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By re-sharing data your fellow "bot purge survivors" have selectively shared without any attempt to add analysis or context, you are indeed demonstrating how echo chambers are created. The purpose of sharing this particular sample is clear. A thread... https://twitter.com/mikepompeo/status/1347978415312433159
You’re suggesting Twitter is selectively targeting Republicans and “deleting” followers. The proof: net follower gains and losses. What’s missing? Context. And as they say, that’s... well, “everything”. (1)
For one, the list is ignoring that follower growth across these accounts wasn’t the same at all. For example, you lost 1.27% of your followers in the last two days (so far). You gained between 6k and 8k followers daily in the last three days before that. (2)
Since Twitter said it’s purging bot accounts, let’s pretend that bots don’t discriminate (they kinda do — more of that latter) and that that 1.27% should affect everyone equally. In the three days before the purge, Biden added an average of 267k new followers every day. (3)
Yesterday and today he only added 227k combined so far. We don’t know what Biden's follower growth would’ve looked like (his follower growth is spiking… something about being the next President?), but big follower growth would mask bot deletions. (4)
Now, let’s look at whether only Republicans are seeing follower declines. I picked a random celebrity with a major follower count and found she hasn’t tweeted much this month. A good sign that the content of her tweets wouldn’t have affected follower growth or declines. (5)
Looks like Oprah lost 15k followers so far. In other words, here’s an account that shows that not only red accounts are, erm, in the red. Now, her account isn’t listed in any of the purge outrage tweets because it doesn’t support the story. Can you hear the echo yet? (6)
But, I’d like to highlight two more factors. For one, it hasn’t been a great week for the Republican Party. I wouldn’t have been surprised by organic follower drops to some of these accounts given the real-life events and, in some cases, unrepentantly partisan rhetoric. (7)
Then there are the pouty Parler exits from your most ardent supporters, who vocally declared they'd delete their accounts. Probably justified bans of hot-headed people threatening violence and more insurrection (more likely to be your followers, than Biden's — no offense). (8)
But the real story here is that bot account creators favor personalities that are divisive, make incendiary posts, and whose followers are easily manipulated. Regardless of who is behind them, they crave chaos and want to spread negativity and appear legitimate by driving... (9)
...interactions. The accounts that most effectively feed “the bots” are the ones that gain (and lose) the most bots. Let’s take @AdamMilstein’s case, who complained that he lost 20k followers in 24 hours AND he lost 12k people "of his own following” (=the people he follows). (10)
Mr. Milstein uses a follow as social currency to encourage follower growth. If you follow him, he'll follow you — which is why he was following over 60k(!) accounts. This is catnip for bots. Human followers legitimize bots and Milstein is offering himself up for free. (11)
If you’re still with me, please note that Twitter explains every year that accounts that don’t verify their email/phone are eventually purged from follower/follow lists. The fallacy exhibited in this tweet and many others is that the removal of those accounts is equal to... (12)
...“losing followers”. What actually happened is that a number went down.
Real followers follow -- and leave -- based on your words and based on your actions, Mr. Pompeo. (13)
Real followers follow -- and leave -- based on your words and based on your actions, Mr. Pompeo. (13)
In one of the most eventful weeks in 21st century American history, misguided and uninformed amplification of tweets about perceived damage to your social celebrity status is the perfect recipe to ensure continued declines. Like with the election results, retweeting... (14)
...unfounded conspiracies without verifying the claims can generate a lot of attention and cheers. But it's what we do with the information we’re given -- and the steps we take to understand it even if it doesn't fit a story we like -- that counts. Hopefully, this was helpful.
