Recently, Elon Musk initiated a hostile takeover of Twitter, giving them an offer they couldn’t refuse and of course, they didn’t. However, shortly after his offer was accepted, Musk made a major discovery about the platform that has caused him to think twice about his deal.
The problem is bots. More specifically, how the platform handles these bots. And while some are saying it’s just an excuse that he is using to get out of the deal, there are very real implications for an ad-based platform being covered in bots.
First and foremost, rival companies can create bots that click on the ads of their competitor to skew their analytics. In other cases, bots can be used to flood a site with traffic, which causes a DOS (denial of service attack.)
“Bots are created to mimic a human being’s behavior to benefit the proprietor of said bot,” explains Guy Tytunovich to Insider.
During a tech conference in Miami, Musk said that at least 20% of Twitter accounts are bots, and quite possibly up to 90%. However, Twitter disagrees with this statement and says that only 5% of the platform’s users are bots.
The problem is, that Twitter allows bots, and has even gone as far as to give accounts the option to indicate that they are automated. However, if an account is flagged as suspicious, a reCAPTCHA is necessary to get back into the platform.
Due to the bots, it is possible that Musk could walk away from the deal altogether, or at the very least, renegotiate, since the more bots there are on the site, the more likely the site is to produce authentic revenue. One of Elon’s goals (if he moves forward) is to remove the spambots from the site and authenticate all of the humans using the site. He has even said he might require ID.
But, for now, until Twitter becomes more transparent, the deal could likely fall through. Musk recently said, “How do advertisers know what they’re getting for their money? This is fundamental to the financial health of Twitter.”
Since Twitter refused to hand over its data to Musk, things are at a standstill. But, there is speculation that the tides are turning. We will have to watch and see.