As Italy heads into a national election in which mass inequality and food poverty have disrupted Italy's always-shaky political equilibrium, La Republica publishes its analysis (Google Translate) of the Twitter followers associated with each of Italy's political superstars and finds some pretty intense inflation in the numbers.
In nearly every case, the majority of followers are a mix of "zombies" (formerly active accounts that appear to be associated with real people, but who left the network some time after following the politicians' accounts) and bots (fake followers, like those sold by the millions by sleazy botfarmers).
