By now we all know what Elon Musk thinks about Twitter spam bots or fake accounts. This is exactly why the world’s richest man has decided to buy the social media giant Twitter. Before this decision, Musk asked the platform for data related to bots, which, according to his estimation, he did not receive.
Of course, in response to the botched acquisition process and the collapse of the $44 billion deal, Twitter sued Musk. And now the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is calling for a public debate with the CEO of Twitter.
It all started with a tweet by cybersecurity researcher Andrea Stroppa summarizing the conflict and lawsuit between Musk and Twitter. On Saturday, Musk hit back, saying he would reinstate the $44 billion deal if the platform would simply disclose how it tracks bots and fake accounts.
“If Twitter simply explains the method it uses to select even 100 accounts and determine their authenticity, the deal will go forward on the existing terms. However, if it turns out their SEC filings are essentially fake, that won’t happen,” Musk wrote.
Good summary of the problem.
If Twitter simply provides their method of sampling 100 accounts and how they’re confirmed to be real, the deal should proceed on original terms.
However, if it turns out that their SEC filings are materially false, then it should not.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 6, 2022
and not only. Billionaire Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal debates – “I challenge @paraga to a public debate on Twitter’s bot percentage. Let him prove to the public that Twitter has <5% fake or spammy daily users!”
I hereby challenge @paraga to a public debate about the Twitter bot percentage.
Let him prove to the public that Twitter has <5% fake or spam daily users!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 6, 2022
Musk also posted a poll asking followers to tick yes or no in response to the following sentence — “Less than 5% of daily Twitter users are fake/spam.”
The billionaire has said in the past that he believes 20% of Twitter’s daily users are fake or spam accounts. Twitter then replied that the number of such users does not exceed 5%. According to Musk, he could not receive documents confirming this, therefore, he stopped the deal.
It is worth noting that in the past, Twitter gave Musk access to a certain tool, which was intended to verify the number of fake accounts. In response, Musk said the tool had an artificial “cap” on the number of requests it could handle, preventing his team from performing a full analysis in any reasonable amount of time.
If Agrawal responds to Musk’s new tweets, it won’t be the first time they’ve gotten involved in the spam/bot debate in some way. It also happened in May, when Twitter’s CEO released a report explaining why it was difficult to combat fake/spam accounts on the platform, to which Musk responded with a poop emoji.
Discussion about this post