#UnfollowManUnited
- Thread starter Sterling Archer
- Start date
-
In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
Last night was the final straw for me, both City and Liverpool have spent all season showing us up so yeah unfollowed any United players on Insta and unfollowed all the clubs channels
Obviously it wont make a jot of difference but the last thing I want to see is our club putting out any PR. Whole club needs to go on lockdown, look at what our two greatest rivals have done this season, hang their head in shame and sort it the feck out ASAP
Obviously it wont make a jot of difference but the last thing I want to see is our club putting out any PR. Whole club needs to go on lockdown, look at what our two greatest rivals have done this season, hang their head in shame and sort it the feck out ASAP
I like that. I think people could spam places like the Daily Mail website and try to get press stories about it. That negative energy will get back to the club.
It's taken Liverpool almost 3 years to get this point.
Fixing United unfortunately won't be as quick "as soon as possible" like it or not but United are gonna be chasing 4th for a couple years until we get the right players in.
We aren't gonna be chasing the title any time soon, let's get to 3rd/4th and then start you can start challenging for the title.
I'm not the only one who thinks we should chase 3rd/4th either, even Neville thinks so, we won't be chasing the title within 18months and many fans need to realise that
I would link to the MNF Neville passionate speech but I don't have that privilege yet haha!
Lets just go full on Italian or Portuguese and storm the training ground, kidnap the players and set the place on fire...
So it appears the club are paying for someone to create 'bot' accounts to keep the numbers up and save face, it's having an impact. Check this out:
Before the #unfollowUnited trend.
Bot accounts:
Steady decrease in followers with spikes where bot accounts followed United:
Current state showing no change in followers thanks to bot spikes:
Before the #unfollowUnited trend.
Bot accounts:
Steady decrease in followers with spikes where bot accounts followed United:
Current state showing no change in followers thanks to bot spikes:
Tweet
— Twitter API (@user) date
Times like this I wish we had ultras
@crossy1686 That's surprising. Creating bot accounts to keep numbers up is stupid and will show very quickly. It will be hard for them to keep creating these accounts with the rate at which followers are dropping. I'm hoping by the end of the week, this number should come down to 16-17 mm. Will be a good outcome if it does.
All I want from this campaign is for the club to get the message that they need to do the following asap: a) sporting director (I hope they get VDS, but its unlikely); b) sell deadwood (at least 7-8 players, need to go), and c) get in some hard-working and talented 23-24 year olds.
All I want from this campaign is for the club to get the message that they need to do the following asap: a) sporting director (I hope they get VDS, but its unlikely); b) sell deadwood (at least 7-8 players, need to go), and c) get in some hard-working and talented 23-24 year olds.
You might as well ask me if I'm happy with the direction Man Utd is going in? This site is and always has been a reflection of the fans and their opinions, for better or worse.
Is it really surprising that there is a whole swath of people angry and upset about the position the club is in right now. Are you suggesting the site deletes all negative opinions, or opinions of a specific kind, as and when they are expressed?
To be frank, this is not something new.So it appears the club are paying for someone to create 'bot' accounts to keep the numbers up and save face, it's having an impact. Check this out:
Before the #unfollowUnited trend.
Bot accounts:
Steady decrease in followers with spikes where bot accounts followed United:
Current state showing no change in followers thanks to bot spikes:
Benefits the club and twitter, and makes the club more attractive for sponsors. Same is the case with a number of the other big clubs.
Exactly. @Sterling Archer is the sort of poster who rarely if ever is critical of the club, hence I have probably got on the wrong side of him a few times - but when you have guys like that at the end of their tether, you know something is seriously wrong at this club and drastic action needs to be taken.
We can all sit there twiddling our thumbs thinking it is all going to be okay and football goes in cycles, but this could easily lead to 20 years without a league title if we don't act now. We're already approaching a decade, time flies.. and we will get left behind.
The fans need to make their opinions felt and heard.
Simple criteria: does it sound like what an oppo fan would say? Would they dare say it in a pub of United fans? If not, ban. There has been a mass infiltration. Perhaps Karma from our old forum invasions of many years ago...
Worst post of the year contender right here.That’s fecking dumb.
I think any rival fan that said anything negative about our team would get complete support from any United fan in the world at the moment.
You're more likely to get filled in, in a United pub if you said 'We have to keep Martial, he's a cracking player'.
