A solution to the bot problem?
Today, Elon Musk announced that he will be purging Twitter of some 1.5 billion user accounts that have not been accessed in years, or sent out tweets.
The official reason given is to free up online handles and names that others want…
Perhaps there is some way these accounts could have been used as automated user bots, but I could only see that if these accounts were somehow hijacked to like posts or bolster follower counts—they couldn’t have been used for other purposes.
Any retweet, reply, media upload, or tweet shows up as activity on that account, so I don’t think this change will solve Twitter’s rampant bot problem, you know—the ones we argue with who seem to support every Biden proposal.
Many users alluded to the idea that this purge has something to do with Twitter’s notorious bot problem, but Musk has insisted that these are the accounts with no documented login activity and no tweets:
These are obvious account deletions with no tweets & no log in for years
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 9, 2022
You mean the accounts that have all the data from automated computational propaganda from 2013 onward used to attack democracy?
Well, it’ll free up hard drive space, I guess. https://t.co/xBSS3AQGRY
— Eric Garland (@ericgarland) December 9, 2022
Musk’s latest proposal for Twitter was covered by The Epoch Times:
The new owner of Twitter, who purchased the social media platform in October, said that the removal of user accounts will be done to free up names for people who use the website.
Accounts that will be flagged for removal are ones that have not logged in “for years,” he said.
“Twitter will soon start freeing the name space of 1.5 billion accounts,” Musk wrote, adding, “These are obvious account deletions with no tweets & no log in for years.”
Musk did not elaborate more on what accounts might be removed.
MTGA- Make Twitter Great Again! @elonmusk Twitter Files is a great start and now scrubbing accounts!
What’s in Twitter Files 3.0?Elon Musk to remove 1.5 billion Twitter accounts, announces new feature for users' tweets https://t.co/RvMvBkw5zK #FoxBusiness
— Thor, Son of Dano (@KingThorMAGA) December 9, 2022
Twitter: Twitter will delete 1.5 billion accounts to free up space: Elon Musk : This is not the first time the billionaire has expressed his displeasure with bots. Musk had earlier put the $44-billion Twitter deal on hold citing concerns over bots. https://t.co/JrXQbfbFM9
— REACH 🇮🇳 (USA & CANADA) Chapter (@reachind_USACAN) December 9, 2022
Fox Business writes:
The changes come as Musk is moving the company away from a tool regulating the speech of its users — for political convenience or otherwise — and toward a free exchange of ideas.
They also come as Musk has unveiled a trove of internal documents showing how Twitter executives influenced the platform, suspended users and reduced an account or post’s reach to other users.
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