In the early days of social media, building a following required time, persistence, and consistent updates. However, as social media grew into a multi-billion dollar industry, having a huge number of followers became more than just a social status – it became a money-making machine. Celebrities soon realized that their social profiles and online presence could be monetized through sponsored content and brand endorsements to make millions. More followers mean more endorsements. More endorsements mean more money.
However, this trend to get more followers comes with a big concern: the rise of fake follower bots. According to ExpressVPN, these bots closely resemble real followers, making it increasingly challenging to distinguish the genuineness of online celebrity influence. This rise in fraudulent followers raises concerns about the credibility of digital celebrity impact.
In this post, we will explore the accounts of some famous celebrities with the highest percentage of estimated fake followers. We will also see how these fake followers affect the overall industry. We will also have a look at how AI plays a pivotal role in making these fake follower bots look real.
Before we get into more details, let’s get some basics covered.
What exactly is a fake social media follower bot?
A fake social media follower bot refers to a computer program or software designed to create fake profiles or accounts on social media platforms. These bots are programmed to simulate human behavior and actions, such as following accounts, liking posts, and commenting. Their primary purpose is to artificially inflate a user’s follower count, giving the impression of a larger and more engaged audience.
Fake social media follower bots work by using automated scripts or algorithms to perform actions on social media platforms. Here’s how they operate:
- Account Creation: The bot creates multiple fake accounts using random or pre-generated names, profile pictures, and other details.
- Account Activity: The bot starts performing actions such as following other accounts, liking posts, commenting, and even sharing content.
- Copying Human Behavior: To avoid detection, the bots are programmed to emulate human behavior patterns. They may delay actions, follow popular accounts, like a variety of posts, and interact with different types of content.
- Increasing Follower Count: The bot targets specific accounts or keywords based on the desired audience or niche. It starts following these accounts in the hope of receiving a follow-back. This artificially inflates the user’s follower count.
- Engagement Manipulation: Bots may engage with other accounts to create the illusion of popularity and engagement. They might like, comment, or share posts to make the targeted account seem more influential.
Almost every celebrity has some fake social media followers. However, there are also creators, influencers, and celebs who deliberately pay for a bunch of bots to follow or interact with their accounts. They do this to increase their followers count to attract more brand endorsements and deals. When they have a high number of followers and engagement, companies are more likely to pay them for promoting their products or services.
The bulk of fake followers on social media platforms
The prevalence of fake social media accounts is a big concern because their number is shocking. In 2017, a study found that up to 15% of Twitter accounts are actually Twitter bots. In 2021, another study determined that only 55% of Instagram profiles are real people with legitimate accounts. It means 45% of accounts are bots. Overall, about 30% of all followers across social media platforms are fake.
Keeping a check on fake followers is one of the priorities for all social media platforms. As these platforms attempt to purge fake followers, famous celebrities lose a huge chunk of their followers. For example, in 2014, Kim Kardashian lost over 1.5 million followers overnight when Instagram took action against fake accounts run by bots. Currently, the famous actress and influencer has a whopping 354 million followers. One of the studies reported that Former U.S. President Donald Trump has 61% bot followers.
From time to time, social media platforms make several efforts to purge bots, but these have failed to purge them completely. Some analysts even claim that social media platforms don’t want to vanish these followers as they increase engagement on their platforms.
Debunking the Illusion: Investigating Fake Followers on Celebrity Social Media Platforms
ExpressVPN analyzed data from celebrity social media accounts using Using HypeAuditor, an AI-powered social media account authenticity-checking platform. The research was carried out to uncover which celebrity has the most fake followers on Instagram and TikTok.
The research reveals that American rappers Lil Durk and Future top the list of celebrities with the most fake followers on TikTok and Instagram. Talking about musicians, Lil Durk has 56% fake, while Future has 50% fake followers. Other musicians with high fake followers on social platforms are Kendrick Lamar, with 45% fake followers across his accounts, Drake with 41%, and Adele with 29%.
Talking about actors, Black Panther star Daniel Kaluuya has the most fake followers across his social media profiles (43%). He is followed by Dune actor Timothée Chalamet (39%) and The Menu’s leading star, Anya Taylor-Joy (31%).
Even Athletes have a huge fake fan following. Kevin Durant, the popular American professional basketball player, leads with an astonishing 46% of his followers on TikTok and Instagram being identified as fraudulent or fake. Following closely behind, fellow basketball players Russell Westbrook and James Harden share a striking similarity, with both athletes amassing 42% of fake followers on their respective TikTok and Instagram accounts.
