Photo | Dee DeQuattro

Posted: 7/27/2012 8:59:20 AM

First District Congressional Candidate Anthony Gemma is being accused of ‘buying friends.’ A report from Politico examines Gemma’s social media accounts including Facebook and Twitter and unveils some telling findings.

According to the report, Gemma, who prides himself on his extensive social media network, has more friends and followers than Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney. On Twitter, Romney has about 825,000 followers to Gemma’s 968,000 followers.

Are all Gemma’s followers from Rhode Island? No, in fact it would seem that only one percent of his followers are actually based in Rhode Island however, the candidate does seem to be popular in Canada where 14 percent of his followers live, according to data provided to Politico by PeekAnalytics.

Gemma’s reach goes beyond the continental United States however, with some followers in Istanbul and Pakistan. Other followers have racy photos and profiles.

In February, Gemma’s campaign Facebook page went from 3,414 fans to 107,614 and his Twitter account grew by 400,000 followers. Gemma now has ten times more Facebook fans than votes he received in the 2010 primary against Congressman David Cicilline.

It is nothing new for candidates to ‘buy friends’ and it is not illegal, however it does violate the terms of service on Twitter and Facebook. Romney and Newt Gingrich have been accused of ‘buying friends’ in the past.

How much does a ‘friend’ cost? Well, according to Politico, they can be as cheap as a few pennies.

By the time Gemma officially announced his bid for congress in April he had grown his followers to just over 1 million on Twitter.

Despite his apparent ‘popularity’ on social networking, Gemma has relatively low response with only a few followers actually interacting with the candidate. Politico says that he once asked followers to retweet a photo and only six did.

Gemma isn’t the only Gemma doing well on social media. According to Politico, The Gloria Gemma Breast Cancer Research Foundation, a charity started by Gemma to honor his late mother, also experienced a large spike in followers in February.