{"id":1485021,"date":"2022-05-19T21:46:10","date_gmt":"2022-05-20T01:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1485021"},"modified":"2022-05-19T21:46:15","modified_gmt":"2022-05-20T01:46:15","slug":"twitter-is-between-a-bot-and-a-hard-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/twitter-is-between-a-bot-and-a-hard-place\/","title":{"rendered":"Twitter Is Between A Bot And A Hard Place"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ftwitter-is-between-a-bot-and-a-hard-place%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1485021&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2022\/05\/Readers-Pass-Rex-Elon-TBD16x9-scaled.jpg?w=1200&#038;h=800&#038;ixlib=react-9.3.0\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p><span>The media thinks Twitter finally has Elon Musk over a barrel. After agreeing to buy the social media giant, he\u2019s now holding up the deal while trying to discover what percentage of Twitter users are really robots. The media reports that\u00a0 Twitter might <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/finance.yahoo.com\/news\/twitter-says-committed-enforcing-elon-034301886.html\"><span>\u00a0<\/span><span>force Musk to go ahead with the deal<\/span><\/a><span>, and if he doesn\u2019t, he could pay<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2022\/05\/17\/elon-musk-wants-sec-to-probe-twitters-daily-user-numbers\/\"> <span>\u00a0over a billion dollars in penalties<\/span><\/a><span>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>But the media has it backwards. It\u2019s Elon Musk who\u2019s doing the right thing and has all the power. He has Twitter between a bot and a hard place \u2013 not the other way around.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>I say this as a tech CEO who\u2019s negotiated hundreds of business deals over the past decade. The only good deals are based on full honesty and transparency. Yet the more we learn about Twitter, the more it looks like the company could be holding back the truth. Musk, and the rest of America, are rightly wondering: What percentage of Twitter is totally fake?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>If you listen to the company, the answer is essentially: there is nothing to see here. In legally binding federal filings, Twitter has said that<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/technology\/2022\/05\/17\/elon-musk-twitter-deal-proof-bots\/\"> <span>only 5% of its users are bots<\/span><\/a><span>. Yet at times, it<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/technology\/2022\/05\/17\/elon-musk-twitter-deal-proof-bots\/\"> <span>also says the number<\/span><\/a><span> \u201ccould be higher.\u201d That\u2019s the sort of statement that demands to be unpacked, yet to date, Twitter has failed to do so. What\u2019s worse, this week it<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.financialexpress.com\/industry\/technology\/twitter-fake-accounts-bots-parag-agarwal-elon-musk\/2528301\/\"> <span>refused to make public how it reached that 5% claim<\/span><\/a><span>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>This is totally unacceptable, especially for someone who wants to buy the company at the<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/finance.yahoo.com\/news\/twitter-says-committed-enforcing-elon-034301886.html\"> <span>enormous cost of $44 billion<\/span><\/a><span>. Twitter might be deliberately lying, completely incompetent, or maybe both. No wonder Musk is seeking answers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>He\u2019s asking the right question. Basically anyone who\u2019s ever used Twitter already knows that huge numbers of users are bots, and based on my own experience on the platform, I\u2019d say the real number is well over 5%. Everyone I\u2019ve ever talked to says the same thing. Sure enough, independent research has found that<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/sparktoro.com\/blog\/sparktoro-followerwonk-joint-twitter-analysis-19-42-of-active-accounts-are-fake-or-spam\/\"> <span>about 20% of active Twitter users<\/span><\/a><span> are either fake accounts or spam.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The real total may be even higher. Musk himself has drawn attention to an audit finding that<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.republicworld.com\/technology-news\/social-media-news\/elon-musk-reacts-to-report-claiming-half-of-joe-bidens-22-mn-twitter-followers-are-fake-articleshow.html\"> <span>half of President Biden\u2019s 22 million followers are fake<\/span><\/a><span>. A similar process found that<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/sparktoro.com\/blog\/sparktoro-followerwonk-joint-twitter-analysis-19-42-of-active-accounts-are-fake-or-spam\/\"><span> about 70% of Musk\u2019s followers<\/span><\/a><span> may not be \u201cauthentic, active\u201d Twitter users. How can that be, if Twitter<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/paraga\/status\/1526237583058952192\"><span> deletes half a million fake accounts every day<\/span><\/a><span> as it claims it does?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The media thinks Musk\u2019s fake followers are hypocritical, but that\u2019s not his fault. It only proves his point that Twitter needs to come clean. If it can\u2019t figure out who\u2019s following the leader of the free world, to say nothing of its future owner, there\u2019s a low chance Twitter knows what\u2019s happening on the rest of the platform.<\/span><span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Elon Musk has every right to demand the truth. If it turns out that Twitter has more fake users than it admits, he also has every right to demand a lower price before buying the company.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Here\u2019s my suggestion: For every 1% of Twitter users beyond 5% that are fake, Musk should pay 1% less. So if he\u2019s right that 20% of accounts are bots, then he should pay 15% less. (Personally, I\u2019d demand an even steeper discount, given Twitter\u2019s track record of censorship. Violating free speech doesn\u2019t deserve full price.)<\/span><span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>One thing\u2019s for sure: Twitter needs Elon Musk more than Elon Musk needs Twitter. The total lack of clarity around bots is just the latest proof that the social media giant is poorly run. It desperately needs a real visionary and true entrepreneur at the helm. Only then will it reach its true potential. And Elon Musk has the drive and desire to make Twitter what it should have been all along: A place for people and free speech, not bots and Big Tech censorship.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span>Peter Rex is founder and CEO of Rex, which builds and invests in tech companies<\/span><\/i><span>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The media thinks Twitter finally has Elon Musk over a barrel. After agreeing to buy the social media giant, he\u2019s now holding up the deal while trying to discover what<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":355,"featured_media":1485027,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1485021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1485021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/355"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1485021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1485021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1485027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1485021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1485021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1485021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}