Fake followers of F1 favourites

Hamilton has more than five-and-a-half million followers on Twitter, but about a third seem bogus

David Buckley

 

Hamilton wins in China. Picture: F1 website

 

It’s the F1 British Grand Prix at Silverstone this weekend which means many from London and the south-east will be headed up the M1, M40, A5 or taking a “quick route only we know” over the coming days to take in the spectacle in Northamptonshire.

 

Doubtless many of them will be followers of current F1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton. But, how many of them actually “follow” Hamilton on Twitter?

Research carried out by private number plates company Click4reg.co.uk suggests the figure is not as big as it might appear.

 

The research concludes that 34.3% of Hamilton’s followers are, to use a currently popular word – fake!

 

Even allowing for these figures, Hamilton still has the biggest following among F1 drivers who have a personal Twitter account (two – Kimi Räikkönen and Sebastian Vettel – don’t have one).

 

The research showed that:

 

• Daniil Kvyat, of team Toro Rosso, is the driver with the most fake followers – 62.5% of his 166,000 aren’t genuine.
• Lewis Hamilton, Grand Prix points leader is seventh worst for numbers of fake followers.
• Of his much more conservative 71,200 Twitter followers, British competitor George Russell, has a much smaller fake followers count at 24.6%.
• The driver with the smallest percentage of fake followers is Alexander Albon – only 23.3% of his 31,900 followers are spam/bots.

 

Last November, Instagram cracked down on celebrities and influencers with followers who aren’t genuine. This ‘purge’ reduced significant numbers of fake, inactive, spam, bots, or as often discovered – bought – followers.

 

Why buy followers? Users may do so to appear more influential, to harness more media and therefore commercial attention, among other reasons. 

But Instagram isn’t the only social platform faced with this issue.

 

Twitter has battled the problem of bots and spam accounts for many years.

 

So, with the British Grand Prix as its cue, Click4reg wanted to discover how many followers of the 20 competing F1 drivers are fake. 

 

Full story: https://londoninspire.co.uk/fake-followers-of-f1-favourites/

 

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World wide Fernando Alonso has by far the biggest number of followers even though he no longer competes in F1.

Well I never.