Many Bots And Spams On Twitter, Elon Musk Offers Another Acquisition Price

Elon Musk while accompanying President Joko Widodo on a visit to SpaceX. (photo: twitter @jokowi)

JAKARTA - Elon Musk suggested that a lower acquisition price for Twitter Inc might be appropriate as he and CEO Parag Agrawal had a disagreement over the platform's estimated spam accounts on Monday, May 16. This was revealed from a participant at a private conference where Musk spoke to several parties.

Down, Twitter shares have extended losses in Monday afternoon trading following Musk's comments, which appeared at a conference in Miami closed to the press.

Shares fell more than 8% to close at 37.39 dollars, lower than their levels the day before Musk revealed his Twitter stock in early April. The decline in the value of this stock, sowing doubts that the world conglomerate will proceed with the acquisition of Twitter at the agreed price of 44 billion US dollars (IDR 636.6 trillion).

Agrawal tweeted earlier on Monday, May 16 that internal estimates of spam accounts on social media platforms for the last four quarters were "well below 5%," responding to days of criticism by Musk about the company's handling of fake accounts.

Twitter's estimates, which have remained the same since 2013, cannot be reproduced externally given the need to use public and private information to determine whether an account is spam.

Musk, who last Friday said the deal was "while on hold" awaits information about spam accounts. He responded to Agrawal's defense of the company's methodology with a poop emoji.

The bots are angry at being counted 🤣

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 14, 2022

"So how do advertisers know what they're getting for their money? This is fundamental to Twitter's financial health," Musk wrote.

Shortly after his tweet, Musk told a conference in Miami that he suspects bots — or automated accounts — make up about 20% to 25% of users.

Musk has promised changes to Twitter's content moderation practices, railing against decisions like Twitter's ban on former President Donald Trump as too aggressive while pledging to crack down on "spam bots" on the platform.

Musk has called for testing random samples of Twitter users to identify bots, and said he had not seen "any" analysis showing spam accounts for less than 5% of the existing user base.

Musk said on Sunday, May 15 that "there is likely to be more than 90% of daily active users."

While independent researchers estimate that between 9% and 15% of the millions of Twitter profiles are bots.

Twitter currently does not require users to register using their real identities and expressly allows automated profiles, parodies, and pseudonyms on their service. This is what makes bot accounts thrive on Twitter

They do prohibit impersonation and spam, and penalize accounts when the company determines the goal is to "defraud or manipulate others" by engaging in fraud, coordinating abuse campaigns, or artificially increasing engagement.

Musk's comments to a private audience could add to concerns about disclosing information about his market movements.

Musk, known for his candid Twitter posts, has a long history of battles with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Even recently, a US judge lashed out at him for trying to escape a settlement with the SEC that required scrutiny of his Tesla tweets.