Please don't Menshn it

In the last issue, Backbytes featured Azeem Azhar, the chief executive of PeerIndex who very suddenly acquired a large Twitter following – all for just $100.

Never one to miss an opportunity for a spot of publicity, Louise Mensch MP – a “fame-hungry careerist”, according to popular footballer Joey Barton – also seems to have suddenly found herself a large Twitter following, except her excuse is even more lame.

She blames “robot accounts”. Indeed, an analysis of her 105,760 followers conducted by Statuspeople (a provider of a “social media management platform” for companies with more money than sense), concluded that 97 per cent of her followers were fakes.

Quite why 100,000-plus accounts, robot or otherwise, might choose to follow her is altogether more of a mystery – except, maybe, out of morbid fascination.

Mensch, arguably the new Lembik Opik, has asked Twitter to kindly delete all her “robot” followers. The big question is, though, why is Mensch still even on Twitter, when she has her own Twitter-like service, which just so happens to be called Menshn, all to herself?