What if Musk is right about the Twitter bot problem?

Elon Musk could soon face Twitter in a Delaware court over whether he should be forced to buy the social media company. Musk’s excuse to retire? Bots. Specifically, how many bots run wild on Twitter.

In trying to withdraw from the $ 44 billion deal, Musk has claimed that Twitter has not provided enough data on the number of robots on the platform – automated accounts that may be benign, but can also be used for purposes nefarious, such as taking users out of their cash. through schemes to get rich quick.

As Musk says, Twitter dramatically underestimates the number of bots on the social network when it claims to make up less than 5% of its daily monetizable active users. Musk has estimated, without offering any sources, that robots account for up to 20% or more of Twitter user accounts.

But let’s say, as an exercise, that Musk’s prediction is correct and that Twitter figures are deviated by a wide margin. If true, the social network would likely face a serious bill from advertisers and users.

Too many robots would mean that advertisers do not earn their money when they buy ads on the platform. As for users, it would mean that fewer people than they thought see their tweets.

In its lawsuit against Musk, Twitter claims it is “behind” to provide it with a lot of information on how it calculates the number of bots on the platform. In addition, the company says it has been making the 5% estimate for years and that it “applies a significant judgment” when it comes to counting robots.

Still, even Twitter admits in a stock presentation that “the actual number of fake or spam accounts could be larger than we estimated.”

What if Twitter has more bots than reported?

Twitter generates the vast majority of its revenue through ads. You see them in promoted tweets every time you scroll through your timeline. That’s why someone like me, who doesn’t like golf, sees The Golf Channel’s tweets between those on PlayStation 5 and the comics.

The story goes on

In the first quarter of 2022, Twitter generated $ 1.12 billion of its total revenue of $ 1.2 billion from advertising. This is more than 90% of your income. To say that Twitter depends on ads to continue to grow its business is an understatement. The same, of course, happens with their cohorts like Meta, Snap, TikTok and Alphabet.

Twitter accumulates that money based on how many real people see ads on the platform. After all, if you’re a brand, you want real humans to see your ad and maybe buy any item you want.

Robots don’t buy things like specialty shampoo, drive cars, or watch The Golf Channel. They exist to shoot tweets and nothing else. Twitter’s statement that less than 5% of its daily monetizable active users are robots is a means to allay advertisers ’concerns that real people don’t see their ads.

However, if Musk is right and 20% or more of Twitter’s monetizable daily active users are robots, not real people, then advertisers turn on their money when they buy ads on the platform.

Nor are it just advertisers who would reprimand Twitter if their bots ’estimates are too low. Average users want to make sure they communicate with other people, not automated programs. If the number of bots is 20% or more, as Musk claims, users could also end up leaving Twitter.

Robots are a complicated problem

Counting robots on a platform with 229 million monetizable daily active users is not easy. Twitter says it uses automated processes as well as manual checks using sets of sample accounts to measure robots.

“The difficult challenge is that a lot of accounts that look superficially fake are actually real people. And some of the spam accounts that are actually the most dangerous, and cause the most damage to our users, may seem totally legitimate on the surface.” explained Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal via Twitter, of course.

But robots are not all the same. Some can be programmed to tweet like real humans and can hook even the smartest experts. It’s not like these accounts have signs that say, “Hi, I’m a robot.”

Not all robots are bad either. Some will automatically show you sports results, act as alarm clocks, or provide you with the latest news based on key topics that interest you.

So far, Musk’s claim that Twitter is flooded with robots is just that: a statement. Twitter, meanwhile, has been given plenty of room to describe the difficulties of counting robots.

For now, we have to believe the word of the company.

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What if Twitter has more bots than reported?

Robots are a complicated problem

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