Gingrich’s Twitter Followers Fake

A new report suggests that 92 percent of Newt Gingrich’s 1.3 million Twitter followers are not real. The networking search firm PeekYou, which has been trying to determine the quality of Twitter audiences, examined Gingrich’s account. The firm uses 23 criteria—including name, location, and inbound and outbound links—to figure out which online users are real or fake. After analyzing each of Gingrich’s followers, they determined that only 106,055, or 8 percent, were real people. A spokesman for the company said, “The huge majority of his followers are either completely anonymous people who have no other Web presence, or they are spambots.” An aide later blasted the claim, tweeting that it was "a false accusation which will hurt the feelings of 1.3 million people. #rude."