The 'official twitter channel for Prime Minister David Cameron's office' @Number10gov appears to have used 'following agencies' to boost its followers and thus deceive people into thinking it's more popular than it actually is. 'Following agencies' are easily found on the internet and for a fee anyone can be made to appear popular on Twitter. Newt Gingrich was accused of the same thing last year with online company PeekYou suggesting that as few as 8% of his 1.3 million Twitter followers were actually real.
A look through the @Number10gov list of followers (which at the time of writing is 2,029,603 strong) quickly pays dividends as accounts bearing the tell-tale marks of being either robots (computer generated accounts) or human drones (multiple account holders from developing countries paid to do this) are plain to see. Neither have convincing - sometimes no - biographies, the robot one's often simply pieced together automatically from some sort of common-phrase database, and the drones just generic - culturally passive and largely noncommittal filler. The traces of their largely African or Indian environment are frequently apparent in their names, nicknames, and odd references to local events. The real giveaway is the almost complete absence of tweets or followers. Since they are employed solely to boost numbers, these accounts don't waste time contributing to the Twittersphere or acquiring followers, as it is totally unnecessary. Their largest stat is always 'following' where you can usually find other people who have hired their services.
A concentrated study of @number10gov's list seems to throw up thousands of hired followers. Let's move this practice into the near future. Will we one day see public rallies jam-packed with Bladerunner type replicant humans smiling and cheering on our political leaders, before returning home to their day-jobs following unpleasant people on Twitter?
Speaking of unpleasant people, I gave it a go. I paid $5 and within 24 hours had 5000 robots (the company I chose clearly specified 'bots' rather than real people) following me, with reassuringly weird biographies such as: 'Will consume moist concrete and obtain really high' and 'Pretends to be effective. These people make believe you spend myself'. Despite their automation, I still felt a sort of cold achievement, perhaps the egoless creation of a limited character identity appeared suddenly refreshing amongst all those annoying humans?
As a stand-up comic, I think I'd be happy to bulk up my slack live audiences with a bunch of robots. A room seating 300 is pretty sparse when only 60 tickets are sold. If the service existed I would use my own robot army to fill the gaps, clap, laugh and giggle at the right times. I use technology such as a microphone to amplify my voice. I use computers to promote the show and tell people I'm excellent, why not book some robots for an audience and sell the real audience the comforting illusion of popularity? Isn't that what reviews, awards and the rest of the subjective tosh thrown about as some kind of barometer of quality aiming to do anyway?
My instincts tell me it would be a bad idea to pad my audience out with replicants, but instincts are just learnt behaviour in disguise, and learnt behaviour is always worth challenging. Unless of course I had to have robots that had previously followed Cameron on Twitter, in which case I'd tell them to do one.
It makes sense to give the last word here to one of Number10gov's 'followers' Idowu Ashola, who (with no followers, following 8 and only 2 tweets) once said 'Does Dame patience need any additional posting under who and why?'
Precisely.