[Thread] Twitter CEO gives context on how Twitter counts spam, saying “multiple human reviews” of thousands of accounts seen as mDAUs have found <5% are spam

Exit Content Preview  —  On the off chance you weren't on Twitter … Jody Serrano / Gizmodo : Elon Tells Twitter: Prove That Bots Aren't a Big Deal, or I Sink This Buyout Scott Bicheno / Telecoms.com : The Musk Twitter saga hits an impasse Brian Sozzi / Yahoo Finance : Tesla stock pops as Elon Musk hints he could scrap Twitter deal Malcolm Owen / AppleInsider : Musk threatens to walk away from Twitter deal over high fake user count Andrew Paul / Input : Elon Musk is picking fights with Twitter execs and losing Chethan Rao / Android Headlines : Twitter Deal Can't ‘Move Forward’ Without Info On Bots: Elon Musk Richard Lawler / The Verge : Twitter's CEO and Elon Musk are beefing over bot counts Leah Montebello / City A.M. : Blame it on the bots: Musk says Twitter takeover can't progress without fake account clarity Abhishek Mishra / Fossbytes : Twitter CEO Says The Platform Removes Half A Million Spam Accounts Every Day Danny Dcruze / BGR India : Elon Musk duels with Twitter CEO over expanse of spam and bots on micro-blogging platform Tolu Ajiboye / Coinspeaker : Twitter (TWTR) Stock Gives Up All Gains Accrued since Elon Musk Disclosed 9% Stake in Early April Rohail Saleem / Wccftech : Veni, Vidi, Vici: Elon Musk Refuses to “Move Forward” … Vilius Petkauskas / Cybernews.com : Twitter CEO: we suspend over half a million spam accounts every day Vish Gain / Silicon Republic : Just how many Twitter accounts are spam? Francesca Friday / Financial Times : Elon's going to do whatever he wants Rachit Vats / Benzinga : Elon Musk Getting ‘Cold Feet’ On Twitter Deal? Analyst Says Bots Issue An Excuse To Lower Price Or Walk Away Katie Collins / CNET : Elon Musk's $44B Twitter Deal ‘Temporarily on Hold’ Over Bots Evann Gastaldo / Newser : Now in Elon Musk's Twitter Drama: Poop Emoji Sissi Cao / Observer : Why Elon Musk Is Having Second Thoughts About Buying Twitter, According to a Top Tesla Analyst CNN : Elon Musk says Twitter deal can't happen until bot account dispute is resolved Tweets: Elon Musk / @elonmusk : @paraga 💩 Elon Musk / @elonmusk : @paraga So how do advertisers know what they're getting for their money? This is fundamental to the financial health of Twitter. Parag Agrawal / @paraga : Unfortunately, we don't believe that this specific estimation can be performed externally, given the critical need to use both public and private information (which we can't share). Externally, it's not even possible to know which accounts are counted as mDAUs on any given day. Parag Agrawal / @paraga : Our actual internal estimates for the last four quarters were all well under 5% - based on the methodology outlined above. The error margins on our estimates give us confidence in our public statements each quarter. Parag Agrawal / @paraga : We suspend over half a million spam accounts every day, usually before any of you even see them on Twitter. We also lock millions of accounts each week that we suspect may be spam - if they can't pass human verification challenges (captchas, phone verification, etc). Elon Musk / @elonmusk : @paraga Have you tried just calling them? Alejandra Caraballo / @esqueer_ : I pity the lawyer that has to explain how a poop emoji constitutes a disparaging remark and a violation of the acquisition deal in this context. Oh wait, that's me. https://twitter.com/... Parag Agrawal / @paraga : First, let me state the obvious: spam harms the experience for real people on Twitter, and therefore can harm our business. As such, we are strongly incentivized to detect and remove as much spam as we possibly can, every single day. Anyone who suggests otherwise is just wrong. Parag Agrawal / @paraga : Now, we know we aren't perfect at catching spam. And so this is why, after all the spam removal I talked about above, we know some still slips through. We measure this internally. And every quarter, we have estimated that <5% of reported mDAU for the quarter are spam accounts. Tom Phillips / @flashboy : when you are a very smart and good faith individual https://twitter.com/... Elon Musk / @elonmusk : @Andst7 @paraga Seems like Twitter should welcome external validation if their claims are true Tim O'Brien / @timobrien : Translation: “I'd like to get out of this deal before Tesla shares crater any further.” https://twitter.com/... Parag Agrawal / @paraga : Our estimate is based on multiple human reviews (in replicate) of thousands of accounts, that are sampled at random, consistently over time, from *accounts we count as mDAUs*. We do this every quarter, and we have been doing this for many years. Kara Swisher / @karaswisher : Btw like I said on @PivotPod — these moguls are pretty predictable. Up next, lawsuits! https://www.nytimes.com/... Rand Fishkin / @randfish : There's just one issue that sticks in my craw. If Twitter successfully IDs 95% of the millions of spam accounts in analyses like ours, why leave them active on the platform? He says they remove 500k/day. Why are all these obvious spam accounts still here for us to catch? Chris Vickery / @vickerysec : It's really