Obama has more fake Twitter followers than Romney

{mosads}The tool also indicates that of Romney’s current 857, 260 followers @MittRomney, 12 percent are fake, 30 percent inactive and 58 percent “good.”

Last month, the Romney campaign was forced to deny allegations that it bought fake followers on Twitter when the number of people following Romney’s official account suddenly spiked.

Security firm Barracuda Labs later reported that about 15 percent of Romney’s followers are “fake” or “spam” accounts, usually recognizable by their recent creation date and lack of tweets.

StatusPeople works by analyzing a sample of an individual account’s followers rather than measuring the full count, so the website acknowledges that for the very popular Twitter accounts — those with more than 10,000 followers, for instance, such as both Romney and Obama — “the tool will still provide good insight but may better reflect your current follower activity rather than your whole follower base.”

An account with a high percentage of fake followers does not necessarily mean the account owner bought those followers. Spam and fake accounts are a known issue on Twitter and better-known accounts are more likely to attract fake followers.