eye of newt

Does Newt Gingrich Really Pay People to Follow Him on Twitter?

Two days ago, generally overlooked presidential candidate Newt Gingrich suggested that he should be taken more seriously by the media because he has six times more Twitter followers than all the other candidates combined. We immediately assumed that this was just one of those things Gingrich lies about and hopes nobody double-checks, like that time he slammed Paul Ryan’s debt plan and then claimed he was never referring to Paul Ryan’s debt plan.

But, amazingly, it’s almost true! Newt Gingrich has a whopping 1,325,903 followers on Twitter. Michele Bachmann, between her congressional and campaign accounts, has 90,037. Mitt Romney has 62,824. Herman Cain has 51,850. Tim Pawlenty has 45,366. Ron Paul, considering his vast Internet following, has a surprisingly low 18,678. Rick Santorum has 13,339. Gary Johnson has 9,642. Jon Huntsman has 9,632 between two accounts. Put all the non-Gingrich candidates together, and they have a total of 301,368 followers — not quite one-sixth of Gingrich’s followers, but less than one-fourth, which is still pretty shocking.

Or is it more pathetic than shocking? A former staffer tells Gawker:

Newt employs a variety of agencies whose sole purpose is to procure Twitter followers for people who are shallow/insecure/unpopular enough to pay for them. As you might guess, Newt is most decidedly one of the people to which these agencies cater.

Now, there are certainly reasons to believe this could be true. Gingrich does have a big head, and somewhere inside that big head, a large ego.

But there’s another, more plausible reason that Gingrich has so many followers: As Hot Air points out, back in 2009, Gingrich was one of the “suggested users” featured by Twitter, which meant that many new users followed his account based on Twitter’s own recommendation. As the New York Times reported in January of 2009:

In the last few months [Twitter] has plucked a few hundred users from a sea of more than 30 million and put them on its A-list, deeming them particularly worthy of being followed.

In separating the wheat from the chaff, Twitter has become a kingmaker of sorts, conferring online stardom to a mix of writers, gadget geeks, political commentators and entrepreneurs.

If this is the real explanation for Gingrich’s oddly vast Twitter following, it’s nothing to brag about, but it’s nothing to be ashamed about either. And it could mean Gawker was had.

Most of Newt Gingrich’s Twitter Followers Are Fake [Gawker]
Too good to check: Former staffer claims 80% of Gingrich’s Twitter followers are fakes; Update: Or are they? [Hot Air]

Does Newt Gingrich Really Pay People to Follow Him on Twitter?