Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton disclosed that his office is investigating reports of Twitter bots because they may violate the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
The social media company claims that bot accounts on its platform are less than 5%, but the AG office says this could be false as bot accounts can be as high as 20%.
We now know that we are not perfect in the fight against spam. And that’s why, after all the spam removal I talked about above, we know some of them are still slipping through. We measure it internally. We estimate that less than 5% of registered mDAUs per quarter are spam accounts each quarter.
– Parag Agrawal (@paraga) May 16, 2022
According to A. G. Paxton, he must protect Texans from Twitter if it “misrepresents the number of fake accounts to increase their income.”
The social networking site has until June 27 to submit documents on how it calculates and manages its user data and links those numbers to Twitter’s advertising business.
According to him:
Texans rely on Twitter’s public claims that almost all of its users are real people. This is important not only for regular Twitter users, but also for Texan companies and advertisers who use Twitter to make money.
Elon Musk and Twitter bots
Twitter has recently faced increased scrutiny over the number of bot accounts on its platform. His refusal to provide information on this matter led to a deadlock in the affairs of Elon Musk. try buy a firm.
According to registration of securities Released June 6, Musk’s lawyers wrote that the social media giant “actively resisted and violated (Musk’s) media rights” — an act that could be described as a “substantial breach.”
The billionaire also threatened to pull out of the deal if the firm refused to provide requested data.
Meanwhile, data by SparkToro suggests that 70% of Elon Musk’s Twitter followers may be bots.
Twitter shares a tank
Ever since Elon Musk announced his intention buy twitter at $54.20 a share, most tech stocks fell. For context, Twitter shares fell by 5% in the first hours of trading on June 6.
This shows that if Musk continues the deal at current share prices, he will overpay for the company.
He has little to no wiggle room to back out of the deal as the offer was received by the Twitter board, which means it is legally binding.
However, if he insists on canceling the deal, Musk may still have to to pay $1 billion termination fee.
Credit : cryptoslate.com