Claim: Michael Essien loses about 1 million followers on Twitter
Source: Multiple online reports
Verdict: False
Researched by Rabiu Alhassan
Multiple online reports (here, here, here and here) claim Ghanaian football icon, Michael Essien has lost between 500,000 and a million followers on Twitter, less than 24 hours after declaring support for the LGBTQI+ community in the country.
The former Black Stars midfielder in an Instagram post said: “We see you, we hear you, we support you. Our LGBTQIA plus community in Ghana,” and this has generated a whirlwind of social media buzz, with Michael Essien featuring in the top trends on Twitter in Ghana.
The widely shared claim that Michael Essien has lost between 500,000 and a million followers on Twitter in less than 24 hours is false, available data from socialbakers, a global AI-powered social media marketing company shows.
The LGBTQI+ (Lesbian, gay, bi-sexual trans, queer, intersex) community has been in the public eye in the last few weeks after public pressure led to the forced closure of a newly opened administrative office for the group.
This notwithstanding the group has enjoyed support from some artistes and social media activists in Ghana, with a recent show of support coming from some of Britain’s most prominent people of Ghanaian heritage after they signed an open letter to show solidarity with the LGBTQI+ community.
Verdict
The claim that Michael Essien has lost between 500,000 and a million followers on Twitter in less than 24 hours is false. Michael Essien’s Twitter followers actually increased by 563 between March 1 and March 2. Also, his Twitter followers have been more than 684,000 since the beginning of the year and the data shows that at no point has he had a million Twitter followers.
