50% of Justin Bieber's 37 million Twitter followers are “fake”

A few weeks back, football player and resident internet troller Joey Barton rejoiced at reaching the 2 million follower mark on Twitter before dismaying that it was nowhere near Justin Bieber’s then-35 million “fans” on the social media site. But now Barton might be pleased to know that a new report suggests that up to half of the teen idol’s followers are fake accounts.

BBC Newsbeat are running the story that around 50% of the 19 year old’s follower count, which currently stands at 37.3 million, are occupied by spam bots and the like. If we were to take the actual real accounts alone, the micro-blogging report says, the number would fall dramatically to a much diminished 17.8 million. This would be less than Lady Gaga’s 19 million “real” fans.

The report was made by Socialbakers, with more info here.