I did say I was going to depersonalise this debate. And I meant it: look out for my post on the subject in January, which will be concerned with the issue of gaming followers and its effect on online reputation.

But in the meantime, it seems that Telegraph.co.uk has picked up the story. For those interested, here’s how they’re reporting it (click through to the original for pictures and links):

Have you ever wondered how some Twitter users manage to gain a huge following, despite having fairly limited online profiles otherwise? Welcome to “gaming”, a practice causing huge controversy in the Twitterverse. Put simply, gaming involves a small number of Twitterers who follow hundreds of people at a time (manually or using software), then “unfollow” those who don’t return the favour. This causes an overall long-term rise in their total follower counts, which artificially boosts their reputations online. Big tech industry names, all of whom have gained their followings “organically”, tell me they are keen to stamp out this practice.

One of the figures connected to this controversy is Maz Nadjm who, in his own words, is the man “responsible for social media at Sky TV”. PR Week once named him “the most influential communications professional on Twitter in the UK”, and he has been a speaker at the 140 Characters Conference, as well as a host of other high-profile social media events. But one well-known tech blogger is accusing Nadjm of “gaming” his Twitter account to boost his online profile.

@Mazi – Nadjm’s Twitter username – is followed by an impressive 33,201 people as of today. But just take a look at this graph from the excellent Twittercounter.com, which shows the number of people he has followed on Twitter over the last three months:

Sharp peaks and troughs in a graph can indicate that a Twitter user has added hundreds of people at a time and simply removed those who won’t follow back, a practice which guarantees an overall rise in the number of followers. According to his updated Twitter account, Nadj has 33,201 followers and is following 33,927. As one well-known London online reputation manager puts it: “The closer the two numbers are together, the more likely it is that [perfectly legal] modifications have been made. Is an individual likely to manually follow tens of thousands of people. Would you?”

On top of this, last week’s graph seems to show that Nadjm added a staggering 1,464 followers in one day. In the same week, the graph suggests that he also removed 1,262 people from his “following” list.

According to a well-informed source, very high numbers sometimes indicate that a “script” may have been used – a simple piece of code which directs a Twitter account to follow people and unfollow those who don’t follow back (there are dozens of these available online – and their use is banned by Twitter.com). In contrast to the graph above, here’s what another “following” increase looks like over the same three-month period:

Nadjm has made clear that his Twitter following has grown organically and properly. “I use Twitter as a networking experiment,” he tells me. “I manually follow hundreds of people using Twitter directories and by searching for hashtags – such as #Iranelection – which particularly interest me. But I have used Huitter.com to unfollow people who don’t follow me back, which can be painstaking otherwise, given the presence of hundreds of bots and spammers on Twitter. I have never knowingly violated Twitter’s terms of service.”

So “Mazigate“, as it has been termed online, may be evidence of nothing more than someone with stunning new popularity. But the practice of “gaming” is apparently endemic among social media experts and agencies and, although it’s not illegal, certain techniques have been explicity banned by Twitter. Yet dozens of third-party Twitter applications promise thousands of additional followers in an instant – often for large sums of money.

For people who use Twitter professionally, a follower count is often considered to be an accurate indicator of your online profile: it reflects your influence and connections in social media. So those who “game” are seen by many to be cheating to get ahead, in the same way that someone might adjust the achievements on their CV in order to get a job. Some gamers are also hoodwinking their technologically illiterate bosses into thinking they are highly successful. It’s a masterclass in how to capitalise in a new technological field – and all the more infuriating for honest techies because it so consistently works.

Good to see the mainstream media acknowledging the importance of keeping it real. Onwards and upwards.