In the case of the disappearing Twitter followers, who in NC got hurt?

If you’ve been an “American Idol contestant” or run a college basketball program in North Carolina, Twitter’s latest purge might have taken a toll on your social-media following.

The California firm announced on July 11 that “locked accounts” won’t count any more toward a user’s following. By the next day, several prominent people and organizations with ties to North Carolina saw that their number of followers had indeed shrunk.

Perhaps no one’s fall was as precipitous as that of Raleigh native and 2003 “American Idol” runner-up Clay Aiken, who saw a July 1 following of 679,530 accounts on Twitter reduced to 247,537 as of Monday

An analytics service, Trendsmap.com, indicated that Aiken’s account shed 429,866 followers on July 12, the day after Twitter announced its intentions. A New York Times report in January on Twitter botting identified Aiken as one of several celebrities who had purchased re-tweets from a Florida bot service.

Garner’s Scotty McCreery, the 2011 winner of “American Idol,” also saw his following shrink by 50,221 accounts on July 12. He now has 970,418 followers, compared to just over 1 million before the purge.

Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s legal and policy lead, said the company was removing accounts where there was reason to question whether “the original person who opened the account still has control and access to it.” What kind of behavior? “Tweeting a large volume of unsolicited replies or mentions, Tweeting misleading links, or if a large number of accounts block the account after mentioning them.”

She added that the company was now better able to automatically shut down accounts it considered bots exhibiting “spammy behavior.”

Gadde said most Twitter users would see only a small loss of followers, four or fewer people, but that accounts with large followings were poised to “experience a more significant drop.” She added that while it “may be hard for some,” the company wants everyone to have confidence that the numbers are meaninful and accurate.”

The ax fell far and wide. For example, the official Twitter followings of all three of the Triangle’s ACC men’s basketball programs shrank on July 12.

Duke’s program incurred the loss of 15,716 followers that day, while down the road its rival at UNC-Chapel Hill lost 10,233. N.C. State University’s official hoops account, @PackMensBball, lost 1,327 followers.

For Duke, the loss was little more than a rounding error for a Twitter account that has about 2.3 million followers. For UNC and N.C. State, it amounted to about 1 percent of their respective July 1 followings of 967,685 and 96,494 Twitterati.

Former players for the teams weren’t immune, as Duke’s Grayson Allen, UNC’s Justin Jackson and N.C. State’s Dennis Smith Jr. all lost a bit of ground on July 12. But Twitter’s move didn’t affect Wendell Carter Jr., whose following is steadily rising as he prepares for a pro career with the Chicago Bulls after a year at Duke.

Duke, at least, isn’t complaining about Twitter’s decision.

“We are proud of our relationship with Twitter, and we are fully supportive of the effort to improve its platform by removing locked accounts,” said Mike DeGeorge, Duke sports information director.

In the North Carolina political world, Gov. Roy Cooper, Lt. Gov Dan Forest, N.C. House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, and House Minority Leader Darren Jackson, D-Wake, all maintained their followings, which for Cooper and Forest was true for both their personal and professional accounts.

But State Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, saw 90 of his followers evaporate on July 12. Berger started the month with 11,294 Twitter users tracking the postings to his account.

The much-larger followings of U.S. Sens. Richard Burr and Thom Tillis also suffered a bit of erosion.

Burr, a Winston-Salem Republican who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee, began the month with 124,339 followers and lost 941 of them on July 12. Tillis, a Charlotte Republican, lost 231 followers that day after starting the month with 55,372.

Both state party organizations in North Carolina lost a bit of ground, too. The N.C. Republican Party dropped 350 followers on July 15, while the N.C. Democratic Party lost 157 followers on July 12. As of Monday, they had 21,408 and 22,140 followers, respectively.

This story was originally published July 16, 2018 at 7:19 PM.