On Friday, tech billionaire Elon Musk announced he would terminate a $ 44 billion deal to buy Twitter. The reason, he said, was a continuing disagreement over the number of spam bot accounts on the platform. Now, the question of what constitutes a spam bot account, and how many there are currently on Twitter, is likely to be at the center of legal battles between Mr. Musk and Twitter for the full deal.
What are spam bots?
While sometimes referred to as “bots” or “spam” or “fake accounts,” they all refer to non-authentic accounts that mimic how people use Twitter. Some spam accounts are automated, but others are managed by people, making them difficult to detect.
Bots can tweet to people, share tweets, follow and be followed by other people, among other things.
Why are spam bots a problem?
Mr. Musk has been expressing his concern about spam bots on Twitter for years. In 2020, he appeared at an event for Twitter employees and encouraged the company to do more to prevent and eliminate spam bots.
Since announcing his intention to buy Twitter in April, Mr. Musk has repeatedly tweeted about spam bots on the platform. In May, when Parag Agrawal, Twitter’s chief executive, tweeted about how the company detects and fights spam bots, Mr. Musk responded with a poop emoji.
In a six-paragraph letter dated June 6, Mr. Musk demanded more information on Twitter, claiming the company was “denying Mr. Musk’s data requests” to reveal the number of fake accounts on its platform. This meant a “clear material breach” of the agreement, lawyers continued, saying it gave Mr. Musk the right to break the deal. The next day, Twitter agreed to allow Mr. Musk has direct access to his “fire hose,” the daily stream of millions of tweets flowing through the company’s network.
Since it was made public in 2013, Twitter has estimated that approximately 5% of its accounts are spam bots. On Thursday, the company told reporters it removes about a million spam bot accounts every day and blocks millions more per week until the people behind the accounts can pass anti-spam tests.
The company, however, allows the accounts of spam robots, which it prefers to call automated robots, which perform a service. Twitter encourages many of these accounts to label themselves as robots for transparency. The company argues that many of these accounts do a useful service.
How have spam bots been used on Twitter?
Twitter defines good spam bots as automated accounts that “help people find useful, entertaining, and relevant information.” For example, @mrstockbot gives automated answers to people when they ask for a stock quote and @earthquakebot tweets about any earthquake with a magnitude of 5.0 or more around the world as it occurs.
But other spam bots are used by governments, corporations or bad actors for a number of nefarious purposes. During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Russia used spam robot accounts to impersonate Americans and try to sow divisions among U.S. voters.
Scam robots involved in scams are often found on Twitter trying to convince people to send cryptocurrency, or digital currency, to online wallets for prizes that don’t exist. Sometimes spam bots are also used to attack celebrities or politicians and create a hostile online environment for them.
Kate Conger contributed to the report.