I’m interrupting my “pie” series not only to share some information but to discipline myself.
I’m talking about social media in general and twitter/x in particular.
Among other things, the platform is just loaded with political and social content, both from the left and the right. Frankly, they’re all annoying, mainly because they say stuff like “My side is totally cool and the other side is literal Hitler.”
The one thing all these posters have in common is that their content is either incredibly provocative or gushing with praise. The other thing is, although these people aren’t well-known celebrities, politicians, or other noteworthy public figures, they have tons and tons of followers, at least in the tens of thousands and sometimes in the millions.
Here are some examples in no particular order (I’ve taken my examples from leftist posters but again, both sides of the aisle do the same thing).
bobs
bobs has 16.9K followers. It is also true (well, maybe true since twitter/x profiles can be spoofed with false data) that bobs is following 13K and that they joined the platform in December 2014, or nine years ago. Still, it’s hard to believe that someone whose central (only) message is “Trump is Hitler” could be so popular. Well, I guess I can see that, but still, as far as I can tell, this is supposed to be an “ordinary person,” not a high-profile celebrity, news reporter, or political commentator.
Damaan, AKA “Philly’s Finest”!
Damaan has 33.7K followers and is following 30K. They have been on twitter/x since July 2015. Their message is the same but they don’t seem to be anyone famous or even interesting.
Richard Angwin
At least Richard uses a real name. He has a stunning 181.3K followers and is following 103K. He’s been with the platform since January 2012. Among his other credentials is that he’s a drummer. Never heard of him. The sample image I captured is pretty common on the internet, so like the others, they aren’t generating original content so much as just passing along the generic “Trump is Hitler” message.
Scott Dworkin
Unlike the others, not only does he use a real name, he is most likely a real person whose job it is to comment on political topics. In other words, this account is probably for real. He has a massive 1.1M followers and follows 87.4K. Scott’s been on twitter/x since March 2008.
All that said, Scott is on TikTok which is a really big demerit in his ledger. TikTok is a China-based company and a well-known personal information suck. I guess Scott and the Democratic Coalition doesn’t mind having their confidential data mined.
Rich from CA
Rich has 72.6K followers, is following 20.7K and has only been with twitter/x since May 2022. The sample of Rich’s message I used isn’t “Trump is Hitler” but “Michelle Obama was the best and most beautiful First Lady ever.” Actually, Rich also basically snuck in “Trump is Hitler.”
BrooklynDad_Defiant
Brooklyn has 1.2M followers and follows 42.1K. He’s been with the platform since August 2013 and his sample message really is “Trump is Hitler.” He likely is a real person as he sometimes posts photos of himself and some of his tweets (well, a few) aren’t politically based. Still, it’s hard to believe, like everyone else on the list, he’s such a popular guy “just because.”
Now I should say that:
- Although these people have a massive number of followers, they also follow a huge number of accounts as well.
- Almost all of them have been on twitter/x for many years, so have had time to accumulate a following
- Since they also follow a large number of people/accounts, the principle of “I’ll follow you if you follow me” may mean something.
Okay, so why don’t I think a lot of these accounts represent actual individuals and why I think the number of followers they have is suspicious?
First off, twitter/x followers can be bought en masse. Companies such as Social Crow advertise that they can:
Grow your social media accounts. Stand out from your competitors while keeping the focus on your business. No passwords, delivered fast and anonymously to your account. Low prices & fast customer support.
Apparently, it is common, legal, and even acceptable to twitter/x to buy followers and have those followers persist over time.
I plugged in my twitter username and selected 10,000 followers to get a price. Only $171.00. If I were running a business and wanted to put my goods and services in front of 10,000 new people on twitter/x, that might be a really good investment.
But would it be a really good investment if I wanted to put my political/social views in front of the same number of people?
There are other strategies for getting your tweets in front of more people such as outlined on Meet Edgar, but their advice is more about being a smarter user.
Now, I don’t follow ANY of those pesky accounts I’ve listed above. So why do they show up in my twitter/x feed so often? Why do they show up at all?
I found the article Why Your Twitter Feed Is Suddenly Full of People You Don’t Follow which suggests this is a fairly recent behavior from the platform.
You’re probably seeing lots more tweets from accounts you don’t follow. Some of those might be tweets that people in your network have “liked.” Others might be those Twitter says are “based on your likes.” What you’re probably seeing far fewer of are tweets from accounts that you, you know, actually chose to follow yourself.
This is Twitter’s new “For You” page, a name lifted from TikTok, which signifies the same thing it does on the short form video app: a feed of posts that some opaque algorithm, somewhere, decides you might enjoy.
A few weeks back, I asked on twitter/x about these accounts and someone did reply there’s an algorithm on twitter/x that, if you’ve liked or replied to an account once, will start showing it to you a lot.
