Twitter says that less than 5% of accounts are bots, Musk has suggested that it is around 90%. Twitter will not say how they calculated 5%. It seems a bit more than a “lame bot claim” considering future revenue was to be based on advertising to actual individuals.
It matters because the advertisers are paying for eyeballs on their content. 10 million views by real people are much more valuable than 1 million views. Don’t you get that?
Yes it is relevant, because the entire journalism industry feeds off twitter
Yes, that is also stupid, but it is the way it is… which is why it does matter if there are fake voices twisting the conversation.
William Simonds
1 year ago
Twitter is begging him to buy them, and the social media giant has lost significant prestige and integrity.
Wait! What? To my knowledge Twitter has no integrity…it authors nothing, creates nothing, contributes nothing. It simply has the power to decide who gets to post and not post, and has done a very poor job of displaying any type of integrity in that regard. The same can be said of prestige. Twitter itself has no prestige. It depends on the prestige of its “tweeters” for that. And given that the vast majority are totally unknown, a significant number of them are trolls, and (if Musk is right) many, if not a majority are “bots” and not actual people, what prestige does Twitter actually have? It seems to me the world is watching this with a largely bemused attitude, anticipating the inevitable bust of something that was hyped to have incredible substance but everyone knows has no substance at all. We’re all standing off, observing a slow motion train wreck in process. It is entertainment at best. It is definitely not news.
Jason Highley
1 year ago
They’re both getting what they deserve. Musk is a showman who flouts SEC at every turn. Twitter is a cesspool that the world would be better off without. That’s why it’s hilarious watching supposedly smart people wrangle with the question Musk begged: How much is Twitter worth? Turns out… nobody can find out what value it really offers to society. In the hysterical claim that it’s the last best hope for a digital town square, all of Twitter’s competitors who actually stand up for free speech (most notably Gab) are standing off to the side chuckling, wondering when everyone else will wake up from their Stockholm Syndrome.
Jeff Cunningham
1 year ago
I’ve wondered if this, like that weird exercise awhile back wherein Musk left it up to a twit-vote whether or not he sold a significant chunk of Tesla stock, weren’t both clever ways to allow him to sell some of his stock without driving it’s price down in the process.
Douglas McNeish
1 year ago
In addition to showing he can do what he likes, as the author points out, Musk also reveals the base motives of the woke corporate and media elites behind their sanctimonious smokescreens.
polidori redux
1 year ago
I don’t drive a Tesla and I don’t use Twitter. I really don’t care about this gang of doolallies and their fanatasies of achieving world supremacy
Twitter says that less than 5% of accounts are bots, Musk has suggested that it is around 90%. Twitter will not say how they calculated 5%. It seems a bit more than a “lame bot claim” considering future revenue was to be based on advertising to actual individuals.
Does it really matter whether these accounts are fake or genuine? Either way, the content is worthless.
Worthless to you and me, yes. But we all know people that get, read and respond to dozens of tweets every day.
It matters because the advertisers are paying for eyeballs on their content. 10 million views by real people are much more valuable than 1 million views. Don’t you get that?
Yes it is relevant, because the entire journalism industry feeds off twitter
Yes, that is also stupid, but it is the way it is… which is why it does matter if there are fake voices twisting the conversation.
Wait! What? To my knowledge Twitter has no integrity…it authors nothing, creates nothing, contributes nothing. It simply has the power to decide who gets to post and not post, and has done a very poor job of displaying any type of integrity in that regard.
The same can be said of prestige. Twitter itself has no prestige. It depends on the prestige of its “tweeters” for that. And given that the vast majority are totally unknown, a significant number of them are trolls, and (if Musk is right) many, if not a majority are “bots” and not actual people, what prestige does Twitter actually have?
It seems to me the world is watching this with a largely bemused attitude, anticipating the inevitable bust of something that was hyped to have incredible substance but everyone knows has no substance at all. We’re all standing off, observing a slow motion train wreck in process. It is entertainment at best. It is definitely not news.
They’re both getting what they deserve. Musk is a showman who flouts SEC at every turn. Twitter is a cesspool that the world would be better off without. That’s why it’s hilarious watching supposedly smart people wrangle with the question Musk begged: How much is Twitter worth? Turns out… nobody can find out what value it really offers to society. In the hysterical claim that it’s the last best hope for a digital town square, all of Twitter’s competitors who actually stand up for free speech (most notably Gab) are standing off to the side chuckling, wondering when everyone else will wake up from their Stockholm Syndrome.
I’ve wondered if this, like that weird exercise awhile back wherein Musk left it up to a twit-vote whether or not he sold a significant chunk of Tesla stock, weren’t both clever ways to allow him to sell some of his stock without driving it’s price down in the process.
In addition to showing he can do what he likes, as the author points out, Musk also reveals the base motives of the woke corporate and media elites behind their sanctimonious smokescreens.
I don’t drive a Tesla and I don’t use Twitter. I really don’t care about this gang of doolallies and their fanatasies of achieving world supremacy