Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter is at risk. This was revealed by the Washington Post citing several sources close to the deal with which the Tesla CEO wanted to ensure 100% of the social network for 44 billion dollars.
Musk’s staff, the newspaper revealed last night, would have concluded that data on spam accounts would be impossible to verify. Musk’s team would then have stopped the negotiations to conclude the operation. The absence of reliable data on the number of bots present on the platform would in fact prevent the experts hired by Musk from correctly assessing the value of the platform. The topic of fake accounts has always been at the center of the quarrels between Musk and the managers of the social network.
The grain of fake accounts
On May 13, Musk announced the temporary suspension of the agreement with Twitter to ask for updated numbers on the number of fake accounts on the platform. Again, on June 6, the entrepreneur warned the company again that without a total opening of the data on the amount of fake accounts on the platform, the agreement reached in April could easily jump.
The case
Musk warns: With no fake account data, the deal with Twitter is blown
by Arcangelo Rociola
For social media, they are 5%. For Musk and his staff many more. For some experts it could be double, if not even 15% of the total number of accounts present. The Twitter deal includes a billion-dollar termination clause that Musk would have to pay in case he back down.
Why is the question of bots important?
A Twitter bot is software that controls an account. He can control it in part, or completely. In fact, therefore, the attack managed by a software does not exist. He is not a real person. For example, this program can autonomously perform some of the actions available on the platform, such as posting tweets or retweets, liking or following other users.
Elon Musk has a problem. And it’s not Twitter
by Riccardo Luna
These are the behaviors of what are called botnets: accounts that, if coordinated, are able to bring out a trend on the platform, to relaunch content that the botnet manager wants, comment, criticize, insult an account en masse. It is one of the main plagues of all social media.
Bots are programmed according to a series of rules, they have some objectives, perhaps interact with all the contents that have a certain keyword inside. For Musk, bots are important because they don’t allow you to define Twitter’s true commercial value. And without knowing their actual number, the commercial value of the social network becomes difficult to establish.
The acquisition of Twitter
Elon Musk to Twitter employees: “Costs exceed revenue, possible layoffs”
by Pier Luigi Pisa
