Elon Musk and Parag Agrawal, head of Twitter Inc., are at odds over the social media giant’s handling of so-called bots, fueling speculation that Musk may be trying to lower the price or even off his 44th birthday -Drop a billion dollar bid for the company. Musk said at a tech conference in Miami that fake users make up at least 20% of all Twitter accounts, possibly as much as 90%. Twitter disagrees. It’s been reported that spam accounts make up less than 5% of all users, and Agrawal has posted a lengthy thread detailing his company’s methodology. Musk responded by first asking why Twitter didn’t just call users to verify their identities – and then posting a poop emoji.
1. What are Twitter bots and what are they used for?
On Twitter, bots are automated accounts that can do the same things real humans can: tweet, follow, like, and retweet other people’s posts. Spam bots use these skills to deliver potentially deceptive, harmful, or annoying…
