Define a follower by amount of money ( zap) will weed out the bot accounts. To prevent fake and manipulation by zapping around and passing around zaps: I propose we do this: 1) only count followers on highly respected and trusted Nostr clients( by Nostr community) , 
2) each zap amount to from account A to B to establish a following must be higher than 5000 sats ( example amount) and the Nostr client charges a zap fee ( to be a follower ) each time to prevent fake zapping chain and circle ( say 5 percent or fixed amount) and 3) optional ( maybe not necessary), the followed person should have a verified website linked to npub. This will help establish true trust. Nostr can do this to compete with X, YouTube, etc.