Jul 13, 2018 - Technology

By the numbers: Big names lose massive numbers of followers in Twitter purge

The twitter logo. Photo: Leon Neal/AFP via Getty Images

Dozens of high profile Twitter accounts from celebrities and politicians lost buckets of followers as Twitter deleted fake accounts and bots across the platform that were locked, reports CNN.

The details: Twitter removed these accounts in an effort to instill confidence and authenticity to its platform, per a blog post from Vijaya Gadde of Twitter. Accounts that were removed were locked as a result of sudden changes detected in account behavior. Most people saw a follower change of about four users, the post said, but some bigger names lost millions of followers.

Politicians:
  • President Trump lost 204,000 followers out of 53.3 million.
  • Former President Obama lost 2.4 million followers, which amounted to just 2% of his followers, per the Daily Beast.
    • Obama remains the third most followed person on the platform behind Katy Perry and Justin Bieber.
Celebrities:
  • Katy Perry, the most followed person on Twitter, lost 3 million followers but still has 107 million.
  • Justin Bieber trails Perry but lost 2.7 million followers.
  • LeBron James lost 880,000 followers.
  • Bill gates lost 900,000 followers.
  • Oprah Winfrey lost 1.4 million followers.
  • Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey lost 230,000 followers.

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Axios
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Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

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  4. Public health: Ex-FDA chief projects "apex" of South's coronavirus curve in 2-3 weeks — Coronavirus testing czar: Lockdowns in hotspots "should be on the table"
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