That’s not so simple though is it. That’s a highly subjective criteria. You could say that any criticism of the club is an “oppo fan view” and so ban there and then. But this place doesn’t ban hammer dissenting opinion on sight. It never has and won’t. There are sites that do that but not this one.
Yes it sucks right now, we’re in a terrible place as a club at the moment, exacerbated by how well our two biggest rivals are doing. This is reflected on here and pretty much everywhere else United are being discussed.
You can’t expect everyone to bury their heads in the sand and pretend it’s all ok, expecting them to write “we’ll keep the red flag flying high”, end of discussion. People are angry and want to express that. Are they lesser fans than others out there who will support the club to the hilt no matter what? Yes quite possibly. But we’re not going to be judge, jury and executioner on that kind of criteria.
Can't you see what we are saying - the Board/Ed don't care about achieving success! They ONLY care about commercial revenues and sponsorships! Yes, that means to a certain extent, some money HAS to be invested in the playing squad in order for us to achieve European football and broaden our commercial appeal but that's the thing about parasites....they take, take, take from the Host....but never enough to kill them completely because then they die too!
If you can't see that we are trying to SAVE the football club, not hurt the football club, then we are coming at this from such polar ends of the spectrum that we'll never agree
I just cannot get my head around the fact that people STILL, in large numbers, defend the Glazers and repeat the same fallacies about investment, endeavour, commitment etc.....Let me be clear about this - the Glazers have not invested one single penny of their own money into Manchester United. All of OUR money, which they have re-invested, was done so purely to maintain a base level of standard JUST good enough to achieve Champions League football
FYI - as much as I dislike these players, my anger personally isn't directed at them and it CERTAINLY is not, nor has ever been, directed at any of our previous managers (check my posts).
So how bad does it need to get before you advocate doing something about it? What should we do....sit and watch whilst the parasitic owners kill our club?
This is bigger than what's happening on the pitch now. We're at a critical juncture in the History of Manchester United....do we take a stand or do we watch as we become irrelevant as a team competing at the top level of football
Some of us have been saying this since 2005.....and FYI....as a Manchester United fan living in Manchester, until recently a ST holder and a regular in most of the traditional 'United pubs' I can tell you far from being 'glassed' for dissenting, there are thousands out there who feel this way
If by "having an impact" you actually mean "having no discernible impact whatsoever" then I'm 100% in agreement with you.So it appears the club are paying for someone to create 'bot' accounts to keep the numbers up and save face, it's having an impact. Check this out:
Before the #unfollowUnited trend.
Bot accounts:
Steady decrease in followers with spikes where bot accounts followed United:
Current state showing no change in followers thanks to bot spikes:
If the club has taken to hiring a bot farm to keep the numbers up they're at least aware of it as negative publicity.
Oh I think the club are aware that fans are unhappy. They don't need a hashtag to pick on that.
That's just how twitter is. It's one of the major downfalls of the platform, and it's something the creators are trying to battle - and failing thus far.So it appears the club are paying for someone to create 'bot' accounts to keep the numbers up and save face, it's having an impact. Check this out:
Before the #unfollowUnited trend.
Bot accounts:
Steady decrease in followers with spikes where bot accounts followed United:
Current state showing no change in followers thanks to bot spikes:
It's not likely that the club created a bot farm within the last 1-2 days, and more likely that twitter is awash with bot accounts (it is)
Also a lot of people create twitter accounts without the intention to tweet, but to have access to twitter, so that's not to say that all accounts which are blank are all necessarily fake.
The "biggest club in the world" resorting to using twitter botsSo it appears the club are paying for someone to create 'bot' accounts to keep the numbers up and save face, it's having an impact. Check this out:
Before the #unfollowUnited trend.
Bot accounts:
Steady decrease in followers with spikes where bot accounts followed United:
Current state showing no change in followers thanks to bot spikes:
Who says it has to be the club? Could be anyone.
Me, for example.
Who else has an interest at keeping the clubs followers up?
Done. Needed a good clean out on my timeline anyway. Also unfollowed the lazy cnuts on other platforms too.
Exactly. A lot of people do it because it takes 2 minutes to sign up, it doesn't mean their accounts are fake.
Care to explain the spikes in followers keeping the numbers the same?
Opposition fans on a wind up? It’s not hard to set up bots. I make money off it myself.
Are those spikes something that didn’t happen before this campaign started? Otherwise they’re irrelevant.
