Elon Musk was asked about his plan for handling the bot situation on Twitter, to which he responded. “I will defeat the bots,” he said. “It’s a war, and we are going to win that war.” “We will expose those who want to manipulate people,” he added.
Spam and fake accounts are more prevalent on Twitter than on comparable social platforms, according to a data analysis firm hired by Elon Musk as part of his legal battle with Twitter. The company’s first public interview since conducting a study commissioned by Musk that found spam and bot accounts make up an estimated 11% of Twitter’s total user base highlights the headache that may await Musk now that he appears ready to complete his $44 billion acquisition of the social media platform.
Bots on Twitter are both useful and nefarious, depending on how they interact with or interfere with your engagement on the platform. For Musk, bots have mostly been a pain. In the past, he had expressed concerns regarding crypto bots that had managed to dupe many investors. In a recent Ted Talk, he said if he had a Dogecoin for every crypto scam he came across on Twitter, he would probably have a 100-billion-Dogecoin portfolio. No kidding.
Musk is influential, and the makers of these bots know that. They also know that Musk is a crypto enthusiast, so fooling people into falling for scams was easy for them. Musk seems fed up with that, and he wants Twitter to be rid of these bots. That makes sense because spam, in any form, is annoying, and when it becomes a conduit for scams, it is better to do something to remove it. Musk, therefore, wants to defeat spambots. But it is not going to be that easy for him—or for the existing owners of Twitter.
On Twitter, engagement is everything. Its users, as well as bots, are chasing that, but sometimes these automated Twitter bots bring more engagement than actual human users. Twitter thrives on engagement, so even though removing bots is essential, it is sort of a necessary evil for Twitter.
