Journalist Behind NYT "Follower Factory" Explains the Fallout and Future Steps for Social Media Sites

This weekend the New York Times released an investigative piece on the dark world of buying followers and bots for social media fame and recognition. Since the report has been released, the fallout has been significant. Nicholas Confessore, reporter at the New York Times, joins Cheddar to talk about his report and what the reaction has been. Confessore comments on the New York Attorney General opening an investigation into Devumi, the company heavily cited in the NYT report. He also notes, "Twitter and Facebook have a protocol for verifying users, so they know how to connect each account with a real person." Confessore goes on to question whether the social media sites will apply this to all users. In terms of suggestions, Confessore suggests adding steps similar steps that banks and other institutions use to verify that users are real people. Confessore wonders if these changes will occur because losing 15% of an active userbase would be a major blow.

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