Twitter Comes Under Investigation by Texas Prosecutors over Alleged Fake Accounts

Twitter continues to be in the spotlight and has now come under investigation by the Texas Attorney's Office due to its alleged fake accounts. According to the prosecutor, Twitter is suspected of potentially deceiving Texas consumers and businesses.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has launched a Civil Investigative Demand (CID) into the social media company, Twitter, over alleged fake accounts. Paxton argues that Twitter could potentially deceive Texas consumers and businesses in violation of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. This, in turn, can be detrimental to both ordinary people and companies that use the platform to make money.

“Texans rely on Twitter’s public statements that nearly all its users are real people. It matters not only for regular Twitter users, but also Texas businesses and advertisers who use Twitter for their livelihoods,” said Attorney General Paxton. “If Twitter is misrepresenting how many accounts are fake to drive up their revenue, I have a duty to protect Texans.”

Twitter reportedly has until June 27 to respond to Paxton's civil investigation demand to hand over documents relating to how it calculates and manages its user data, and how the numbers relate to Twitter's advertising business. Recent small independent research has shown that the platform can use fake accounts to increase interactions with tweets from companies and advertisers, giving the impression that real people are interested in the advertised topic or product.

Me: 👋, Twitter, the number of fake/spam/automated mDAU accounts is much higher than you estimated. I found that spam accs share porn content (which is not allowed on your platform) and interact in sponsored tweets.

Software engineering manager at Twitter: https://t.co/aFNcX0fodD

— Andrea Stroppa (@Andst7) May 24, 2022

The actual number of fake accounts on Twitter came into question after the company said in its Q1 2022 filing that the number of fake and spam accounts was less than 5%. Against the backdrop of Elon Musk making an offer to buy the platform, he raised the question of whether this is true or not. Independent studies indicate that the number of fake accounts can be as high as 15%, although some data show even more than 20%.

Musk asked Twitter for confirmation of the data in order to clarify the status of the platform before its purchase is completed. The social network ignored all the requests of the buyer, depriving him of the right to receive information. A new Texas investigation indicates that Twitter may have to face the consequences of its behavior and company politics.

© 2022, Eva Fox | Tesmanian. All rights reserved.

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Article edited by @SmokeyShorts, you can follow him on Twitter

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