The boss of Twitter explained for a long time on Monday on the social network the measures taken to combat false accounts after criticisms issued by Elon Musk.
Le Monde with AFP
The whimsical entrepreneur, who set out to buy Twitter and filed an offer at $ 44 billion at the end of April, sowed confusion on his intentions last week, affirming a time that ‘Operation was pending due to his doubts about the real proportion of spam and false accounts on the platform.
The boss of Twitter split on the social network on Monday of a long explanation on the measures taken to fight against false accounts after the criticisms issued by Elon Musk. “First of all, allow me to state the evidence: spams harm the experience of real people on Twitter, and can therefore harm our business,” said Parag Agrawal on Twitter. The social network is therefore “strongly encouraged to detect and delete as many spam as possible” and “anyone who suggests the opposite is simply wrong”.
The group suspends more than half a million accounts every day and each week several million users who do not respond to certain verification procedures, he assured, while recognizing that he was sometimes complicated to distinguish legitimate accounts from others. When Twitter claims that the proportion of false accounts is significantly less than 5 %, it is on the basis of internal data.
“We have shared an overview of the estimate process with Elon [Musk] a week ago and are impatient to continue the conversation with him and with all of you,” concludes Mr. Agrawal.
“20 % false accounts and spam”
referring to the explanations provided Monday by Parag Agrawal on the measures taken to fight against spam and false accounts – to which Elon Musk had responded with an emoji in the shape of a droppings -, the boss of Tesla indicated Tuesday that the redemption de Twitter would not reach an end as long as it would not have the guarantee that less than 5 % of the accounts on the platform are false. “The Executive Director of Twitter refused yesterday to prove that less than 5 % of the accounts were false,” tweeted Mr. Musk, who has nearly 94 million subscribers on the social network. “Until it does, the transaction will not be able to go ahead,” he added.
m. Musk had already announced on Friday that he would put the company’s acquisition in front, that he wishes to buy for $ 44 billion, before rectifying the shot a few hours later, specifying that he was “always committed” to Conduct the operation.
Speaker by video at a conference on Musry on Monday, Musk estimated that false accounts represented at least 20 % of Twitter users, according to the Bloomberg agency and tweets of people present at this event. “20 % false accounts and spam is four times more than what Twitter says, but the real figure could be much higher,” Musk tweeted on Tuesday. Contacted by the France-Presse agency, Twitter did not react immediately to the last protrusion of the whimsical entrepreneur. The group’s action fell 3.5 % in electronic exchanges preceding the opening of Wall Street.
Since he filed his buyout offer, accepted by the board of directors of the social network, Mr. Musk posted his desire to make it a bastion of freedom of expression. He also promised to get rid of spam, better authenticate users and strengthen transparency, without specifying how he intended to do it.