Twitter CEO’s comments on bots and spam drew a poop emoji from Elon Musk along with a possible cancelation of the deal to buy the platform. Musk tweeted at 3:32 a.m. ET Tuesday that his bid to buy Twitter “cannot move forward” unless CEO Parag Agrawal provides proof for his estimate that less than 5% of users are bots or spam accounts.
Some talking heads believe Musk is using allegations that Twitter’s user base has more bots than the company claims to either back out of the deal or negotiate down the price. This is as the stock is going down. Every time Mr. Musk suggests he might not buy it, the stock goes down.
They can’t read his mind and that’s what talking heads, so-called analysts claim to do. They may be right but it’s all guesswork. Obviously, Musk doesn’t think much of the excuses.
Mr. Musk has a reasonable question. He did his own test and seems to think the spam is much higher than under 5%.
Replying to an article that suggested he “may be looking for a better Twitter deal,” Musk tweeted that “20% fake/spam accounts, while 4 times what Twitter claims, could be *much* higher.”
“My offer was based on Twitter’s SEC filings being accurate. Yesterday, Twitter’s CEO publicly refused to show proof of <5%. This deal cannot move forward until he does,” he wrote.
We’re not sure that’s in the written deal, but that’s the concern.
-
The Importance of Prayer: How a Christian Gold Company Stands Out by Defending Americans’ Retirement
Twitter has previously estimated that bots and spam accounts make up less than 5% of users on the platform.
“Our estimate is based on multiple human reviews (in replicate) of thousands of accounts, that are sampled at random, consistently over time, from *accounts we count as mDAUs*. We do this every quarter, and we have been doing this for many years,” Agrawal noted on Twitter. “Each human review is based on Twitter rules that define spam and platform manipulation, and uses both public and private data (eg, IP address, phone number, geolocation, client/browser signatures, what the account does when it’s active…) to make a determination on each account.”
Bots and spam seem to rule.
WE CAN’T DO IT, CAPTAIN
CEO Parag Agrawal, in a series of tweets, wrote: Unfortunately, we don’t believe that this specific estimation can be performed externally, given the critical need to use both public and private information (which we can’t share). Externally, it’s not even possible to know which accounts are counted as mDAUs on any given day.
In response, Elon sent a poopy emoji.
💩
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 16, 2022
Agrawal concluded: There are LOTS of details that are very important underneath this high-level description. We shared an overview of the estimation process with Elon a week ago and look forward to continuing the conversation with him, and all of you.
Musk asked, “So how do advertisers know what they’re getting for their money? This is fundamental to the financial health of Twitter.”
We think that’s where it left off.
Mr. Agrawal does business exactly the way I’d expect a commie to do business – in a unicorns and rainbows kind of way. Maybe it is impossible, or maybe it is always going to be a platform for bots and spam.
50% ARE FAKE/SPAM ACCOUNTS?
His Twitter friend, Pranay Pathole, a Pune-based engineer, asked Elon what he thinks the highest estimate of fake accounts could be – 50%?
He added in another tweet: Considering that your this tweet is the most liked tweet of all time, which is only liked/interacted by 2-2.5% of the entire Twitter user base, there’s a high possibility that the number of fake/spam/bot accounts could be well over 50%
wpDiscuz
