I would setup a webservice for it, but Twitter's API only allows 300 queries per hour. Just get the list of follower IDs via the API, sort them, then plot the deltas between each ID.
Most Twitter follower networks registered thousands of Twitter accounts in a quick, automated fashion, making their entire list of Twitter ID's almost sequential. The plot shows the deltas of the Twitter IDs from 0 to the highest ID.
What's even more amusing is that, once you've identified a network, you can deduce the entire list of their clients by what users the network already follows.
Part of me wonders why Twitter doesn't just nuke the follower networks, since they are so easy to identify. But, on the other hand, it's almost comical looking at no-name Twitter users with tens of thousands of followers. There is no way to force a Twitter network to unfollow them, so they are stuck with the fake followers and all of the embarrassment that comes along with it.
Though, the scary part is that one can attack an adversary by buying up 25K Twitter followers for them for a pretty insignificant price (maybe $100).
> Though, the scary part is that one can attack an adversary by buying up 25K Twitter followers for them for a pretty insignificant price (maybe $100).
If that kind of attack became well-known, the next logical step would be that a smart company buys some fake followers, then protests against it as though to imply that one of their competitors did so.
Slandering a rival while reaping additional followers (though fake...) seems like a win-win.
Most Twitter follower networks registered thousands of Twitter accounts in a quick, automated fashion, making their entire list of Twitter ID's almost sequential. The plot shows the deltas of the Twitter IDs from 0 to the highest ID.
What's even more amusing is that, once you've identified a network, you can deduce the entire list of their clients by what users the network already follows.
Part of me wonders why Twitter doesn't just nuke the follower networks, since they are so easy to identify. But, on the other hand, it's almost comical looking at no-name Twitter users with tens of thousands of followers. There is no way to force a Twitter network to unfollow them, so they are stuck with the fake followers and all of the embarrassment that comes along with it.
Though, the scary part is that one can attack an adversary by buying up 25K Twitter followers for them for a pretty insignificant price (maybe $100).