Twitter removes suspicious users from its followers, blames a bug | Investment News

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Twitter Inc

made another attempt to make more accurate the subscriber count of its users Friday, by subtracting millions of suspicious subscribers who have re-appeared on the social media service since a major purge in July.

Twitter is under pressure to tackle its fake users problem, which is disconcerting to investors and advertisers and has led to scrutiny by the US Congress.

The company made Friday's move without announcement. Pop star Katy Perry has lost about 861,000 subscribers, according to social measurement firm Social Blade. The Twitter account has lost 2.4 million followers.

In July, Twitter announced that it would stop counting the "blocked" accounts as subscribers, in order to make the data of its users more precise. At least seven celebrities have lost up to 2 million followers each.

By October, however, many of these accounts appeared to have been unlocked – which may happen after a password reset – and at least two dozen popular users had recovered a third of the lost subscribers, according to the data of the company. 39, a Russian researcher in advertising fraud Social Puncher.

These supporters disappeared again on Friday, said Social Puncher.

Twitter said Friday it found "a bug causing the quick recap of some accounts, which led to misleading follower accounts" for "very few accounts".

In July, the number of followers could change "more regularly" as part of its efforts to "identify and challenge problematic accounts". The resulting volatility has attracted the attention of prominent users, including US President Donald Trump and Tesla Inc.

General Manager Elon Musk.

These and other users have lost subscribers in recent days, but Friday 's slaughter was more important for most of them, according to several Reuters reports on Social Blade.

Twitter's account dropped by 7.8 million followers in July, but gained 2.36 million in mid-October. He lost 2.4 million on Friday, according to Social Blade.

Some users saw a similar drop in early October, before the followers return a few days later, said Social Puncher.

The company told Reuters it suspected the locked accounts concerned of being controlled by fraudsters who sell subscribers to artificially increase the popularity of the accounts.

The accounts show counterfeit brands, including some profile details, fans and messages, he said.

MarQuis Trill, a Los Angeles advertising producer, told Reuters that he had bought 300,000 subscribers for $ 4,500 two years ago. It lost nearly 2.2 million followers in July, but it remained about 30% before Friday's purge.

"I did not buy as much as lose like that," he said.

(Report by Dave Dave, edited by Bill Rigby)

Copyright 2018 Thomson Reuters.