funny how the current CEO of Twitter is intentionally saying “spam” instead of “bots” or “fake accounts”. The guy is bending over backwards to mindfuck everyone with word choice. It's a very telling deception and should be viewed as an admission of guilt. https://twitter.com/... Alex Hern / @alexhern : The first of the flaws listed here feels like a pretty conclusive rebuttal to an otherwise interesting thread. There's no obvious reason to expect active twitter users to be regular tweeters, and - given consumption/creation ratios on other platforms - reason to doubt it https://twitter.com/... @ogbenidipo : You have done such a bad job dealing with spam and bot accounts. I block such nuisance accounts everyday. I have blocked almost 5,000 so far. You are clearly not doing enough. It got worse a few years ago. It didn't use to be like this. https://twitter.com/... Kara Swisher / @karaswisher : Yeah, the use of the phone rather than, say, public yelling is an interesting idea. https://twitter.com/... Eugene Gu / @eugenegu : This is like Big Pharma saying that it doesn't believe that the process for determining the safety and efficacy of a new drug can be performed externally through a clinical trial, but somehow can be done by the company itself because of private information it just can't share. https://twitter.com/... @drkarlynb : Parag on his best behavior, totally trying to save his job when Musk takes over. It won't work. He will be fired when the new sheriff comes to town. https://twitter.com/... @nameshiv : I too would ask this question only after offering $44 billion https://twitter.com/... @ogbenidipo : This is like fighting with your girlfriend or wife on social media. Can you get in a room and talk? https://twitter.com/... Heidi N. Moore / @moorehn : Buddy: If you have to write a whole thread pointing out why your *ACQUIRER* is spreading misinformation about your business model, it's time to call off the deal https://twitter.com/... Andrea Stroppa / @andst7 : 🛑 Nothing special here: That's what happens on every social media platform. On Instagram even If you bypass captcha and phone registration, IG can check if your first actions on the platform are suspected. https://twitter.com/... Laurence Fox / @lozzafox : We may be about to find out that most of our Twatter trolls are paid for by Twatter itself. https://twitter.com/... Marco Rogers / @polotek : We talk about Musk's cult of personality a lot. This illustrates one the more prominent aspects. He wanders around expecting people to explain things from first principles. That is literally the entire personality of so many dudes on the internet. They love this shit. https://twitter.com/... James Mitchinson / @jaymitchinson : Insist on ID at sign up. One that can be verified and not duplicated. One that can be contacted should the need arise. The account can still tweet and appear anonymously, but can also be held accountable. You know, like real life. https://twitter.com/... Ron Miller / @ron_miller : Let's talk about deliberately undermining your own company, ba-by https://twitter.com/... @kevinsekniqi : Staggeringly high since this is of only accounts that have tweeted in the past 90 days. I suspect if you consider also accounts that haven't tweeted, that number skyrockets. And if you filter by certainly industries, it becomes mostly spam/bots. https://twitter.com/... @iamraisini : @paraga Parag, u don't need to convince us, we are well aware that Twitter is full of bots! You keep trying to justify but that's the truth Here's an analysis of 44,058 public Twitter accounts who've tweeted in the last 90 days. 19.42% are likely spam or fake https://sparktoro.com/... Alex Howard / @digiphile : The @Twitter CEO's thread on spam is interesting, & informative. A contrast to how forthcoming he's been about their civic integrity & dis/misinformation @policy works, debunking BS about how @birdwatch works, or defending the integrity & impact of their @TwitterSafety team. https://twitter.com/... Jeremy C. Owens / @jowens510 : The real question to me is how many SEC enforcement actions come out of this. He filed late, that's one. His “on hold” tweet last week is likely another one - the deal was not in any way “on hold” at that moment, and the false statement caused multiple equities to move. Jeremy C. Owens / @jowens510 : No matter what Elon puts on Twitter in his attempt to not overpay for Twitter, the deal is not less likely per se - they have a contract, and that contract is legally enforceable. He is fishing for an out, but the waters he is fishing in rn ain't got that for him IMO. https://twitter.com/... Will Oremus / @willoremus : the game is called Explain Like I'm Elon. it takes place in front of a live virtual audience of 93.5 million. 