So devil's advocate....... Social media platforms are incentivised to encourage the engagement farmer/follower is the yield model, to make their platforms/protocol more widespread. Therefore the follower count, and along with it other personal details, is actually a core component of social media in 21st Century.

We can only trust and aren't able to verify what nostr clients are actually doing with the data it sees on users. In the end isn't it all about the $ no matter what righteous words are thrown around.