Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal launched a lengthy thread about spam today in response to Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s proposed acquisition of the microblogging website. Mr. Agrawal described Twitter’s “human evaluation” of suspected spam, to which Mr. Musk responded, “Have you tried just calling them?” Tesla’s CEO also used the “pile of poo” emoticon.
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— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 16, 2022
Mr. Musk has stated that he would like to see bots deleted from Twitter, which is one of several adjustments he has suggested recently.
In today’s thread, Mr. Agrawal stated said he would address spam with the benefit of data, facts, and context.
“First, let me state the obvious: spam harms the experience for real people on Twitter, and therefore can harm our business. As such, we are strongly incentivized to detect and remove as much spam as we possibly can, every single day. Anyone who suggests otherwise is just wrng “Twitter’s CEO stated.
The hard challenge is that many accounts which look fake superficially – are actually real people. And some of the spam accounts which are actually the most dangerous – and cause the most harm to our users – can look totally legitimate on the surface.
— Parag Agrawal (@paraga) May 16, 2022
Mr. Musk’s lengthy thread on spam comes as he sends contradictory signals about his $44 billion takeovers, which have been placed “temporarily on hold” because of concerns over the social media company’s estimations of the number of bogus accounts or “bots.”
While the dependability of user statistics is a crucial metric for judging Twitter and other social media companies’ earnings, analysts regarded Mr. Musk’s tweets as an attempt to back out of the arrangement or to force a cheaper price.
Have you tried just calling them?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 16, 2022
Mr. Musk is currently the world’s wealthiest person, according to Forbes, with a fortune of $232 billion, the majority of which is in Tesla stock. Mr. Musk’s pursuit of Twitter astonished many investors, who saw him as an iconoclastic genius by his supporters and an unpredictable megalomaniac by his detractors.
Mr. Musk has stated that his goal for purchasing Twitter was to ensure free speech on the platform and to increase monetization of the website, which is influential in media and political circles but has failed to achieve profitable growth.
Mr. Musk indicated this week that he supports restoring the ban on Donald Trump, who was thrown from the platform in January 2021 after his efforts to overturn his election defeat resulted in the January 6 assault on the US Capitol.
