Conor McGregor set to lose almost half of his followers on Twitter as Elon Musk plans imminent crackdown on fake accounts
UFC superstar Conor McGregor could lose nearly half of his followers on Twitter if Elon Musk follows through with his plan of eradicating fake accounts. Musk has been talking about the issue since his legal battle with Twitter before acquiring the company and is now seemingly planning a crackdown.
"There are millions of fake accounts on Twitter because creating a fake account is extremely cheap. By charging $8 a month, it raises the cost of a bot by x10,000. It's not just the money, they also don't have a million credit cards & phones to create fake accounts."- @elonmusk https://t.co/MQhOH3SWlX
Gambling.com has run SparkToro’s fake follower audit to figure out which UFC stars could be most affected if Musk indeed cracks down on fake Twitter accounts.
According to the audit, MMA's biggest star McGregor stands to lose the most, with a staggering 4.1 million of his 9.6 million followers estimated to be fake. This amounts to 42.3% of his total following.
265 in the bank. #superheavy twitter.com/AjDuxche/statu…
Second on the list is UFC legend Anderson Silva, with an estimated 3.9 million fake followers. 'The Spider' also stands to lose much, with 38% of his 7.5 million followers being potentially fake.
While Cody Garbrandt ranks No.10 on the list, 'No Love' is likely to lose the most in terms of percentage share. While Garbrandt's fake following is estimated at 1.76 million, it amounts to a staggering 48.8% of his total 3.6 million followers.
Other UFC stars who could be majorly affected by a potential Twitter crackdown on fake accounts
Other UFC stars, including Jon Jones, Georges St-Pierre, Nate Diaz, and Khabib Nurmagomedov, also feature on the list. Jones comes in at No.3 on the list of most estimated fake followers. As per the audit, 1.1 million of his 2.7 million followers are fake.
Diaz, 'GSP', and Nurmagomedov have almost the same number of total followers at 2.1 million. However, 'The Eagle' is slightly better off, with an estimated 36.6% of his followers being fake, compared to Diaz's 38.3% and St-Pierre's 41.5 %.
Recently dethroned middleweight champ Israel Adesanya comes in at No. on the list with around half a million estimated fake followers. This amounts to a sizeable 34.4% of his total following of 1.4 million.
In terms of percentage of fake followers, Cody Garbrandt is followed by T.J. Dillashaw, Conor McGregor, 'GSP' and Justin Gaethje. While Dillashaw and Gaethje don't feature in the top 10 list with most fake followers, a huge percentage of their followers are estimated to be fake.
