Nicole Perlroth delved into the world of fake twitter accounts:

• According to researchers there are up to 20 million fake twitter accounts floating around.
• The going rate is about $18 for 1,000 followers.
• This means the overall market for fake Twitter followers could be worth as much as $360 million.
• The same account can be sold to multiple buyers. In fact buyers prefer this since it makes the fake twitter account look more authentic.
• Retweets can also be brought. Five a day costs $9 a month.
• Up to 10,000 new accounts can be created in less than a week.

Read more about Twitter’s efforts to crack down on the practice, how Twitter has a different conceptualization of identity than Facebook, and how the numbers were determined over here. And you can become one of our (very real) Twitter followers over here!

Source: The New York Times