Number of fake accounts puts buying a Twitter mask at risk

Billionaire Elon Musk, who has vowed to remove “spam” from Twitter, has now argued, through this social network, that these automated accounts may exist in greater numbers than expected, making the purchase agreement futile.

The world’s richest man in the recent turnaround on the social network’s purchase has been controversial and, according to some analysts, meaningless, apart from being an attempt to devalue Twitter or renegotiate a deal that, according to experts, is getting more and more cost to the CEO. for Tesla.

While these ruthless tactics are not uncommon in corporate mergers, the way this happens, which has become a popular topic through the same platform that Elon Musk intends to acquire, is almost unprecedented, according to the Associated Press (AP). ).

The Tesla founder recently pushed investors to the limit by announcing he was temporarily putting a hold on buying the platform – which he announced for roughly $44 billion – only to later correct that information and indicate he remains committed to acquiring it.

“This is the strategy you are trying to use as a way to get away from it [do negócio] Or get a lower price,” said Brian Quinn, associate professor of law at Boston College.

Musk took to Twitter this Tuesday to say the agreement reached to buy the company cannot “move forward” unless the social network shows public evidence that less than 5% of accounts on the platform are fake or “fake.” Spam.

Experts say Muks can’t unilaterally suspend the deal, although that hasn’t stopped the billionaire from acting as if he could.

If he withdraws from the agreement, he may be required to pay a fee of $1,000 million.

On Monday, Elon Musk responded directly, sarcastically, to the Twitter CEO’s messages about fake accounts.

Paraj Agrawal, in his letter, stressed that the social network suspends more than half a million “spam” accounts every day “before users can even see them.”

“The toughest challenge is that many of the seemingly fake accounts are actually real people. And some of the fake accounts that are actually the most dangerous and cause the most harm to our users can appear completely legitimate.”

According to Agrawal, this is the reason why the Twitter team cannot identify all the fake profiles.

“We measure this internally. Each quarter, we estimate that less than 5% of daily active users (mDAU) per quarter are spam,” he noted.

However, the CEO noted that “the actual internal estimates for the past four quarters have been well below 5%”.

But Elon Musk mentioned, this Tuesday, in “Twitte”, the presence of “20% of fake / spam accounts”, four times what Twitter claims.

Musk warned that the number could be much higher and that his bid to buy was based on the accuracy of the social network’s records.

For Brian Quinn, this kind of language from the founder of Tesla makes no sense.

“The disclosures it claims are the same as the disclosures the company made to the SEC (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission) over a long period of time,” he said.

Elon Musk suggested this Monday, for the first time, during a technology conference in Miami, that he would like to pay less to buy Twitter and that a viable deal at a lower price is out of the question.

It was also at the All In Summit that Musk estimated that at least 20% of the 229 million Twitter accounts are “spam” bots, noting that the percentage is his bottom line.