Starmer, Reeves block activist after he points out Starmer’s mass fake follower numbers

Hundreds of thousands of fake followers, with more added if genuine ones leave, but pointing it out gets Brighton leftie blocked

Keir Starmer and his Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves – tipped by many as the right-wing choice to succeed him – have blocked a left activist on Twitter after he pointed out that a huge proportion of Starmer’s followers are fake, presumably added to make them appear more popular.

Of Keir Starmer’s 1.1 million followers, almost 400,000 are fake, according to an assessment platform – 385,000. Brighton activist @damian_from pointed out the rapid growth and asked Twitter to intervene over the breach in its rules:

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Almost 400k of @Keir_Starmer’s 1.1m followers are fake accounts. His account is clearly buying followers and they are being added daily.

If you get a moment can you go to his account and report them as spam? You will see them straight away.

Please RT to spread the workload. pic.twitter.com/9QYmhZmwjL

— Damian from Brighton (@damian_from) January 21, 2022

But his efforts saw both Starmer and Reeves – or whoever manages their Twitter – block his account, perhaps in an attempt to deny him access to their figures in future.

But the 385,000 figure is significant because it maintains a consistent pattern of almost exactly one third of Starmer’s followers being fake that has gone on since – at the latest – the beginning of last year, strongly suggesting an intentional programme designed to bolster an impression of popularity.

But that maintenance is also responsive, flexing according to circumstances. Again over to Damian in Brighton:

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I want to thank everyone who is taking part in the #UnfollowKeirStarmer campaign.

I am very happy to report that in the last 18 hours @Keir_Starmer has lost 10,000 real followers.

That probably explains why his account has gained 10,000 fake followers during the same period.

— Damian from Brighton (@damian_from) January 22, 2022

In fact, the precise numbers even more strongly suggest active maintenance. In the 18-hour period mentioned above, according to the analysis platform, Starmer losts 10,421 genuine followers – and gained… 10,421 fake

Twitter’s rules on the use of fake followers are clear:

However, Twitter appears to have shown no interest in the requests for action from @damian_from and others.

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