{"id":188,"date":"2017-03-15T09:41:35","date_gmt":"2017-03-15T09:41:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog2.clickcease.com\/?p=188"},"modified":"2022-11-14T14:27:27","modified_gmt":"2022-11-14T14:27:27","slug":"study-reveals-astronomical-48m-accounts-twitter-fake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clickcease.com\/blog\/study-reveals-astronomical-48m-accounts-twitter-fake\/","title":{"rendered":"Study Reveals An Astronomical 48 Million Accounts On Twitter Are Fake"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Twitter is hit hard from fake accounts. Now more than ever it\u2019s becoming more and more apparent that click bots are infiltrating the web.<\/p>\n

A new study<\/a> done by the University of Southern California and Indiana University revealed that up to 15% of all accounts on Twitter are actually bots, not real human beings.<\/p>\n

What does this mean?<\/p>\n

Likes, retweets, and followers may not be reflective of a human following, which can really hurt engagement.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no secret Twitter has been struggling to keep up with other social media giants like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. So this news does not bode well for them.<\/p>\n

Study Revealed<\/h2>\n

In order to identify these non-human accounts on Twitter, the researchers used over a thousand different features. These features used specific categories that included friends, the average time between tweets, network patterns, tweet sentiment, content and other metrics.<\/p>\n

Researchers concluded that \u201cour estimates suggest between 9% and 15% of active Twitter accounts are bots\u201d.<\/p>\n

To date, Twitter has 319 million monthly users, which means that roughly 48 million users are automated click bots, designed to fraudulent boost engagement.<\/p>\n

Additionally, the report notes that some bots are complex enough to act human and fool the system, so it\u2019s unclear as to how accurate this percentage truly is.<\/p>\n

An interesting take away from the study is that many of these fake accounts tweeted about political matters.<\/p>\n

In fact, First Monday<\/a>, a science journal reported that Twitter bot accounts contributed to 19% of all election tweets or 3.8 million to be exact during September 16 and October 21, 2016.<\/p>\n

Take a second to stop and think. How much of the 2016 election buzz was coming from real accounts?<\/p>\n

According To Twitter<\/h2>\n

8.5% of all active accounts are \u201c…without any discernible additional user-initiated action.\u201d according to Twitter. This is based on a filing Twitter did with the SEC last month.<\/p>\n

Do the math…that\u2019s a difference of over 20 million users.<\/p>\n

When talking about bots<\/a>, it\u2019s important to note there are both good and bad bots. According to a Twitter spokesperson \u201cmany bot accounts are extremely beneficial, like those that automatically alert people of natural disasters…or from customer service points of view.\u201d<\/p>\n

Therefore, these numbers may not be as suboptimal as they may appear.<\/p>\n

Twitter is an Internet Sheriff<\/a> who is making serious efforts to hone in on these abusive accounts, but this study is truly cause for concern.<\/p>\n

Final Thoughts<\/h2>\n

Before launching your next Twitter campaign, keep these findings in mind. Bot accounts can not only negatively affect customer engagement but also hurt your advertising budget ROI.<\/p>\n

At ClickCease, we provide a solution for click fraud. Since there is a growing number of bots and malicious activity, make sure you consider these red flags before launching your next PPC campaign.<\/p>\n

Protect Yourself Against Bots Now<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Twitter is hit hard from fake accounts. Now more than ever it\u2019s becoming more and more apparent that click bots are infiltrating the web. A new study done by the University of Southern California and Indiana University revealed that up to 15% of all accounts on Twitter are actually bots, not real human beings. What does […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":240,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[5],"tags":[18,43,52],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n48 Million Accounts On Twitter Are Fake | ClickCease Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A recent study revealed millions of Twitter accounts are bots, not real human beings. 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