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Brands Pay Twitter to Falsely Appear in Your Following List

posted by n1 on Wednesday January 01 2014, @12:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the they-know-you-better-than-you-do dept.
Business

AndyTheAbsurd writes with an article from Gigaom:

A Twitter advertising technique is perturbing people. Promoted brands like MasterCard and IFC are appearing in the list of accounts some users follow, even if they don’t actually follow them.

Sources familiar with the company’s advertising strategy tell me this has been occurring since early 2013, but the public has only just now cottoned onto it thanks to actor William Shatner (of Star Trek fame). Shatner brought attention to it after he saw that “MasterCard” appeared in his following list despite the fact that he didn’t follow it.