Are Sydney radio personalities Kyle and Jackie O from 2dayfm faking twitter followers to their account KyleandJackieO after accumulating more than 30,000 users in 18 hours? Are they, in fact, Twitter Wankers?

The answer is no.

Background to the story via this Courier Mail article:

“SYDNEY radio’s Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O have been branded “Twitter wankers” by a man who makes his living selling Twitter followers to would-be marketers. {my spidey senses are tingling!}

Jackie O has slammed the claims as “absolute bullshit” but uSocial.net chief Leon Hill says the pair artificially inflated their following on the social networking site, which soared by more than 30,000 in 18 hours.”

“Almost none have photos, little to no updates and the ones that were updating were doing so with either their name, or an illegible grouping of letters.” Hill continued.

This calling out generated significant press (for Hill) and made its way onto mainstream news websites like the Courier Mail and The Age.

kyle and jackie o are suggested users, duh.

Um, however, what Mr Hill has missed is Kyle and Jackie O’s twitter account is now a Twitter suggested user. That’s right, Twitter recommends @KyleandJackieO to all new Twitter users. These new Twitter users are the same frightened newbies most likely to have no idea who to follow and to not have uploaded a photo and to not have posted a single update.

Also, just because some users update with “an illegible grouping of letters or their name” does not imply all or even most of their followers are fake.

That’s like saying the lack of pirates is causing global warming… Correlation != Causality:

What’s more surprising to me is that a social media ‘expert’ isn’t aware that similar cases have already been in the news. As recently as Feb 2009, popular UK news site Guardian.co.uk was accused of similar fakery-shenanigans that were debunked by Twitter co-founder Evan Williams:

“The reason we created this feature is because lots of people sign up to Twitter but aren’t following anyone, so we’re trying to help get them started,”

To sum it up, Kyle and Jackie O’s massive boost in recent followers is legit.

In fact, you could almost say Twitter is endorsing them by recommending them to new users - that’s a far cry from ‘faking’ it.

edit: link to twitterholic stats which shows KyleandJackieO extraordinary growth since being given Suggested User status http://twitterholic.com/kyleandjackieo/

edit 2: updated grammar for clarity.