Saudi Cleric Weighs In On The Sin Of 'Buying Twitter Followers'
from the don't-do-it dept
It's no secret that it's possible to "buy" Twitter followers. This has always seemed to be a particularly pointless activity, but apparently it's common among some people who seem to feel the size of their Twitter following means something. That said, according to a Saudi Cleric, such activity is an out and out "sin" (hat tip to Will for sending over this story)Senior scholar Sheikh Abdullah told Saudi online news site Sabq that it was “a lie and slander” to pay money to companies to create Twitter followers – thought to be a common practice among celebrities and religious figures in the kingdom.Another person quoted in the same article, a Saudi clinical psychologist, suggested that such practices go beyond even ethical questions. According to Dr. Talal Thaqafi: "a person who pays money for the sake of increasing the number of followers has a weak and disturbed personality, and is unable to achieve that feat by any other means."
I'm just marveling that such a topic even warrants such scrutiny, but it is a sign of the pervasiveness of Twitter these days.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: buying followers, saudi cleric, sheikh abdullah, sins, twitter followers
Companies: twitter
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Or that it warrants mentioning here.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
(Tech)nology - the making, modification, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems, methods of organization, in order to solve a problem, improve a preexisting solution to a problem, achieve a goal or perform a specific function
Dirt - Slang gossip; scandalous information
Twitter - an online social networking service and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based messages of up to 140 characters, known as "tweets".
Nope, don't see how the material above fits on this website at all. /s
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Brain thing
I must spend too much time immersed in tech-y stuff. I read that sentence the first time as:
a person who pays money for the sake of increasing the number of followers has a weak and distributed personality
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Brain thing
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Brain thing
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Brain thing
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Many clerics struggle with successfully identifying moral problems. It is a very fine thing that this cleric has done such a good job.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
I agree. The idea of buying social followers does not make any sense and I don't even know how influential and religious people fall into this dishonest practice.
I was reading at Medium and I can't even believe, according to this article https://medium.com/@laurenholliday_/how-to-increase-your-instagram-followers-by-7x-in-30-days-6586bb 1ec510 , that back then it was Twitter followers and now we have the same dishonest practice on Instagram. These social media platforms should star banning users that fall into this practice.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/07/statistical-probability-that-mitt-rom neys-new-twitter-followers-are-just-normal-users-0/260539/
I like where this is going.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
This is a very poor conclusion. I feel Techdirt has missed an important point: to a psychologist, every element of behavior is significant. There is no "It's just Twitter". Often in psychology it's the little things in human behavior that tell the most.
Sorry, I know it's hard for someone who isn't educated in psychology to fully understand this and it's also hard for me to explain it to such a person.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
I believe they were referring to the fact that a religious figure felt the need to comment on the topic of Twitter follower purchasing. They weren't implying that Twitter brings this behaviour out in people.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
lol, no it isnt, people have been buying followers since man created religion
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]