4 ms·

only 5 percent is real users IMHO

antisthenes 4y ago
It's actually completely irrelevant how many there are. There's no real difference between a spam/bot account and some random troll with too much time on their hands who just retweets posts from a flame war.
- Justin_K 4y ago
  Tell that to paying advertisers
  - 8note 4y ago
    What are they paying for though? Influence on twitter? You don't need real users for that, just promotion with the algorithm
- g42gregory 4y ago
  It’s relevant to the advertisers who are paying per impression. Bots are not going to buy their products.
- midislack 4y ago
  It's relevant because if there are more they lied to Musk and he can pay less money, possibly much MUCH less.
  - ImPostingOnHN 4y ago
    and if his unsubstantiated pretext to back out of the deal remains unsubstantiated, he cannot
    - midislack 4y ago
      That's why Twitter will be made to provide better information to Musk as this goes along. There are many ways of determining if some account is a bot for sure, Twitter likely tracks all kinds of standard things like mouse position in the window, scrolling behavior, etc. which could easily discern a bot from a human. He's clearly not falling for the 5% number, and he shouldn't. 90% sounds low.
      - ImPostingOnHN 4y ago
        musk can request however much info he wants, but no amount of bad faith requests serving as a pretext for what is clearly a deep, economic-based regret will give him control over the deal now that he's signed a contract if you ask me, "I can't tell if there are bots on twitter" seems like a really good reason to not tender an offer until you can, but then again, I'm not as impulsive as Elon in any case, didn't he claim he was doing this for free speech and not money? Why should bot counts and advertisee eyeballs matter in that case? Not that I am one of the people who believes his oft-outlandish assertions and poop tweets anyways.
        midislack 4y ago
        Heh, who cares if Twitter was knowingly misleading investors for years!

It's actually completely irrelevant how many there are. There's no real difference between a spam/bot account and some random troll with too much time on their hands who just retweets posts from a flame war.

Justin_K 4y ago
Tell that to paying advertisers
- 8note 4y ago
  What are they paying for though? Influence on twitter? You don't need real users for that, just promotion with the algorithm
g42gregory 4y ago
It’s relevant to the advertisers who are paying per impression. Bots are not going to buy their products.
midislack 4y ago
It's relevant because if there are more they lied to Musk and he can pay less money, possibly much MUCH less.
- ImPostingOnHN 4y ago
  and if his unsubstantiated pretext to back out of the deal remains unsubstantiated, he cannot
  - midislack 4y ago
    That's why Twitter will be made to provide better information to Musk as this goes along. There are many ways of determining if some account is a bot for sure, Twitter likely tracks all kinds of standard things like mouse position in the window, scrolling behavior, etc. which could easily discern a bot from a human. He's clearly not falling for the 5% number, and he shouldn't. 90% sounds low.
    - ImPostingOnHN 4y ago
      musk can request however much info he wants, but no amount of bad faith requests serving as a pretext for what is clearly a deep, economic-based regret will give him control over the deal now that he's signed a contract if you ask me, "I can't tell if there are bots on twitter" seems like a really good reason to not tender an offer until you can, but then again, I'm not as impulsive as Elon in any case, didn't he claim he was doing this for free speech and not money? Why should bot counts and advertisee eyeballs matter in that case? Not that I am one of the people who believes his oft-outlandish assertions and poop tweets anyways.
      - midislack 4y ago
        Heh, who cares if Twitter was knowingly misleading investors for years!