>> It's pretty damning these fake followers were able to game Klout's algorithms, since that's what Klout was trying to solve.

Agreed. They must have improved their algorithm since though, surely? The algorithm at PeerIndex (European Klout competitor) was good at ignoring fake followers IIRC. See https://web.archive.org/web/20130426180937/http://www.kernel... & http://blog.peerindex.com/pornfluence-and-the-world-of-buyin... (quite a similar experiment that Gilad conducted)