Congrats to Katy Perry on hitting 100 million Twitter followers — most of which are bots
Friday we witnessed history, according to Twitter.
Katy Perry, whose new album is titled "Witness," is the first person to reach 100 million followers on Twitter.
In honor of this major milestone, Katy Perry got a special emoji for the hashtag #LoveKaty and a minute-long celebratory video.
But the big issue: Katy Perry doesn't REALLY have 100 million followers because Katy Perry's account is plagued by a common problem on Twitter -- bots.
There are many third-party platforms for analyzing the authenticity of Twitter followers out there. Digital Spy used the service TwitterAudit and found that of her 99.3 million followers at the time, only 32 percent were real. That means nearly 67 million of her followers were fake.
Twitter responded to our inquiry after publication.
"Twitter has verified that Katy does indeed have 100 million followers. The methodology used by Twitter Audit is flawed and their incorrect information should not be taken seriously," a Twitter spokesperson said in a statement.
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Hmm, no bots, you're saying? Interesting ...
We can tell you that in the past Twitter has been extremely sensitive over the bots issue. President Donald Trump's account is also riddled with bots, for example.
A question during Twitter's quarterly earnings call in April was centered on bots. CEO Jack Dorsey cited a statistic, first released in 2014, that only 5 percent of Twitter accounts are spam related, and added that they have the means to shut these down.
So how about first a look at Katy's account, Jack?
Topics Music Social Media X/Twitter
Kerry Flynn is a business reporter for Mashable covering the tech industry. She previously reported on social media companies, mobile apps and startups for International Business Times. She has also written for The Huffington Post, Forbes and Money magazine. Kerry studied environmental science and economics at Harvard College, where she led The Harvard Crimson's metro news and design teams and played mellophone in the Band. When not listening to startup pitches, she runs half-marathons, plays with puppies and pretends to like craft beer.
