Poynter: “Spotting fake Twitter uses is generally fairly easy, though fakers have gotten better at it over time. Tools like TwitterAudit can automatically scan your followers, revealing the number of fake followers (for free) and allowing you to delete and block them (for $5 a month). Use Luca Hammer’s Account Analysis tool to look at accounts individually. Consistent daily rhythms and constant retweeting of spammy handles or accounts are a good sign the user is a bot. The quickest way to manually spot obvious fakers is to look at their profiles. Many advertise spammy links or use excessive hashtags. To look over many at once, click “followers” below your own profile image. Stop users from following you by clicking the three vertical dots above and to the right of their usernames, then click “block.” Another quick way is to look for offset followers-to-following ratios, particularly if the following count is maxed out around 5,000. Twitter puts a limit on the number of accounts a user can follow until he or she has more followers. A user who has 171 followers and who is following 5,001 people is usually fake…”