But why does it show up the first time?
I can only guess. At first, I thought if the owner purchased a verified account, one of the perks might be that their tweets would be promoted. You can see this on Facebook so it’s certainly plausible. Except of the six accounts I’ve listed, only two of them are verified.
It may be that there’s a sort of “ghost promotion” for accounts that isn’t obvious, but the owner paid for. I don’t know how to prove that.
Which brings us to clickbait. Clickbait is content on social media designed to lure even the casual scroller into clicking on and reading the full message. It’s also controversial comments that are created to stir up, incite, irritate, and provoke people into responding.
For example, if someone tweets that “all MAGA people are idiots and eat newborn babies for breakfast,” Trump supporters and maybe conservatives in general could be greatly tempted into tweeting back, “Oh yeah? Well your mother wears Army boots” (probably something a little more harsh).
Maybe the more people who respond to your tweet, the more it’s seen. The more it’s seen, the more people are likely to respond trying to insult the OP (original poster). I’ve certainly been guilty of that, but I’ve noticed one thing.
Once I fire off my scathing rebuke, nothing happens. In the vast majority of cases, neither the OP nor anyone else replies telling me I’m a blockhead (okay, sometimes they do and even to the point where I have to mute or block them).
So what if their plan is to tweet a provocative statement and then never (or rarely) revisit it? The OP might revisit it briefly to support the people who agreed with them (“Yes, Trump is literal Hitler and Biden is a God among men”). Then the OP disappears forevermore, never seeing all of the “hate” replies.
But the “hate” replies not only serve a purpose, they serve the OP’s goal. They’ll never see it and never be hurt by the responses, but their message will spread over an even wider field because of it.
The number of followers they have (legitimately gained or not) “proves” they are “super-legit” and a reliable source (why would an unreliable source have so many followers?).
The bottom line is that these types of social media accounts may or may not have a real person behind them. Some may have a number of people running them from any sort of organization, from a grass roots group to a politician’s office (interns are cheap).
They may also be funded by political and social groups who want to create the impression that lots and lots of unrelated individuals on twitter/x all think “Trump is Hitler.”
It’s a definite win for whoever wants to spread their message by using this method.
Again, the right does this as much as the left. It’s not just political messages. I’ve run across many “atheists” who issue anti-Christian and/or anti-religion content designed to get people of faith to fire back at them, and for the same reason.
Most of my new followers are attractive young women, many with the same name but different profile pictures, who are looking for romance, a soulmate, or just plain lots of sex. They’re trolls. I don’t follow them back, and on Instagram, when accounts posting big boobs and booty follow me, I block them. Maybe I should do that on twitter/x, too. I’m sure my follower count would take a nosedive.
Social media has its positives. You can follow people and groups with which you share a common interest, and I do that. But there are also a big wave of trolls out there. I’ve become as “seduced to the dark side of the twitter/x force” as a lot of others, but that’s going to change.
Ignore these accounts. My guess is if you don’t respond to them in anyway, they’ll eventually fade from the twitter/x stream. If they don’t, they can be muted or blocked. I wonder if it’s possible for twitter to become a better place this way, regardless of who owns the thing?
Morning Meditations 
Once in a while I watch an interview on X, or comment on an occasional article that hits my email. Otherwise, what is there to look at, but people slamming each other? And between AI and paid-for-by-Media Matters et al, has any of it ever been real?
I remember Edward R. Murrow from my earliest childhood, but looking back, I have to remember he too was limited on what ‘truth’ he could report. After all, Murrow was the mouthpiece of anti-communism in the 50’s. Did he get handed his talking points, or was he merely hired for having the correct viewpoint? Perhaps the only difference is that he really had to work to put a show together, and social media fakes reality far more easily.
So far as I can see, the animal videos and a fresh interview on X are the only things I know are real on social media, but the only thing I know is worth my time are the animal videos, as puppies and kittens always charm.
The question then becomes, is it worth my time?
That’s for each person to answer for themselves. I do use social media to promote my writing, to keep up with other writers, and such. Trying to cut down on all the drama but I won’t lie, it’s really addictive.
I can’t help but wonder if social media is or ought to be subject to anti-libel laws, particularly when a posted “opinion” is promoted and amplified artificially by software and unverifiable “followers”. Who would have to initiate lawsuits demanding some form of censure and redress? Who would pay for the legal process? Could a democratic process based on the number of likes and dislikes serve to invoke a cleanup algorithm that diminishes the spread of unliked messages? In days of yore, when a speaker stood on a platform in the public square, he might risk being pelted with rotting vegetables. Where is there any equivalent for the social media soapbox?
As always, if the ones who are responsible for administering the anti-libel laws are also profiting by the current circumstances, I wouldn’t expect anything to change any time soon.