Elon Musk said on Saturday that his planned $44 billion takeover of Twitter should come to fruition if the company can confirm some details about how it measures whether user accounts are spam/bots or real people. This is an absolutely simple requirement that is easy to fulfill and does not compromise the protection of user data.
“If Twitter simply provides their method of sampling 100 accounts and how they're confirmed to be real, the deal should proceed on original terms,” Musk tweeted. “However, if it turns out that their SEC filings are materially false, then it should not.”
Good summary of the problem.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 6, 2022
If Twitter simply provides their method of sampling 100 accounts and how they’re confirmed to be real, the deal should proceed on original terms.
However, if it turns out that their SEC filings are materially false, then it should not.
Musk backed out of his April deal to buy the social network after data hinted that Twitter was hiding the real number of spam/bot accounts, which should in fact be a key metric for working with its customers. This also came after Twitter refused to provide any information that could confirm or disprove the veracity of an allegation of misleading the platform's customers.
After Musk backed out of the deal, Twitter sued him to force him to complete the acquisition. In turn, Musk countersued, accusing Twitter of misleading his team about its user base and other issues that amount to fraud and breach of contract.
For several years, Twitter has reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) an estimate that less than 5 percent of user accounts are fake or spam. Apparently, it is convenient for the regulator to ignore the existence of a problem, even after it has been publicly raised.
© 2022, Eva Fox | Tesmanian. All rights reserved.
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Article edited by @SmokeyShorts, you can follow him on Twitter