4 ms·

I'd challenge your entire premise that it's easy to create those accounts. The market price of low-tier bulk-created Twitter accounts seems to be $160/1k accou

by jsnell 7y ago

I'd challenge your entire premise that it's easy to create those accounts. The market price of low-tier bulk-created Twitter accounts seems to be $160/1k accounts. That's not bad. It's in line with services like Linkedin ($175), Hotmail ($150), Yahoo ($120) and Facebook ($150). The only large provider that does significantly better is Google ($300).

shkkmo 7y ago
That seems pretty easy to me. I'm not sure what premise you think are are challenging by posting prices per account that are under 20 cents each....
- jsnell 7y ago
  The part where @latchkey thought Twitter was doing a bad job at policing bulk account creation, and @samdoidge though it was obviously because they want those bulk accounts. In fact Twitter appears to be doing about as well as most of their peers in preventing bulk creation. 20 cents a pop for a process that should take 10 seconds and should in theory be easy to automate and parallelize for anyone with even basic programming skills? If it were actually easy, that'd be a goldmine.
  - shkkmo 7y ago
    You seem to have a very different definition of easy than I do. That Twitter does an equivalent job of policing bulk account creation as their peers just means that it is also just as easy to create accounts at Twitter's peers.
aritmo 7y ago
Do these account creations require to supply a mobile phone number?
- Terretta 7y ago
  With [redacted subset] it’s possible to use an account creation path that doesn’t trigger a phone number requirement. A single misstep or threshold crossed, though, and even that path will trigger the requirement.
  - tudelo 7y ago
    > [redacted subset] why?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
8bitsrule 7y ago
I clicked on their 'Platform manipulation' link to find out what they mean by that phrase. Early on it says: "We want Twitter to be a place where people can make human connections, find reliable information, and express themselves freely and safely." I don't see how bulk-created accounts are consistent with that 'mission' statement. What kind of 'human connection' might result from a bulk account someone paid Twitter to create? How 'reliable' might info from a bulk account be? Why else would someone create a bulk account, except to manipulate people? Appears they're blind to their own hypocrisy? Further on, at the top of their manipulations list they mention "commercially-motivated spam, that typically aims to drive traffic or attention from a conversation on Twitter to ..." Yeah. Uh, the Twitter feed contains a constant gush of paid-for spam that is intended to do exactly that.
- notatoad 7y ago
  I think you misunderstand. You cannot pay twitter (or facebook, google, or any other platform) to create accounts in bulk. that's not a service they provide. Spammers sell accounts in bulk that they have illicitly created or gained access to. Measuring how much those "bulk accounts" cost relative to accounts on other similarly desirable platforms is an effective way to measure how effective a platform is at rooting out spammers and preventing fake & bulk-purchased accounts.
  - 8bitsrule 7y ago
    It's easy to misunderstand; that was exactly my point. The statement about "commercially-motivated spam, that typically aims to drive traffic or attention from a conversation on Twitter to ..." applies perfectly to all of the paid-for advertising. Ever have a problem on Twitter finding your threads because of the 'commercially-motivated spam' of paid-for ads thickly laid on? Ever miss seeing a message someone left? The ads obviously and continuously break up the conversation between human beings to encourage them to visit promotional sites. The difference between paid and unpaid spam is an economical one for Twitter; for the user its a deluge of distractions. You could argue that the paid-for commercial advertising is 'saner' or 'nicer' or 'less damaging' than the agenda-pushing bulk accounts. But in the end, both are 'manipulating the platform'. 'Making human connections' has become an ancillary goal.
onionjake 7y ago
Where do you find information like this?

by jsnell 7y ago

shkkmo 7y ago

That seems pretty easy to me. I'm not sure what premise you think are are challenging by posting prices per account that are under 20 cents each....

jsnell 7y ago
The part where @latchkey thought Twitter was doing a bad job at policing bulk account creation, and @samdoidge though it was obviously because they want those bulk accounts. In fact Twitter appears to be doing about as well as most of their peers in preventing bulk creation. 20 cents a pop for a process that should take 10 seconds and should in theory be easy to automate and parallelize for anyone with even basic programming skills? If it were actually easy, that'd be a goldmine.
- shkkmo 7y ago
  You seem to have a very different definition of easy than I do. That Twitter does an equivalent job of policing bulk account creation as their peers just means that it is also just as easy to create accounts at Twitter's peers.

aritmo 7y ago

Do these account creations require to supply a mobile phone number?

Terretta 7y ago
With [redacted subset] it’s possible to use an account creation path that doesn’t trigger a phone number requirement. A single misstep or threshold crossed, though, and even that path will trigger the requirement.
- tudelo 7y ago
  > [redacted subset] why?
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

8bitsrule 7y ago

I clicked on their 'Platform manipulation' link to find out what they mean by that phrase. Early on it says: "We want Twitter to be a place where people can make human connections, find reliable information, and express themselves freely and safely." I don't see how bulk-created accounts are consistent with that 'mission' statement. What kind of 'human connection' might result from a bulk account someone paid Twitter to create? How 'reliable' might info from a bulk account be? Why else would someone create a bulk account, except to manipulate people? Appears they're blind to their own hypocrisy? Further on, at the top of their manipulations list they mention "commercially-motivated spam, that typically aims to drive traffic or attention from a conversation on Twitter to ..." Yeah. Uh, the Twitter feed contains a constant gush of paid-for spam that is intended to do exactly that.

notatoad 7y ago
I think you misunderstand. You cannot pay twitter (or facebook, google, or any other platform) to create accounts in bulk. that's not a service they provide. Spammers sell accounts in bulk that they have illicitly created or gained access to. Measuring how much those "bulk accounts" cost relative to accounts on other similarly desirable platforms is an effective way to measure how effective a platform is at rooting out spammers and preventing fake & bulk-purchased accounts.
- 8bitsrule 7y ago
  It's easy to misunderstand; that was exactly my point. The statement about "commercially-motivated spam, that typically aims to drive traffic or attention from a conversation on Twitter to ..." applies perfectly to all of the paid-for advertising. Ever have a problem on Twitter finding your threads because of the 'commercially-motivated spam' of paid-for ads thickly laid on? Ever miss seeing a message someone left? The ads obviously and continuously break up the conversation between human beings to encourage them to visit promotional sites. The difference between paid and unpaid spam is an economical one for Twitter; for the user its a deluge of distractions. You could argue that the paid-for commercial advertising is 'saner' or 'nicer' or 'less damaging' than the agenda-pushing bulk accounts. But in the end, both are 'manipulating the platform'. 'Making human connections' has become an ancillary goal.

onionjake 7y ago

Where do you find information like this?