More than half of Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi's Twitter followers are fake, says report

A recent study revealed more than half the followers of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Twitter are fake, according to a study conducted by digital platform Twiplomacy.

Rahul topped the list of Indian leaders with fake followers on Twitter: 68 percent. The Congress president has 6.2 million followers. He is closely followed by BJP president Amit Shah (67% of his Twitter followers are fake). Modi, the most followed Indian leader on Twitter, stands at number three (61 percent of his Twitter followers are fake).

Twiplomacy, which assists international organisations and governments to improve their digital strategy, claimed that 24,799,527 of Modi's 40,993,053 followers are fake, according to The Indian Express.

According to The Week, the figures were determined with the help of Twitter Audit algorithm, considering factors such as the ratio of followers of friends, date of the last tweet and number of tweets.

The list also features Arun Jaitley, Arvind Kejriwal, Sushma Swaraj and Rajnath Singh, Outlook reported.

On the global scenario, according to News18, US  president Donald Trump and Pope Francis lead the list of leaders with fake Twitter followers.

Of 47.9 million followers, Trump has 37 percent fake followers on Twitter. Pope Francis, who is followed by 16.7 million people, has 59 percent fake followers, the report added.