Elon Musk‘s Twitter acquisition continues to be the topic of conversation amongst the tech world. The deal was first announced in late April and has since sent the platform’s users into polarized viewpoints.
However, over the weekend, the developments of the deal have been placed on hold due to Musk’s decision to look into Twitter’s fake accounts. The company recently disclosed that spam and fake accounts make up of less than 5% of the monetizable activity on the platform in Q1 of 2022. His choice to put the deal on hold caused the stock price of the platform to plummet 20%. In response to Elon Musk placing the deal on hold, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal still seems confident that the deal will push through. In a series of Tweets, Agrawal said that they “need to be prepared for all scenarios and always do what’s right for Twitter.”
Now, Musk has once again taken to Twitter to share his additional thoughts after CEO Parag Agrawal expressed his point of view. Musk stated that his team will go through a testing process that would require “a random sample of 100 followers” to verify Twitter’s data. In a Tweet, he explained his methodology, “I picked 100 as the sample size number because that is what Twitter uses to calculate <5% fake/spam/duplicate.” Following that Tweet, he shared that he had allegedly committed a potential offense. He wrote, “Twitter legal just called to complain that I violated their NDA by revealing the bot check sample size is 100!” Musk seemed to be taken aback while Twitter declined to comment on Musk’s tweets.
Musk continued to take aim at the platform he is looking to purchase by pinpointing the algorithm. He wrote to his 93.4 million followers that they were “being manipulated by the algorithm in ways you don’t realize.” Former CEO Jack Dorsey responded and said, “It was designed simply to save you time when you are away from [the] app for a while. Pull to refresh goes back to reverse chron as well.” In another Tweet, Dorsey clarified to another user that “it wasn’t designed to manipulate. It was designed to catch you up and work off what you engage with.”
It remains to be seen how Elon Musk’s Twitter acquisition will unfold and whether or not it will still move forward. Take a look at the Tweets below.
Twitter legal just called to complain that I violated their NDA by revealing the bot check sample size is 100!
This actually happened.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 14, 2022
I’m not suggesting malice in the algorithm, but rather that it’s trying to guess what you might want to read and, in doing so, inadvertently manipulate/amplify your viewpoints without you realizing this is happening
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 15, 2022
it was designed simply to save you time when you are away from app for a while.
pull to refresh goes back to reverse chron as well.
— jack⚡️ (@jack) May 14, 2022
Elsewhere in tech, Apple analysts have predicted a cheaper Apple TV will arrive late this year.
wazup.