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  • Fake accounts on Twitter: Ignore or Remove them?

    In the last week, I manually removed ~100 fake follower accounts. First, they were some 🔥 girls. (we understand) Then, some South Korean-looking guys. Now, some African guys. Does anybody experience these fake followers as well? What is your approach? [for me, the quality of the audience and true connections matter, that's why I remove them from my follower counts]

    Replies

    Eddie Hsu
    This seems to be a phenomenon that only occurred within this year? I've been away from Twitter for a while, but I don't remember this problem ever happening before.
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    Nick Stein
    How did you remove them?
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    Nick Stein
    @busmark_w_nika I have a feeling that Elon will shut this down asap.
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    Debajit Sarkar
    Block them right away. They can clutter your feed with irrelevant or spammy content and they don't contribute to genuine interactions or discussions. Some fake accounts might be used for malicious purposes, such as spreading misinformation about your products or phishing scams
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    Debajit Sarkar
    @busmark_w_nika Should be. But can Twitter/X ensure that they won't return?
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    Indu Thangamuthu
    Same Same... It's been growing for the past few months 😖 Especially to corporate accounts having these pornographic accounts and gaming fake accounts in followers list... they just make me hate my own account. My account is losing the integrity it's supposed to hold. It's exhausting to remove the accounts and report them. Twitter...I am afraid to continue my business and product accounts, if this is how they are gonna burden me for long time.
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    Indu Thangamuthu
    @busmark_w_nika That's Nice! I have been into Threads for few months recently... all thanks to instagram for their never-ending promotion of Threads in between reals 😀 Not fancy like Twitter, but they are growing. Guess the fake accounts on 𝕏 are annoying people, and they have started to move to Threads.
    Indu Thangamuthu
    @busmark_w_nika Just started with Threads...
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    It is frustrating, but I choose to ignore it and not let it affect me.
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    Faisal Ishaque
    This is annoying but I don't pay heed to them and just let them be!
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    Faisal Ishaque
    @busmark_w_nika Woah that's a lot, yeah that kind of number must be dealt with !!
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    Nathan Covey
    I don't want them taking any more time out of my day so I just ignore them tbh
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    Yvik Ye
    Yes, we have the same situation, but we choose to ignore it.
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    Yvik Ye
    @busmark_w_nika Both, really annoying~😥
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    Nifal Adam
    Fake accounts can be used to spread hate speech or misinformation. Removing them can help protect yourself and others from online abuse.
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    Steffi Nicolaïdes
    What made you think they were fake follower accounts?
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    Pedro Orlando
    You can use something like owlead.com to remove them in bulk. Most of those accounts are not active, and you can set up a "x" days inactive filter, and remove all.
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    Pedro Orlando
    @busmark_w_nika it's awesome. Easy to use, to the point, not expensive.
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    Jack Lipsky
    I think removal is the way to go. In my previous company, the person who held the marketing role before me seemed to have bought these bot followers for our TikTok account. A profile that has over 6,000 followers, but less than 100 views and even fewer likes per post is suspicious to *real* viewers. It's dishonest and decreases the genuine connection businesses look to make with true/potential followers. Makes it look like your business is taking a shortcut in marketing, which makes the customer wonder if you take shortcuts in your service/product as well. While paying for bots is different from the spam-bots that will follow you hundreds at a time without your want - keeping those profiles as followers has the same effect in seeming like you're just trying to boost your follower-count in a cheap, dishonest manner.
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    YanXu
    I've never understood the purpose of these accounts, are they meant to advertise to you?
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    Karen Anderson
    I used to just ignore them, but lately I've been removing the more egregious fake accounts. Too many of them can really pollute your feed and make Twitter a less enjoyable experience IMO. I know it's whack-a-mole, but I still think it's worth doing periodic cleanups. Anyone know of automated tools to help identify likely fakes and bulk remove them? That would make the process way easier.
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    Yue Weiyi
    I really hate those pornographic accounts.
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    Rahul Parmar
    Remove them. Fake accounts can spread misinformation, and spam, and skew engagement metrics. Keeping your Twitter environment authentic and secure is essential.
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    Daniela Bavuso
    I remove them and another super annoying thing is when you receive messages from these fakes.. a thousand shades of inappropriateness
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    Daniela Bavuso
    @busmark_w_nika People who know how to make money don't waste time wondering how to make money for others :D
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    Benedicta Anita
    Remove those accounts. they interfere with account health and our accounts can be banned, anyway they can interfere with logarithms
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