Elon Musk is accusing Twitter of cheating for hiding the real number of bots on his platform, according to New York Times. In the latest installment of the Twitter-vs-Musk saga, the Tesla team of directors stated in a regulatory filing that 10% of the social network’s daily active users who see ads are unauthenticated accounts. If you recall, Twitter has long maintained that programs represent less than 5% of its user base, and Musk laid out his plan. social network acquisition is paused mid-July to confirm if that’s correct.
The Tesla and SpaceX chief, who is also a prolific Twitter user, kicked off an aggressive takeover of the social network in April after it became the company’s largest shareholder. While Twitter quickly accepted his offer, it looked at the number of fake accounts on the platform soon after – he also accused the company of not giving him access to enough information to verify the number of bots on the site. Twitter gave him full access to its internal data in return, but in the end, Musk told the Securities and Exchange Commission that he wanted end the acquisition of “false and misleading representations” made by the social network.
Twitter sue its largest shareholder for trying to withdraw his $44 billion buyout agreement, told the court that Musk had wrongfully breached their agreement in doing so. The website accused him back because the shares of Tesla and Twitter have gone down due to the recession and “the deal he signed no longer serves his personal interests.”
In this new filing, Musk’s camp says its analysts have found a much higher number of unauthenticated accounts than Twitter has claimed to use. Botometer. It’s a machine learning algorithm designed by Indiana University that “checks the activity of Twitter accounts and gives them a score based on how likely they are to become a bot.” Musk’s lawyers say the social network hid its bot problem to get Musk to agree to buy the company “at an excessively high price.” They also said:
“Twitter misreported the number of fake and spam accounts on its platform, as part of a scheme to mislead investors about the company’s prospects. Twitter’s revelations have gradually come to light. evident, with Twitter frantically shutting down information in a desperate attempt to prevent Musk’s parties from uncovering its fraud.”
Twitter hit back with its own legal filing, calling his claims “factually inaccurate, legally incomplete, and commercially irrelevant.” The company says Botometer is unreliable and once gave Musk’s Twitter account a score indicating it was “most likely a bot.” Twitter’s lawsuit against Musk will go to court in October.
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