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> that it has knowingly been massively understating the number of bot accounts in order to trick companies into buying Twitter ads and shareholders into buying
by hartator 4y ago
> that it has knowingly been massively understating the number of bot accounts in order to trick companies into buying Twitter ads and shareholders into buying Twitter stock
Wasn’t Google Ads 80% fake clicks on some studies? It won’t be surprising Twitter Ads is actually worse. There is so zero incentive to clean it up and so many shady reasons to do it.
- tptacek 4y agoThat might actually hurt Musk's argument, because Google is incredibly lucrative despite the belief that ad clicks are overwhelmingly fake. The rule of thumb Levine (an attorney) gave a few posts ago for MAE's in Delaware courts is "sufficient to cause a 40% drop in profitability". Not stock price, not mDAU numbers, but income statements.
- digianarchist 4y ago> That might actually hurt Musk's argument, because Google is incredibly lucrative despite the belief that ad clicks are overwhelmingly fake. They're still charging advertisers for those clicks.
- tptacek 4y agoYes, and?
- digianarchist 4y agoI don’t think it quite aligns with monetizing a user base with a large portion of fake users. Plus the advertisements are distributed unlike Twitter.
- morelisp 4y agoIf the claimed rate of fake clicks is significantly wrong advertisers are unhappy. But whether it's high is irrelevant. For an advertiser, $1 per click with 0% fake or $0.50 per click with 50% fake are equivalent, except the first one requires tremendous overhead to maintain likely making the whole endeavor less efficient.
- anonu 4y agoFake clicks and bot accounts are two distinct things in my opinion. Bot accounts are bad, fake clicks are much much worse.
- hedora 4y agoIt depends on your perspective. As far as I'm concerned the whole target advertising industry is a blight on society. The more click fraud undermines it, the better. On then other hand, bot accounts help get bozos elected, encourage mass shootings, etc. Come to think of it, I don't think it depends on your perspective. Bot accounts are a much bigger issue than click fraud.
- dylan604 4y agoBut who does the click fraud ultimately hurt? It's not Googs. They get paid for the clicks. The people spending the money on Goog's platform are the ones hurt. Why would Googs want to put a stop to it?
- sp527 4y ago> The people spending the money on Goog's platform are the ones hurt. It goes deeper. The increased marketing costs due to the 'fraud tax' are passed through to customers. So it's we the people who are getting screwed by fraud.
- bmitc 4y agoTesla bots are some of the most active on Twitter, or at least some of the most efficient in achieving their goal of manipulating Tesla interest, sentiment, and ultimately stock price. Musk knows this. I wouldn't be surprised if he knows who controls these bots.
- kreetx 4y agoCan you point to more information on this?
- bmitc 4y agohttps://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/research/twitter-bots-boost-tesla https://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/research/twitter-bots-boost-tesl... https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-04-12/musk-is-off-the-twitter-board-of-directors-the-tesla-twitter-bot-army-marches-on https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-04-12/musk-is-of... I couldn't find if the research paper has been published yet or not.