After billionaire Elon Musk announced his $44 billion proposal to buy Twitter was “on hold” until he sought more information regarding fraudulent accounts, Twitter’s CEO retaliated. Parag Agrawal, the company’s CEO, expressed “confidence” in the company’s claims that less than 5% of users are spammers.
According to him, the company suspends about 500,000 questionable accounts each day. Analysts have theorized that Mr Musk is attempting to renegotiate the deal’s price or walk away.
In this post, I will be telling you everything you need to know about Twitter bots and why they matter.
What are Twitter bots?
A Twitter bot is a computer program that runs automated tasks over the internet. They’re used to automate many different things, including some practical uses (like automatically generating reports) and some less-than-practical uses (like tweeting political information).
A Twitter bot (also known as an automated Twitter account) is an account that tweets all or most of the time. It’s not human, and there’s nothing wrong with it—it just means you have to be careful when you see one. Because they’re always online and they tweet so frequently, they can seem more popular than they are because you’ll see them everywhere.
Twitter bots can be programmed to do just about anything you want them to do, which means they’ve been used for everything from spreading information—and misinformation— and influencing elections, to promoting wares and crypto scams.
Why do Twitter bots matter?
Twitter bots are used for all sorts of things, but most crucially, they help spread information—and misinformation—at an alarming rate. Without Twitter bots and the spread of various news and propaganda on the platform, we would be less informed of some fringe information, and most likely not be bombarded with those pesky crypto scams under every thread (wouldn’t that be nice?). Political discussions would also be monotonous since the algorithm would most likely only expose us to content we are likely to engage with.
Why are Twitter bots created?
Twitter bots are often created to promote a product, service, or idea. They can also be used for political reasons, such as promoting a political agenda, candidate, or cause.
The bot creator will decide the ultimate purpose of their bot and create it accordingly. You can have a Twitter bot that promotes your brand through tweets and automated messages sent to followers who engage with your content in some way (e.g., likes or follows).
Some less ethical businesses may use bots to promote fake news stories designed to deceive people into thinking they’re real news outlets; these are commonly known as “clickbait” websites because they rely on user engagement by promising interesting information that never really materializes once someone clicks on them (it’s like fishing without bait!).
How are Twitter bots created?
To create a Twitter bot, you’ll need:
A computer that’s connected to the Internet.
The ability to code in either Python or Node.js (or both).
How Twitter bots influence people
Twitter bots can be powerful and used to influence people. They can be used to spread news, manipulate stock prices and affect politics. Botnets are networks of bots that communicate with each other and share information about the accounts on Twitter they control. They can also be used to distribute information on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook by creating multiple accounts that appear human but are operated by a computer program instead of a person.
The estimated percentage of Twitter accounts that are bots
According to researchers, anywhere from 9% to 15% of the millions of Twitter profiles are automated accounts or bots. According to Cyabra, 13.7% of Twitter profiles are not legitimate. In other words, a significant number of accounts you see on Twitter could be automated.
Problems posed by bots on Twitter
The trouble with bots is that they can be used for all kinds of bad things. There’s a whole list of problems that can arise from bots on Twitter:
- Spreading hate speech and propaganda.
- Promoting fake news stories.
- Manipulating users by retweeting certain content and not replying to others (for example, a bot might block you if you respond to it).
The effect of bots on Twitter as a company
You may be wondering: how does the Twitter bot epidemic affect business? To put it simply, it can have a profound effect on the revenue, reputation, and growth of the company. While Twitter’s stock performance has been stellar in recent years, there are signs that its success may be due in part to the artificial inflation of user figures. A high number of spam accounts might cause investors to lose trust in the prospects of the company, thus tanking the stock.
Revenues from advertisements would also take a hit since fewer people would be willing to advertise on the platform if they knew their ads would only be viewed by bots.
Finding a lasting solution is thus of vital importance to the company.
How has Twitter dealt with the bot epidemic?
In August 2018, Twitter announced that it was taking measures to reduce the amount of spam on its platform by banning millions of fake accounts. Smyte, a startup that specialized in spam prevention, safety, and security, was acquired by Twitter. Twitter thus terminated “spammy and suspicious accounts,” causing its user base to decline by one million in July 2018 and its stock price to plummet as a result.
But despite this move, there still seem to be more bad actors than ever before… and they’re getting smarter too! Some believe they’ve already surpassed humans in their ability to influence public discourse online.
Why Elon Musk dislikes Twitter bots
Elon Musk is one of the most vocal critics of Twitter bots. The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX thinks that these automated accounts are a problem for the entire world. According to him, the presence of bots is detrimental to proper discourse on the platform.
Conclusion
With all the above information, it is not surprising that Mr Elon is taking a hard stance on Twitter bots now that he seeks to acquire the company.
Some analysts are however of the view that Mr Musk is seeking to cut down on his price offering on the Twitter acquisition, hence the recent offensive on the Twitter bot problem. But as to whether that is true or not, it’s anyone’s guess.
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source https://www.jbklutse.com/twitter-bots/
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