Sky News ad boycott calls the work of very few Twitter accounts

Calls for an advertising boycott of Sky News was ­fuelled by a small number of anonymous Twitter accounts.

Calls for an advertising boycott of Sky News by online activist group Sleeping Giants was ­fuelled by a small number of anonymous Twitter accounts that cannot be linked to real consumers, analysis suggests.

The Australian offshoot of the US group pressured brands to pull their advertising after Blair Cottrell, the former leader of the far-right United Patriots Front, appeared on Sky’s Adam Giles Show. Sky, which is operated by the publisher of The Weekend Australian, News Corp Australia, apologised for the interview, withdrew the show and launched a review.

Several companies withdraw their advertising as Sleeping ­Giants challenged them to respond.

Using social media monitoring firm Brandwatch, Sky News has since compiled a list of ­accounts behind the boycott calls and found that fewer than 200 individual accounts were ­responsible for 53 per cent of the activity, with more than 70 per cent of the accounts anonymous.

Of those 200 Twitter ­accounts, 10 generated a total of 4500 tweets in 45 days, raising questions about whether the online outrage was driven by a small number of people.

Qantas was the most heavily targeted advertiser, with 7277 tweets directed at the airline.

Left-wing activist group GetUp and Fairfax Media columnist Clementine Ford were prominent supporters of the boycott, according to the analysis. Victoria Public Transport Minister ­Jacinta Allan banned Sky News at Melbourne train stations because of the ­interview. She later conceded the Cottrell interview was not aired to commuters.