Twitter chief executive Parag Agrawal posted on Monday that internal estimates of fake accounts on the social media platform over the past four quarters were “well below 5%”, responding to criticism from buyer Elon Musk. the company’s treatment of spam or fraudulent accounts.
Agrawal said Twitter’s estimate, which has remained the same since 2013, cannot be reproduced externally given the need to use public and private information to determine whether an account is spam.
Musk, who on Friday said his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter is “temporarily on hold” pending information about spam accounts, responded to Agrawal’s explanation of the company’s methodology with a poop emoji.
“So how do advertisers know what they’re getting for their money? This is critical to Twitter’s financial health,” Musk wrote.
Shortly after his tweets, Musk told a private conference in Miami that he suspects bots (short for “robots,” or automated accounts) make up about 20% to 25% of users, according to tweets from attendees.
Twitter shares tumbled on Monday below levels prior to Musk’s disclosure of his 9.2% stake in the company in early April.
Shares fell 7.7% to $37.50 a share in afternoon trading. That compares to the closing price of $39.31 on April 1, the last day of trading before Musk revealed his stake.
Musk has promised changes to Twitter’s content moderation practices, protesting decisions he considers overly aggressive, such as former President Donald Trump’s ban, while also pledging to crack down on “spam bots” on the platform.
Musk called for testing random samples of Twitter users to identify bots and said he has yet to see “any” analysis that shows spam accounts make up less than 5% of the user base.
Musk said on Sunday that “there is a possibility that it is more than 90% of daily active users.”
Independent researchers have estimated that 9% to 15% of the millions of Twitter profiles are bots.
Currently, Twitter does not require users to register using their real identities, and automated, parody and pseudonym profiles are allowed on the platform.
It prohibits impersonation and spamming, and it penalizes accounts when the company determines that its purpose is to “deceive or manipulate others” by involving them in scams, coordinating abuse campaigns, or artificially inflating engagement.
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