{"id":456328,"date":"2022-06-01T20:40:11","date_gmt":"2022-06-01T17:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/elon-musk-should-make-twitter-bot-army-for-tests-ex-engineer\/"},"modified":"2022-06-01T20:40:11","modified_gmt":"2022-06-01T17:40:11","slug":"elon-musk-should-make-twitter-bot-army-for-tests-ex-engineer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/elon-musk-should-make-twitter-bot-army-for-tests-ex-engineer\/","title":{"rendered":"#Elon Musk should make Twitter bot army for tests: ex-engineer"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_84 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a25702051a23\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a25702051a23\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-1'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/elon-musk-should-make-twitter-bot-army-for-tests-ex-engineer\/#%E2%80%9CElon_Musk_should_make_Twitter_bot_army_for_tests_ex-engineer%E2%80%9D\" >&#8220;Elon Musk should make Twitter bot army for tests: ex-engineer&#8221;<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h1><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"%E2%80%9CElon_Musk_should_make_Twitter_bot_army_for_tests_ex-engineer%E2%80%9D\"><\/span>&#8220;Elon Musk should make Twitter bot army for tests: ex-engineer&#8221;<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h1>\n<div>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module alignleft\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>A former <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Twitter<\/a> engineer has a novel idea for Elon Musk to test how many fake users are on the site: secretly create his own army of bots.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Musk, who\u2019s currently locked into a $44 billion agreement to buy Twitter, has suggested that as many as 20% of Twitter accounts are fake or spam \u2014 four times as many bots as Twitter claims. The Tesla CEO has said his takeover is \u201con hold\u201d as he awaits proof from Twitter that \u201cspam\/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Twitter has insisted in regulatory filings it has strong spam detection systems, that the 5% figure is accurate and it plans to go through with the deal. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Now, an ex-Twitter engineer says the best way for Musk to theoretically \u201cde-legitimize Twitter\u2019s bot count\u201d would be for him to create his own spam army.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would try to spin-up a bot farm,\u201d the unnamed engineer, who worked for Twitter\u2019s mobile advertising business, said in a recent interview circulated in a note from investment bank Jefferies. \u201cOnce spun-up, I would then create millions of fake accounts, and then disclose this to the Twitter board and the world.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf such a strategy was successful, this would\/could legitimize Musk\u2019s statements regarding bot count,\u201d the ex-employee added in the note. \u201cIt would be a lot cheaper than paying the $1bn termination fee if I was Musk!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/twitter-04-1.jpg?w=1024\" alt=\"Twitter\" class=\"wp-image-22489457\" width=\"618\" height=\"411\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/twitter-04-1.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1233 1236w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/twitter-04-1.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all&amp;w=925 927w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/twitter-04-1.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all&amp;w=618 618w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/twitter-04-1.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all&amp;w=308 309w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/twitter-04-1.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 618px) 100vw, 618px\"\/><figcaption>Elon Musk has claimed that 20% or more of Twitter accounts could be bots. <\/figcaption><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">Anadolu Agency via Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In order to prevent Twitter from taking action, Musk would have to create the bot farm in secret, the ex-employee said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe just needs to quietly fund a team to do so, and I would via crypto to cover my tracks,\u201d said the former engineer, who worked for Twitter\u2019s mobile adverting business, which was called MoPub and was <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/technology\/twitter-sell-mopub-applovin-105-billion-2021-10-06\/#:~:text=Oct%206%20(Reuters)%20-%20Twitter,its%20own%20app%20and%20website.\">sold off<\/a> in 2021.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The note was sent out to Jefferies clients on Friday and was exclusively obtained by The Post. Twitter did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and Jefferies declined comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/Jefferies-Financial-32.jpg?w=1024\" alt=\"Jefferies\" class=\"wp-image-22489479\" width=\"618\" height=\"411\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/Jefferies-Financial-32.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1233 1236w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/Jefferies-Financial-32.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all&amp;w=925 927w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/Jefferies-Financial-32.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all&amp;w=618 618w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/Jefferies-Financial-32.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all&amp;w=308 309w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/Jefferies-Financial-32.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 618px) 100vw, 618px\"\/><figcaption>The engineer outlined the theoretical strategy in a note from investment bank Jefferies. <\/figcaption><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Elsewhere in the Jefferies note, the ex-Twitter employee threw cold water on the idea that a huge proportion of Twitter accounts are bots.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module alignright\">\n    <\/aside>\n<p>\u201cI would be very surprised to learn that the 5% number was meaningfully different and the company KNEW it was meaningfully different,\u201d the ex-employee said. \u201cThere are a bunch of very smart people working on this and my inclination is that they mostly got this right.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAre there things that they may not have caught, and could someone point and say the number is really 8-10%?\u201d the ex-employee added. \u201cSure. But that seems within a reasonable margin of error in my view. Could it be 25-50%? I really doubt it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The former employee also said Twitter uses various systems to detect bots, including monitoring whether users are scrolling or liking too many tweets at an unreasonably fast speed. <\/p>\n<p>Twitter\u2019s advertisers also use third-party analysis to verify Twitter\u2019s claims and would\u2019ve likely caught any widespread proliferation of bots, the ex-employee said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAdvertisers hire technically savvy employees that are aware\/can evaluate the impact of bots on their ad campaigns,\u201d the engineer said. \u201cIt would be very difficult to \u2018hide\u2019 a meaningfully inaccurate 5% bot count at Twitter.\u201d\u00a0\n                        <\/p><\/div>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News<\/a> articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/news\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2022\/06\/01\/elon-musk-should-make-twitter-bot-army-for-tests-ex-engineer\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Elon Musk should make Twitter bot army for tests: ex-engineer&#8221; A former Twitter engineer has a novel idea for Elon Musk to test how many fake users are on the site: secretly create his own army of bots.\u00a0 Musk, who\u2019s currently locked into a $44 billion agreement to buy Twitter, has suggested that as many&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":456329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/elon_33.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1024","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[129804,90950,39394,4976,87229,10401],"class_list":["post-456328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-6-1-22","tag-bots","tag-elon-musk","tag-social-media","tag-spam","tag-twitter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}