“American Idol” producers have pulled the plug on individual contestant Twitter and Facebook pages. According to the Los Angeles Times, they have all been consolidated into one shared social media page used by all of the contestants.
Followers of individual contestants on Twitter received the following message on Wednesday night as the switch happened: “Thanks so much for following me! All my updates from now on will be on our Official Ai9 Twitter Page, please follow me there @AI9Contestants” A similar message directed Facebook fans of contestants to the AI9 Contestants fan page on that site.
The report speculated that producers made the switch because the discrepancy between the number of friends and fans on social media sites was giving an obvious clue as to the popularity of certain contestants and might have been an influence in voting.
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