It’s taken a while, but a Twitter user has finally broken the 100-million followers barrier. And no, it’s not Justin Bieber, Donald Trump or the Pope. It’s Katy Perry.
The recording artist, known for hits like Kissed A Girl and most recently Swish Swish, cracked the previously uncharted milestone this past weekend.
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It’s been a long time coming though.
Perry gained around 1.8-million followers in May 2017 alone, largely thanks to Backpack Kid no doubt. That swathe of new minions helped the star to break the 100-million ceiling, beating second placed Justin Bieber (96.8-million followers) and third placed Barack Obama (90.9-million) in the process.
That’s around a third of Twitter’s total monthly user base.
The company also seems rather chuffed by the news too.
Today, we #WITNESS history.
Congratulations @katyperry, the first to reach 100 million followers! #LoveKaty pic.twitter.com/41aJyPTtZ2
— Twitter (@Twitter) June 16, 2017
The social network also granted the star her own hashtag #LoveKaty alongside a custom emoji usually reserved for big events.
Katy Perry became the first Twitter user to break the 100-million follower milestone this past weekend
While it’s clearly a reason for both Twitter and Katy Perry to celebrate, some people aren’t so sure that all of her followers are in fact human.
Bot or not?
Twitter Audit, a company that can reportedly calculate the percentage of fake followers on any given Twitter account, believes that around 62% of Katy Perry’s 100-million strong following is fake.
Sticking to its logic, 0nly around 37-million of her followers are actually human.
Mashable notes that Twitter believes that this claim has no grounds at all.
“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 spokesperson told the publication.
Twitter Audit explains that its method isn’t perfect but “is a good way to tell if someone with lots of followers is likely to have increased their follower count by inorganic, fraudulent, or dishonest means.”
“This score is based on number of tweets, date of the last tweet, and ratio of followers to friends. We use these scores to determine whether any given user is real or fake,” it adds.
With this in mind, what about Twitter’s top ten users? How many fake followers do they presumably have?
Twitter’s Top 10 Users, June 2017 (% of real followers via Twitter Audit)
- Katy Perry – 100.1-million (37% real followers)
- Justin Bieber – 96.8-million (56%)
- Barack Obama – 90.9-million (65%)
- Taylor Swift – 85.1-million (83%)
- Rihanna – 74.1-million (47%)
- Ellen DeGeneres – 70-million (38%)
- YouTube – 68.7-million (71%)
- Lady Gaga – 66.9-million (48%)
- Justin Timberlake – 61.5-million (39%)
- Twitter – 61-million (51%)
Judging by Twitter Audit, it seems that Taylor Swift actually boasts the most human followers on Twitter.
As for most followed on other social networks, Twitter’s top brass are still some way behind.
Instagram’s most followed includes the Instagram account with 224.9-million minions, with Selena Gomez bagging 122.7-million followers in second place, and Ariana Grande in third with 109.8-million.
As for Facebook’s most followed humans, Cristiano Ronaldo’s fan page boasts over 121-million likes, with Shakira second and Vin Diesel third. The latter two also have over 100-million fans.
Feature image: Joella Marano via Flickr (CC 2.0 BY-SA, resized)
