Occasionally, I see a post on Twitter that reads, “Hello, is this thing on and does anyone hear me? I feel like I am talking to myself.” For as much as is made of social media being social, it can sometimes feel like you’re in a crowded room, talking to yourself. There are of course exceptions where fans and trolls alike congregate, usually around the usual suspects: health, entertainment, education, religion, finance, and politics.

Politicians have taken to twitter in recent years, trying to extend their reach outside more traditional avenues like radio and tv, but how well is that working and are they interacting with who they think they are or even want to?

With an election looming in Ontario, I wanted to explore this further and one of my own contacts (thanks Kat) inspired me to explore this with her oft variety of witty posts, this time about fake twitter accounts.

FAKE TWITTER ACCOUNTS

A fake twitter account is one that typically doesn’t have a real person on the other end of it. Often, the accounts are controlled by what is known as “bots”. A Twitter Bot is usually controlled by software, programmed to perform tasks that resemble the actions of a real person. There are ways to identify them, but most people don’t invest the time to do it, usually because they’re just happy to have more followers. More followers translate to a greater social media status and for some there is monetary or other gains that go with that.

The tool I used defines fake followers as, “accounts that are unreachable and will not see the account’s tweets (either because they’re spam, bots, propaganda, etc. or because they’re no longer active on Twitter).”

So, where do Ontario’s four political party leaders rank with their Twitter followers?

ONTARIO POLITICAL LEADERS’ FOLLOWERS

The online 3^rd party tool revealed the following information about Twitter based followers for the political leaders of Ontario as of April 23, 2022.

Doug Ford

The Conservative Party Leader has the highest percentage of fake followers. Almost 50% of Doug Ford’s followers aren’t real. His reach and influence are assessed at 76%, so of the remaining 300,000+ thousand followers, about 237,000+ are being reached.

Andrea Horwath

The NDP Party Leader has the 2^nd highest percentage of fake followers. About 40% of Andrea Horwath’s followers aren’t real. Her reach and influence are assessed at 77%, so of the remaining 94,000+ followers, about 72,300+ are being reached.

Steven Del Duca

The Liberal Party Leader has the 2^nd lowest percentage of fake followers. About 16% of Steven Del Duca’s followers aren’t real. He also has the 2^nd lowest number of followers at 56,400+. His reach and influence are the highest of the four leaders at 88%, so of the remaining 47,000+ followers, 41,400+ are being reached.

Mike Schreiner

The Green Party Leader has the lowest percentage of fake followers, although he also has the lowest number of followers. 8% of Mike Schreiner’s followers aren’t real. His reach and influence also sit at the lowest amoung the four at 62%, so of the remaining 50,600+ followers, 31,400+ are being reached.