Patriot Update

He’s the “social media president,” having been the first one in the modern era to take full advantage of the ways the Internet can connect politicians to people. But a new study reveals that 70% of President Obama’s 19 million twitter followers are completely fake.

President Obama’s Twitter account has 18.8 million followers — but more than half of them really don’t exist, according to reports.

A new Web tool has determined that 70% of Obama’s crowd includes “fake followers,” The New York Times reports in a story about how Twitter followers can be purchased.

“The practice has become so widespread that StatusPeople, a social media management company in London, released a Web tool last month called the Fake Follower Check that it says can ascertain how many fake followers you and your friends have,” the Times reports.