Vijaya Gadde, Twitters’ legal, policy and trust and safety lead in a blog post announcing the cull.

Twitter has been grappling with shady bots and spam accounts (automated profiles that aren't run by humans) on its service for years.

A 2017 study pegged the number of bots on the platform at 48 million.

And earlier this year a New York Times investigation revealed that millions of these fake accounts were created to help celebs sell products and boost follower counts for influencers.

Twitter claims that this latest clampdown mainly targeted accounts created by real people. (In other words, hoped to get rid of any conservatives they could possibly get rid of)

“Our ongoing work to improve the health of conversations on Twitter encompasses all aspects of our service," added Gadde.

"This specific update is focused on followers because it is one of the most visible features on our service and often associated with account credibility. Once an account is locked, it cannot Tweet, like or Retweet and it is not served ads."

<img src="https://media.8ch.net/file_store/5f3f80c9c61d479d3de8e3b2a49fdbcf01d114a55aefa7519bce79be1aab3588.jpeg" style="max-height:640px;max-width:360px;">

<span style="margin-top:15px;rgba(42,51,6,0.7);font-size:12px;">Credit:<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/12/technology/twitter-followers-nyt.html"> The New York Times </a></span>

Ashton Kutcher had 19.1 million followers on Wednesday. As Twitter began cutting fake accounts, that dropped to 18 million on Thursday evening, a loss of 1.1 million or nearly 6 percent.

President Trump lost about 340,000 followers in the Twitter purge, knocked down to 53 million from 53.4 million. His predecessor, President Barack Obama, took a much larger hit, losing three million followers in one day. (He dropped to 101 million on Thursday from 104 million the day before.)

Looks to me like this backfired. If the larger accounts see

more loss, Trump didn’t see a significant loss at all; however, Obama most certainly did.

The accounts hit the hardest by Twitter's latest purge:

Katy Perry – down 1.5 million followers

Justin Bieber – down 1.4 million followers

Barack Obama – down 2.1 million followers

Ellen DeGeneres – down 2 million followers

Taylor Swift – down 2 million followers

Lady Gaga – down 2 million followers

Christiano Ronaldo – down 1.2 million followers

Oprah Winfrey- down 1.4 million followers

Shaquille O’Neal down 1 million followers

Rihanna down more than 2 million followers

Kim Kardashian West down 2 million followers

YouTube – down 2 million followers

Twitter – down 7.5 million followers

I noticed that I couldn’t find any articles that mentioned Rosie O’Donnell or Alyssa Milano, but rest assured I took the liberty of capturing a screenshot of their followers on Thursday early morning and again this morning. I wish I had taken these on Wednesday.

<img src="https://media.8ch.net/file_store/af425763b72b6b9991b32e461c3c0af4bbe0b4d7f4743b137ed56803ca0be88a.jpeg" style="max-height:640px;max-width:360px;">

<span style="margin-top:15px;rgba(42,51,6,0.7);font-size:12px;">Credit:<a href="https://twitter.com/PoliticallyRYT"> Lexy </a></span>

Thursday 6:50 am

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<span style="margin-top:15px;rgba(42,51,6,0.7);font-size:12px;">Credit:<a href="https://twitter.com/PoliticallyRYT"> Lexy </a></span>

Today 7:30 am

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<span style="margin-top:15px;rgba(42,51,6,0.7);font-size:12px;">Credit:<a href="https://twitter.com/PoliticallyRYT"> Lexy </a></span

Thursday 6:50 am

<img src="https://media.8ch.net/file_store/e9d4316bf23661e84e0c6172f8c20e90c87b1e1d4002c846cb843e1c7fadc895.jpeg" style="max-height:640px;max-width:360px;">

<span style="margin-top:15px;rgba(42,51,6,0.7);font-size:12px;">Credit:<a href="https://twitter.com/PoliticallyRYT"> Lexy </a></span

Today 7:30 am

Related Sources:

https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/6768563/celebrities-lose-twitter-followers-bots-fake-fans/; https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/12/technology/twitter-followers-nyt.html

<b>By: Lexy </b>

<b><i>On Twitter? Follow me:</i></b>

<a href="https://www.twitter.com/PoliticallyRYT">@PoliticallyRYT</a>

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