They’re partying like it’s 1999:
Many of the “users” on social media sites aren’t real people at all – they’re celebrity staff tweeting on behalf of their employer, or PRs promoting a company, or even fake accounts for people that don’t exist at all. In fact, half of all Twitter accounts created in 2013 have already been deleted.
These fake accounts are often created by unscrupulous firms that will beef up your follower count in return for cold hard cash. “Twitter is in the centre of public interest and politicians or companies are often ranked by number of followers or re-tweets or the like – so, there is a whole “web optimisation” industry offering services to make you look better on Twitter – everybody can buy 10,000 followers for $5,” Pfeffer said.
Emphasis added. I’ve been using Twitter more over the last few weeks thanks to GamerGate, and while it’s a useful tool, its utility is strictly limited. I’m a little surprised Google hasn’t launched a competitor yet, but the problem with Twitter is the same as it is with all self-expression platforms: most people simply don’t have all that much to say.
We all know why the stock market bubble exists; all that Fed money has to go somewhere. But an economy based on the value of companies making it possible to pass very short virtual texts around strikes me as one of the few things dumber than simply making leaves legal tender.