Dr. Mark Hansen’s favorite project is The Follower Factory. We learned that it started as a hunch they brought to the NY Times after analyzing how a large group of followers followed the same people. This spiraled into an investigation into Devumi a company that sold followers to creators. We learned that Devumi’s customers included reality television stars, professional athletes, comedians, TED speakers, pastors, chefs, and models. It was interesting to learn about the impact of botting on social media platforms and their impacts on real people.
