Hey Twitter, what do I need to do to get on the "Recommended User" list?

At least its clear how it works at Facebook, re Julia Allison who had:

.....a sudden rise in the number of people who list themselves as fans of "Julia Allison" on Facebook. Allison has confessed to what happened: After Allison had a meeting with Randi Zuckerberg, the sister of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg who is now actively promoting the site's celebrity pages, Facebook listed Allison's page on a list of suggested pages for new users.

When we say "sudden rise", we mean from a thousand or so for a Valley Micro-sleb to 18,500 in a few days. This was of course based on a sound business rationale:

At the SXSW Interactive conference in 2007, Allison had posed next to Mark Zuckerberg at a party. Lest a photo of Allison and Mark start circulating, Randi dived into the shot, sticking out her tongue. When Allison and Randi met later, Randi apologized for judging Allison, and they became fast friends. Allison went to Randi's bachelorette party, they appeared in music videos together and threw a joint, bicoastal birthday party.

So now we know. And there we were thinking it was all clearly based on merit, like Twitter still must be. Surely?

Hat tip Milo Yiannapoulos for the main story, which goes on to point out that as well as this, Julia transferred c 2,500 people who had asked to be friends to being fans - and you can't do this yourself, folks. It needs friends in Facebook...like, oh, RandiZ.

Once upon a time a friend was someone you liked and trusted, but in Facebookland its just another word for someone to sell to. Who said it was just bankers that were ethically challenged