91.7m of them are rabidly on elon's side and have brought their own poo. there is no way to win but you can lose by earnestly engaging until you are entirely caked in poo @yoda : ridiculous isn't even the word for all of this. https://www.techmeme.com/... https://twitter.com/... Molly Jong-Fast / @mollyjongfast : Watching Elon trying to get out of buying twitter is really something https://twitter.com/... Fareed Mosavat / @far33d : Anyone who has spent meaningful time building consumer products knows that the demographic makeup of a DAU is often dramatically different than those of a “user”. It's possible for both “< 5% of mDAU look like spam” and “20% of sampled accounts look like spam” to be true. https://twitter.com/... Gary Black / @garyblack00 : As I expected, $TWTR will not acknowledge that spam/bots represent more than 5% of mDAUS. So either Elon exercises his $1B exit fee and walks away, or tries to negotiate a lower price based on his discovery that more than 5% of TWTR mDAUs are bots/fake accounts. https://twitter.com/... Mike Masnick / @mmasnick : Elon is mocking Parag for not “just calling” accounts to see if they're real or not. Meanwhile, every day I hear from Twitter users locked out of their accounts, because Twitter demands they add a phone number, and the users don't want to reveal that info to Twitter. https://twitter.com/... Dan Primack / @danprimack : 1/ Twitter could make private data available to @elonmusk via a data room, as would be normal in M&A. 2/ Elon could have asked for this during due diligence, were he to have done it. 3/ All of this only hurts Twitter, no matter who ultimately owns it. 🤡🚗🤡🚗 🤡🚗🤡🚗 🤡🚗 Will Oremus / @willoremus : ah yes, welcome ad-industry people to this fun game where a rich guy tweets the single most cliche critique of your entire field as if it's his own devastating insight that no one else has thought of before, and then you get to try to explain as he bombards you with poo emojis https://twitter.com/... @ghulamrabbani_ : Meanwhile in India .. Do @Twitter know what they're sowing by selling hate for money? This is fundamental to the democratic health of any nation. https://twitter.com/... Tom Coates / @tomcoates : This is a reply from Musk to the current Twitter CEO. He *has* to be trying to scupper this deal. https://twitter.com/... Frida Ghitis / @fridaghitis : Twitter's CEO offered a lengthy, detailed explanation in response to Elon Musk's concerns over bots on the site. (See his thread about Musk's response) This was Musk's very thoughtful, mature response. https://twitter.com/... Bill Lee / @westcoastbill : buckle your seatbelts. we may be watching the implosion of $twtr in real-time - and on twtr itself. oh the irony. https://twitter.com/... Alex Kantrowitz / @kantrowitz : Elon is negotiating the price down in real time, on Twitter, in front of all of us. Wild stuff. https://twitter.com/... Tom Gara / @tomgara : Twitter may be the first tech stock to drop 7% due to a poop emoji Russell Brandom / @russellbrandom : Tesla has shed more than a quarter of its value since the Twitter acquisition deal was signed https://twitter.com/... Casey Newton / @caseynewton : There is a world in which Musk bails and we all look back on this 💩 as the moment it became clear he was just going to disparage his way out of the deal Casey Newton / @caseynewton : I don't want to make too much of a literal shitpost but what the hell is going on with this cursed acquisition https://twitter.com/... Rich Greenfield / @richlightshed : 500,000 spam accounts suspended daily is mind-boggling https://twitter.com/... @techau : Maybe change the criteria on the way in ?? https://twitter.com/... Kurt Wagner / @kurtwagner8 : gonna go out on a limb and assume Elon doesn't find this explanation sufficient.... https://twitter.com/... Lance Ulanoff / @lanceulanoff : Twitter is expelling roughly the population of Reno, Nevada, on a daily basis https://twitter.com/... John W. Rich / @cokedupoptions : @elonmusk @paraga The merger talks seem to be going well @carnage4life : We're now at the Twitter's CEO explaining spam fighting 101 to Elon Musk who is willing to spend $44B to buy a company but unwilling to grok the basic daily threats it faces and how they deal with them.A key point is that many accounts people think are bots are just shitty people https://twitter.com/... Kurt Wagner / @kurtwagner8 : “We shared an overview of the estimation process with Elon a week ago” Interesting thread here from Twitter's CEO outlining a bit more detail on how they determine the % of accounts that are spam. Reminder, Elon said late last week the deal was “on hold” until he learned more https://twitter.com/... @quisitiveinvest : haha, CEO of $TWTR didn't write his thread properly so its not linearly displayed: https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... @chillmage : I believe Twitter is doing everything it can to fight spam because no platform operator wants it. it's been a complex problem for decades. but reading the *human* replies to this show the real problem. angry bad faith trolls poison everything more than bots ever could https://twitter.com/... @bongcapital : This is a lot of tweets to say “no price cut for Elon”. https://twitter.com/... Shannon Bond / @shannonpareil : just a normal corporate deal where CEO subtweets a whole thread at the buyer https://twitter.com/... Alex Sherman / @sherman4949 : In the past three weeks, the general informed take on Musk/Twitter has morphed from “Why did they just take $54.20 without a fight?” To “Oh that's why they took $54.20 without a fight.”

@paraga 2022-05-17 Parag Agrawal