Nah, the owners really want this club to win the league, play entertaining football etc. Woodward main concern is for this club to be successful on the pitch. Us being financially productive will come as an effect of our on pitch performances.... This can be supported by their numerous ambitious statements, compared to the owners/board at certain other clubs that have never made any public statements regarding wanting to win the league or CL.
In all seriousness, we can not prove with facts that the owners/Woodward does not care about winning anything or who is to blame for what decisions at the club due to the fact that the owners are seldom at games, never talk about what their goal is for the club and there is no transparency. So when we argue that the Glazers don't care about winning anything, people come with the "look how much we have spent" arguement, or look at how much they are spending on wages/transfers. And since no person related to the club is willing to state that "the Glazers don't give a rats *ss about the club as long as we are financially productive" some fans will not be swayed.
I, for one, completely agree with you that the most likely way for this club to achieve long term success is for the club to change owners. And for the owners to change, the club has to become less financially attractive and thus making the Glazers more likely to sell. How do we become less financially attractive for the owners?
Revenue decreasing and no profits:
- NO CL --> Something the club is fixing on their own.
- Less attractive to sponsorships: No CL, bad performances, fewer fans that can be called consumers.
- Less income from merchandise and other fan related income sources.
- High wagebill: Already created that problem on their own.
- Bad transfers: Already doing this on their own.
The only reason as for why we are still being financially attractive to the owners are the increased popularity in football in the world, and with us historically being among the top clubs and with a high number of fans in attractive consumercountries, getting good sponsordeals has been a piece of cake. And the high income from TV-deals.
If the new EPL tv deal does not increase by much when it is negotiated next summer(?) and we do not get CL football during the next two years, and the income from sponsorship does not increase, then something might happen.
I'm pretty sure most organisations use twitter bots these days, it probably won't even be the club directly but some PR firm we employ to manage our image.
I do agree with this type of campaign though it's probably more effective than stadium walkouts and the like.
I do agree with this type of campaign though it's probably more effective than stadium walkouts and the like.
The spikes that go right up an then down again or vice versa have no impact on the total number of followers. They're there for a few seconds and then they're gone. It's more likely a glitch in SocialBlade's monitoring software than actual followers.
Don't look at the spikes. Look at the long-term follower count. It's nearing a loss of 20,000 in the last two days, which is pretty significant as long as the movement keeps growing and gathering mainstream coverage. It'll still be just a drop in the ocean compared to the total number of followers, but the main goal has to be getting publicity.
Don't look at the spikes. Look at the long-term follower count. It's nearing a loss of 20,000 in the last two days, which is pretty significant as long as the movement keeps growing and gathering mainstream coverage. It'll still be just a drop in the ocean compared to the total number of followers, but the main goal has to be getting publicity.
Considering I haven't spent time watching the follower count of Man United; before #UnfollowManUnited was created and now in the aftermath, in order to make a direct and fair comparison - no.
What I do know is that there's a variety of reasons why fake accounts are created or removed from twitter - and part of that is follower count for revenue generation purposes, other reasons include twitter's failure to fully secure their platform from bot farms (see: fake news)
None of that is to say that Man United do or do not have a bot farm, all i'm saying is that it's unlikely that (if they did have a bot farm) it was created within the last 2 days because of the logistics that is necessary in order to start up a bot farm that can create the amount of 'bot' accounts your post was referring to.
So it's rather deceptive to imply that Man United created a bot farm in response to #UnfollowManUnited, that's all.
If they had a bot farm it would've been created years ago (and Woodward's continued reference to our social media followers is potentially a big indicator of this) and you're simply just noticing now. Also they aren't likely to be the only football account, sporting account or even verified account to do this. I just checked Arsenal, Lakers & Real Madrid just to be sure - they have the same 'problem' - again, twitter is awash with these accounts.
It's not about not giving a toss, or earning 'top red' points by shouting loudest about how bad everything undoubtedly is, it's about what kind of impact this will have.
The owners proved during the green and gold campaign that they're impervious to fans' opinions and will (mis)manage the club however they see fit. If they'll withstand vocal mutiny, what makes you think a few thousand lost online supporters will make a dent?
They'll still have the millions of half-arsed, disengaged global reds to point towards as support.
Not only that, twitter is hiding the hashtag from trending and if you search for it you wont get the suggestion.The "biggest club in the world" resorting to using twitter bots
It would be effective if millions of people got behind it, that’s for sure. The 20k or so involved so far is just a drop in the ocean.
FC united of manchester says hello.