The Hill announced to its staffers Wednesday morning that employees are now prohibited from purchasing Twitter followers. The new rule, conveyed via an internal memo obtained by The Daily Beast, comes in the wake of a New York Times report on how prominent media members purchase fake followers on the popular social-media platform. The exposé specifically cited The Hill media columnist Joe Concha as having bought followers (5,000 by his own admission). “In the wake of that interesting piece, we are adopting a policy effective immediately that employees of The Hill should not buy Twitter followers,” editor in chief Bob Cusack said in the staff-wide memo. In the wake of that same Times piece, the Chicago Sun-Times suspended famed film critic Richard Roeper, as he reportedly purchased followers too.
—Maxwell Tani
