Fake News or Fake Followers? Trump’s Twitter Followers May Not be Real
It is possible that Trump is giving inflated numbers of his social media followers because he is still suffering from an inferiority complex after losing to Hillary Clinton by about 3 million popular votes in the 2016 presidential election.
By Rakesh Raman
The Twitter-addict US President Donald Trump said Tuesday that only the fake news media and his enemies want him to stop using social media – mainly the microblogging platform Twitter.
However, Trump’s critics argue that Trump tells lies and spreads hatred among different groups of people by using Twitter in an indisciplined manner.
It is also observed that Trump is using the social media site as a distraction tool to hoodwink his gullible supporters who now may be interested to know about his secret deals with the enemy nation Russia.
[ Also Read: How Trump Uses Twitter to Influence the Courts ]
Although Trump claims that he has 110 million social media followers, this may also be one of the several Trump lies. In fact, you can buy social media – including Twitter – followers at the rate of peanuts from the online follower suppliers.
Only the Fake News Media and Trump enemies want me to stop using Social Media (110 million people). Only way for me to get the truth out!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 1, 2017
Most of these followers are fake. They only appear as a number on the user profile – like 35M on Trump’s @realDonaldTrump Twitter profile. They are not real people. The follower sellers create these fake profiles and sell them to users at very cheap rates.
[ Also Read: Blocked Twitter Users File Lawsuit Against President Trump ]
These fake followers do not interact with a user’s tweets, as it is happening on Trump’s account. You can see that the average interactions with Trump’s tweets are roughly 100K, although he claims that he has 35 million Twitter followers. Where are the others? Why don’t they interact with Trump’s tweets?
Moreover, what is this 110 million figure that Trump quotes about the number of his social media followers? This is again a misleading figure. These are overlapping profiles, which cannot be counted.
[ Also Read: Trump May be Jailed for 5 Years in Obstruction of Justice Case ]
For example, if a person follows Trump on Twitter as well as Facebook, Trump counts them as 2 followers. But actually it is only one person. However, this lie is small as compared to the whoppers that Trump has been telling.
It is possible that Trump is giving inflated numbers of his social media followers because he is still suffering from an inferiority complex after losing to Hillary Clinton by about 3 million popular votes in the 2016 presidential election.
Trump will be further shocked to know that his predecessor Barack Obama still has more than 92 million Twitter followers and gets millions of interactions as compared to a few thousand that Trump gets.
John McCain is an American hero & one of the bravest fighters I’ve ever known. Cancer doesn’t know what it’s up against. Give it hell, John.
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) July 20, 2017
Trump’s lower Twitter popularity and less number of popular votes in the presidential race also indicate that his actual vote count in the 2016 election may not be real. It is largely believed that the Russian hackers stole voter databases and fake votes were polled to help Trump win.
So, the news is real. But Trump’s followers are fake.
By Rakesh Raman, who is a government’s National award-winning journalist. He had been associated with the United Nations (UN) through United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) as a digital media expert to help businesses use technology for brand marketing and business development. He also runs a free school for deserving children under his NGO – RMN Foundation.