The above-mentioned numbers are shocking and clearly signify that, on average, 25% of followers on celebrity social media profiles are fake or bots. However, it is important to keep in mind that having fake followers doesn’t necessarily mean that the celebrity purchased them. One thing is confirmed, these fake followers impose damage upon the celebrity’s reputation, credibility, and the industry.
How are fake follower bots harmful?
Fake follower bots are harmful in many ways, including poor engagement, compromised trust, and bad commercial value. Here are the six major impacts of fake follower bots:
- Misleading Perception: Fake followers create a fallacy of popularity and influence for individuals or brands. They artificially boost follower counts, likes, and engagement metrics, giving a false image of their reach and impact. This often misleads others into believing that the account is more influential than it actually is.
- Damaging Trust: When genuine users discover that an account has a significant number of fake followers, it deteriorates trust in the authenticity of the content and the intentions of the account owner. This leads to reduced engagement and also spoils the reputation.
- Fake Engagement: Fake followers push fake engagement and rarely contribute to meaningful engagement. They don’t provide meaningful and valuable interactions. As a result, the engagement rate of an account with a high percentage of fake followers tends to be low. This negatively impacts the overall algorithms that drive the platform.
- Damage to Influencer Marketing: Influencer marketing relies on authentic influence and a genuine connection with the audience. The presence of fake followers damages the essence of influencer marketing campaigns. The brands fail to get the desired reach and target audience which results in huge losses and impacts the industry as a whole.
- Misleading Metrics: Fake followers mess up analytics and metrics, making it difficult to accurately evaluate the true impact and reach of an account. This restricts businesses and marketers from making informed decisions about collaborations, sponsorships, or promotional opportunities.
- Platform Integrity and User Experience: Social media platforms aim to maintain a trusted and transparent environment. The presence of fake followers damages the platform’s integrity by distorting user metrics and devaluing the overall user experience.
AI has a huge potential to increase fake social media followers. AI algorithms can be used to develop sophisticated bots that mimic human behaviour. These bots can generate large numbers of fake accounts, follow users, like posts, and even engage in basic interactions. Advancements in AI have aggravated the problem of bots on social media by making them more effective and closer to humans. AI expert Richard Batt explains, “Advancements in natural language processing, computer vision, and machine learning have made these bots more sophisticated in mimicking human behavior. They are now capable of not only liking and sharing posts but also commenting and following other accounts, making them harder to distinguish from genuine users.”
There are various types of fake follower bots commonly encountered on social media platforms. Here are some examples:
- Empty Accounts: These bots have little to no activity on their profiles. They lack profile pictures, posts, or any personal information. They are often created in bulk and exist solely for the purpose of boosting follower counts.
- Zombie Accounts: Zombie accounts are previously legitimate accounts that have been taken over by bots or hackers. These accounts may have had genuine activity in the past, but they are now controlled by bots.
- Egg Accounts: These accounts typically have default profile pictures, such as the default egg avatar on Twitter. They have minimal activity, few or no followers, and often exhibit generic or spam-like behavior.
- Copycat Accounts: These bots imitate the profiles of real users, copying their profile pictures, usernames, and even content. They attempt to deceive others by posing as genuine accounts but lack real engagement and meaningful interactions.
- AI-generated accounts: These accounts might use AI-generated profile pictures made with tools like Midjourney or Stable Diffusion. They may have weird posting habits, like only sharing others’ posts, posting inconsistently, or having long periods without any posts followed by sudden changes in content. Sometimes, they may use AI language models like AutoGPT to create their posts, which could include phrases.
To spot fake follower bots, you can look for the following indicators:
- Irregular Usernames: Bots may have randomly generated or nonsensical usernames consisting of numbers, letters, or a combination of both.
- Low Engagement: Fake follower bots often have low engagement rates, with very few likes, comments, or shares on their posts. Their follower-to-engagement ratio may seem disproportionately low.
- Lack of Personal Information: Bots usually have minimal or no personal information filled out in their profiles. This includes missing or generic profile pictures, incomplete bios, and limited or no posts.
- Sudden Follower Spokes: Bots are often created and deployed in large numbers. If you notice a sudden spike in followers for an account without any noticeable increase in engagement or content quality, it could be a sign of a potential issue.
- Duplicative Content: Bots may frequently post duplicative or spam-like content, including repetitive comments or generic responses.
- Unnatural Activity Patterns: Bots tend to show consistent and predictable patterns in their activity, such as liking posts at regular intervals or following/unfollowing accounts in a systematic manner.