These Christians aren't going to heaven

Fake Twitter accounts. We've all seen them poised hopefully on the margins of conversation, ready to spring into action should any man feel his manhood underwhelming, desire cheap prescription medication without the troubling requirement for a doctor's visit, or merely wish to chat with attractive Eastern European women who are waiting for his call.

But it seems there are other applications for such accounts. In a previous episode I detailed some telltale signs that led me to the discovery that Ireland Stand Up has 11% fake Christian followers. Each fake account was made on either December 6th or December 9th, 2011, and each one had a Twitter biography made up of a random selection of the following phrases:

Discovering the Discovery Institute

I've written about Intelligent Design Creationism before. Hovering at the intersection of bad science and bad Theology, its origins depend heavily on William Dembski, an anti-vax Biblical inerrantist who believes in a literal global flood, a historical Adam and Eve, and the confounding of Tongues at the tower of Babel. I devoted an article to him previously.

They summarise themselves as believing that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection" and propose their group as the true defender of the scientific method, wishing to 'teach the controversy' about evolution. The Judge at their trial found to the contrary, saying that "[T]he overwhelming evidence at trial established that ID is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory."

The movement has expanded to include other quacks and loons, blossoming into the Discovery Institute, which refers to itself as the "Intellectual [sic] home of the modern intelligent design movement and the scientists and scholars challenging Darwin's theory of evolution on the basis of science [sic]."

Much as I would love to continue my polemic greater voices than mine have covered much ground. What have I to offer?

Twitter stats.

I found myself wondering who else tickled the fancy of followers of @DiscoveryCSC, the Twitter account of the Discovery Institute. I pulled a list of all their followers, then for each follower pulled a list of all accounts they followed. I then put the results to a table and present for your viewing pleasure the top twenty:

@ProudProChoice Twitter Followers

I'd like to start with a brief lesson in manners:

For those of you unaware, the above is a polite request for a favour.

The below badgering which started at a quarter to midnight on a school night is not:

I passed out from boredom midway through, but not before being called dishonest and a shill. For those of you unaware, this is not the way to request a favour.

So Sinéad gets the favour:

and @yelofmail gets to stand by his principles of not being civil. Everyone wins.

I must say it's nice to finally find a group with a majority Irish follower list.

Will The Real Irish Followers Please Stand Up?

I do requests now.

@IrelandStandUp is the Twitter account of www.irelandstandup.org, a group who would like us to reopen our Embassy to the Vatican. Although not a cause I warm to I do recognise the site as a well designed and seems to have a decent editorial standard based on sample articles read.

The Twitter account, on the other hand, enjoys ranting about demons, evil spirits and snares of the devil and tweeting pictures of dead babies in response to a march that dare suggest Ireland fulfill its obligation to the European Court of Human Rights, something I feel they should restrict to a private account.

Anyway, I've been asked to provide some free Twitter metrics. Below is a breakdown of their followers by country:

I for one am heartened by the interest displayed in Ireland by American Catholics, representing fully 21% of those listed. We must find some way of transferring this fervent interest in diplomats' accommodation arrangements into investment and tourism. And our neighbours in the UK also seem strongly motivated to care. Perhaps our profile is slipping in Nigeria; only 1% of @IrelandStandUp's followers hail from there. Still, there is a small part of me that feels our diplomatic relations should be decided by the folk in this country, and while I respect the right of the 47% of followers who are actually based here to support this movement, it would be nice if they were in the majority.

Yes, I noticed the fake accounts.