A friend asked me: how can @ArminLaschet have 108k followers on Twitter, yet each of his tweets gets so little engagement?

My answer: probably followed by loads of bots, as it the case for many German politicians - see my blog post from 2017: https://jonworth.eu/german-politicians-twitter-follower-numbers-not-seem/

So I checked it...

The tool I used then - Pluragraph - does not exist. So I have run the tests with an alternative, SparkToro

Result: Laschet has 47.3% fakes
Source: https://sparktoro.com/fake-followers/ArminLaschet

To compare, Katrin Göring-Eckardt has 57%
Source: https://sparktoro.com/fake-followers/GoeringEckardt

I am not a German politician... but this is my score: 13%
Source: https://sparktoro.com/fake-followers/jonworth

What does this mean?

As I see it, it means nothing much more than the actual reach on Twitter of these politicians is less than it seems

Have they bough followers? I doubt it. The problem is so prevalent in German politics that I doubt they all have

And I have 13% fakes, and I can assure you I have never bought a single one - because *why would I*? It would bring me nothing, and honesty is the best policy

/ends