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What Percentage of Twitter Users Are Bots?
This article will discuss some common questions on Twitter, such as what constitutes an “inauthentic” profile and how to identify bots. Then, I will discuss Elon Musk’s claim that fewer than 5% of Twitter users are bots. We will also discuss Machine learning, which is used to identify inauthentic Twitter profiles. The last question will be the biggest challenge for the social media site: what should you do if you suspect you are being followed by a bot?
Inauthentic Twitter profiles
Twitter has taken steps to combat spam, and it recently disclosed a new metric revealing that ten to fifteen percent of its users are bots. They often tweet about politics, cryptocurrency, and climate change. On the same subject : When Did Twitter Change Their Logo?. A recent study by Cyabra and Bot Sentinel found that up to thirteen percent of Twitter accounts are inauthentic. While this is not a large number, it indicates that a small number of spammy accounts are having a huge impact on the platform.
One recent study concluded that approximately 48 million Twitter accounts were bots, which have been created to replicate human accounts. Researchers at Indiana University and the University of Southern California identified bot accounts by analyzing 1,000 features. However, despite the high number of automated accounts, the number of human accounts was lower. Twitter estimates that just over 27 million users are bots. However, university researchers suggested that the figure was conservative, because some bots are so sophisticated that they can be mistaken for human accounts.
Spam bots
A recent 10-Q filing from Twitter reveals that Twitter has 23 million accounts. While some of these accounts might be useful – for example, retailers updating followers about new products – others could be spam. The company estimates that fewer than 5 percent of these accounts are actually human-run. On the same subject : How to See NSFW Content on Twitter. However, these bots are disproportionately affecting the number of users on Twitter. They’ve spent millions of dollars trying to find and eliminate them.
While there are many ways that these bots can use Twitter, a common one is to send spam. These accounts often attempt to get people to send cryptocurrency to online wallets, promising prizes that do not exist. Moreover, these bots often attack political and celebrity figures. Despite this, Twitter has yet to define what constitutes spam accounts, but it seems likely that the number of fake accounts is increasing.
Machine learning
Computer scientists have recently published a study predicting that fifteen percent of Twitter accounts are bots. Twitter has been plagued with questions about bots since Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. See the article : How to Delete My Twitter Account. Their work is based on a machine learning framework that analyzes 1,000 different characteristics of Twitter users. This technology can be used to determine how many users are bots and how many are humans.
One study focused on the historical influence campaigns on Twitter in China, Russia, and Venezuela. It trained a machine learning algorithm on 7.2 million tweets by users from those countries. Another study used the posts of casual U.S. users and political users in the U.S. to determine whether a certain percentage of Twitter users were bots. While the study didn’t delve into the methods used by these bots, the results are still fascinating.
Elon Musk’s claim that fewer than 5% of Twitter users are bots
In a recent quarterly financial report, Twitter said fewer than five percent of its users were bots. Elon Musk challenged that number, comparing it to a house that has more than 90 percent termites. But Musk’s claim about bots isn’t likely to help his investigation into the issue. According to Twitter, it’s impossible to determine whether an account is a bot without geolocation information.
The entrepreneur’s letter to Twitter’s general counsel, Vijaya Gadde, claims that the company has refused to provide any information about its bots. Often, investors sue for information about a company, but they must prove that they are legitimate. Similarly, Musk has seized on his claim that fewer than five percent of Twitter users are bots and asked Twitter for more information.
