I do find it curious that talk of Twitter bots have died down since the takeover. Since Elon was pushing it himself, don't you think there should be some continuity if that was indeed an issue? Like, if you're trying to objectively rate Elon and not be subject to some kind of EDS, then continuity would be a good way.
Also, Elon said that returning Donald Trump to Twitter was writing a fundamental wrong. So why the poll?
If the bot volume was high, then it would be an error to reveal it now post-transaction as it would harm the perceived value of your company for a future IPO or acquirers.
Talking up the bot problem was only valuable during the transaction as a means of price pressure.
Even revealing that “there was a bot problem and we solved it” creates meaningful risk because it still drives down the credibility of the platform as a whole.
Ideally as owner of the company you would want it’s pre-acquisition state to be perceived as “low quality / not credible” and post acquisition to be the inverse of that.
As much as we would love to know the true bot count, I suspect we are not going to hear about it anytime soon. And this is not true for the current leadership, it’s true for the previous leadership as well. Any true bot count reveal if above a certain margin from what was sold to the public is detrimental to the value of the company.
But you're right, it's not Musk's fault the bots are high, or the numbers are wrong? If he really wants to increase trust in the platform, why not just be honest about it? He said himself he didn't buy the platform to make money, so why lie about it to protect the "value of the company"
I agree it would make them look better to reveal some truth about bots. Hell, even if it wasn’t true, they could even lie about it at this point, right? These are immoral deceitful business people acting purely out of self interest, according to the rolling stone.
But I maintain that It would be a critical error for a business owner to do anything that harms the potential value of the business. In this case revealing any “truth” about bot volume would do so because it would adjust the true $/user value the company has maintained for years.
Re: your question on motivations -
This is a business man. He can say whatever he wants, unless he donates the company to a non profit I must assume he has purchased it for extracting maximum value. Whether it be from a future IPO or a potential sale.
The very fact that they are trying to optimize burn and generate revenue should tell us they are dressing it up for a future exit.
Talk of bots was low before Musk entered the picture, and absent entirely since the takeover. You'd expect continuity only if it really was important to him, so clearly it isn't/wasn't. He evidently makes stuff up all the time, and at least sometimes has the stones to say so.
I told myself I'd believe this if Rolling Stone actually talked to someone who'd worked on bots at Twitter. And they did.
"Polls are more prone to manipulation than almost anything else [on Twitter]," he tells Rolling Stone.
And yeah, the article notes Musk himself "suggested that as many as 20 percent of Twitter accounts could be fake and pledged that he would lead a crusade against bots which would 'succeed or die trying.'"
My own personal theory - pure speculation here - is that Musk just personally wanted to reinstate accounts. And he knew enough about Twitter's bots to know that a Twitter poll would get him the bot-heavy result he wanted. (Rolling Stone even notes that Musk joked about "bot attacks" on one of his earlier polls -- so he's definitely aware of the possibility.)
Rolling Stone writes:
His attitude towards [polls] has changed as the results have affirmed his own preferences for how to run Twitter. When his Twitter polls indicated support to reinstate suspended accounts and bring back Trump, Musk sanctified with blurbs of Latin claiming “the voice of the people is the voice of God.”
“I don’t think there’s anyone left to tell him [that the polls are basically bogus],” one former Twitter employee, who asked to remain anonymous, told Rolling Stone. “The number of people who understand polls that are left – it’s basically zero....”
Twitter’s polls, former staffers say, aren’t connected to tools like botmaker that can prevent spammy or inauthentic behavior.
> One of the first products I worked on was polls. And one of the big discussions was around the tradeoffs between integrity and privacy – keeping logs [or each user’s vote] or not. We landed on the side of privacy,” Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former Head of Trust and Safety who resigned this month, told Rolling Stone.
> “Polls are more prone to manipulation than almost anything else [on Twitter].
IMO, a responsible engineer would not have implemented polls if he knew they were going to be shit. Or they need a very big disclaimer: "Polls allow bots and users to vote multiple times so are not statistically accurate." If that's the case, it's stupid to have them at all.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 39.0 ms ] threadI don’t recall rollingstone doing a deep dive on twitters bot issues before it was taken over. Hmm… i must not think too much on this.
Also, Elon said that returning Donald Trump to Twitter was writing a fundamental wrong. So why the poll?
Talking up the bot problem was only valuable during the transaction as a means of price pressure.
Even revealing that “there was a bot problem and we solved it” creates meaningful risk because it still drives down the credibility of the platform as a whole.
Ideally as owner of the company you would want it’s pre-acquisition state to be perceived as “low quality / not credible” and post acquisition to be the inverse of that.
As much as we would love to know the true bot count, I suspect we are not going to hear about it anytime soon. And this is not true for the current leadership, it’s true for the previous leadership as well. Any true bot count reveal if above a certain margin from what was sold to the public is detrimental to the value of the company.
But I maintain that It would be a critical error for a business owner to do anything that harms the potential value of the business. In this case revealing any “truth” about bot volume would do so because it would adjust the true $/user value the company has maintained for years.
Re: your question on motivations -
This is a business man. He can say whatever he wants, unless he donates the company to a non profit I must assume he has purchased it for extracting maximum value. Whether it be from a future IPO or a potential sale.
The very fact that they are trying to optimize burn and generate revenue should tell us they are dressing it up for a future exit.
As it was a controversial decision and he wanted to remove the responsibility off himself, despite knowing what the outcome would be.
"Polls are more prone to manipulation than almost anything else [on Twitter]," he tells Rolling Stone.
And yeah, the article notes Musk himself "suggested that as many as 20 percent of Twitter accounts could be fake and pledged that he would lead a crusade against bots which would 'succeed or die trying.'"
My own personal theory - pure speculation here - is that Musk just personally wanted to reinstate accounts. And he knew enough about Twitter's bots to know that a Twitter poll would get him the bot-heavy result he wanted. (Rolling Stone even notes that Musk joked about "bot attacks" on one of his earlier polls -- so he's definitely aware of the possibility.)
Rolling Stone writes:
His attitude towards [polls] has changed as the results have affirmed his own preferences for how to run Twitter. When his Twitter polls indicated support to reinstate suspended accounts and bring back Trump, Musk sanctified with blurbs of Latin claiming “the voice of the people is the voice of God.”
“I don’t think there’s anyone left to tell him [that the polls are basically bogus],” one former Twitter employee, who asked to remain anonymous, told Rolling Stone. “The number of people who understand polls that are left – it’s basically zero....”
Twitter’s polls, former staffers say, aren’t connected to tools like botmaker that can prevent spammy or inauthentic behavior.
> “Polls are more prone to manipulation than almost anything else [on Twitter].
IMO, a responsible engineer would not have implemented polls if he knew they were going to be shit. Or they need a very big disclaimer: "Polls allow bots and users to vote multiple times so are not statistically accurate." If that's the case, it's stupid to have them at all.