• Tue. Dec 3rd, 2024

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Research reveals UK MP’s fake followers

Matt Hancock - Shutterstock - I T S-c43d5686

Members of Parliament are turning to reality TV shows like I’m a Celeb to boost their profiles and social media following. Matt Hancock himself having waltzed his way into the final, finishing third overall.

With that in mind, Bespoke Software Development Company sought to uncover which UK Member of Parliament (MP) has the most fake followers online?

MPs and their fake Twitter armies

Rank Member of Parliament Political party Twitter handle No. of Twitter followers No. of fake followers Percentage of fake followers (%)
1. Tim Farron LibDem @timfarron 292,402 150,881 51.60%
2. Matt Hancock CON @MattHancock 425,241 184,330 43.30%
3.  Dominic Raab CON @DominicRaab 354,962 146,601 41.30%
4. Tulip Siddiq LAB @TulipSiddiq 199,484 81,993 41.10%
5. Michael Gove CON @michaelgove 254,546 100,832 39.60%
6. Boris Johnson CON @BorisJohnson 4,758,280 1,731,995 36.40%
7. Jess Phillips LAB @jessphillips 614,966 223,244 36.30%
8. Rishi Sunak CON @RishiSunak 1,517,377 544,828 35.90%
9. David Davis CON @DavidDavisMP 192,045 67,820 35.30%
10. Jeremy Hunt CON @Jeremy_Hunt 251,223 88,179 35.10%

For a full analysis of MPs’ Twitter accounts, please see here.


Farron’s fake following lands him in first

Taking the crown with a whopping 51.6% fake twitter following is former Lib Dem leader Tim Farron.  150,881 of his 292,402 followers were found to be fake! Even with just over half the total following of Matt Hancock in second, Farron is 8.3% ahead of Hancock.


Controversial I’m A Celeb MP takes second


Surprisingly, I’m A Celeb finalist, Matt Hancock, has the second highest percentage of fake followers. Before joining the reality TV show his fake follower percentage stood at 43.3%. Hancock battled his way through six trials, currying favour from at home viewers; the same couldn’t be said of his  time as Health Secretary.

 

Has Hancock become more popular since joining I’m A Celeb?

Number of Followers Number of fake followers Fake follower percentage 
Pre-show 425,241 184,330 43.30%
Post-show 435,964     189,644     43.5%

Hancock has increased his twitter army by 10,723 followers. With a fake following increase of more than 5,000 bringing his updated fake following to 43.5%, solidifying his position in second for the title of MP with the most fake followers.

Deputy Prime Minister slides into third

Dominic Raab is in third. The deputy prime minister has amassed a Twitter following of over 350,000. However, over one third of those followers are fake, equating to 41.3%.

Methodology:

  1. Bespoke Software Development Company sought to discover which UK Member of Parliament  (MP) has the most fake followers on Twitter.
  2. To do this, a seed list of politicians with a Twitter account was sourced from PoliticsSocial.com and cross-verified with listed MPs at Parliament.uk
  3. The current 650 Members of Parliament were filtered by the top four political parties, and then further by (up to) the top 50 most followed members of those parties.
  4. MPs’ Twitter handles were then analysed using SparkToro’s online fake follower audit tool to generate an estimated number and percentage of fake accounts following each politician, respectively.
  5. Follower information was not able to be gathered for some accounts and so was omitted from the final count.
  6. Members of Parliament were ranked in descending order by their total percentage of fake followers.
  7. Data was retrieved on 2nd November 2022 and is accurate as of then.