Texas Attorney General Investigating Twitter Because 20%+ of Users Could be Bots

Well, well, well.

It looks like someone is coming in to support the assertions of Mr. Elon Musk – and possibly make his negotiations a wee bit easier.

From the Texas Attorney General website:

Today Attorney General Ken Paxton launched an investigation against Twitter for potentially false reporting over its fake bot accounts in violation of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.

On Twitter, “bots” are automated, non-human accounts that can do virtually the same things as real people: send tweets, follow other users, and like and retweet others’ posts. Spam accounts like these inflate followers and reach, and often push deceptive and annoying activity. Bot accounts can not only reduce the quality of users’ experience on the platform but may also inflate the value of the company and the costs of doing business with it, thus directly harming Texas consumers and businesses.

Twitter has received intense scrutiny in recent weeks over claiming in its financial regulatory filings that fewer than 5% of all users are bots, when they may in fact comprise as much as 20% or more. The difference could dramatically affect the cost to Texas consumers and businesses who transact with Twitter.

To address this concern, Attorney General Paxton issued a Civil Investigative Demand (CID) to investigate whether Twitter’s reporting on real versus fake users is “false, misleading, or deceptive” under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. The CID requires Twitter to turn over documents related to how it calculates and manages its user data and how these numbers relate to Twitter’s advertising businesses. Twitter has until June 27 to respond to Attorney General Paxton’s Demand.

Texans rely on Twitter’s public statements that nearly all its users are real people. It matters not only for regular Twitter users, but also Texas businesses and advertisers who use Twitter for their livelihoods,” said Attorney General Paxton. “If Twitter is misrepresenting how many accounts are fake to drive up their revenue, I have a duty to protect Texans.”

As you know, Elon Musk is in the process of buying Twitter. However, he is taking issue with the claim by Twitter that only 5% of their user base is fake, and basically saying that they either have to prove this claim, or lower the price.

Twitter has responded by refusing to show him the data, and threatening to sue him. He is already being sued by shareholders. I don’t really understand the ins and outs of corporate mergers, but he’s claiming that he has a right to see the data they are using to support their 5% claim, and just from the perspective of a normal person, that certainly seems reasonable enough.

Elon has enough problems as it is. Did you see this “Cybertruck” video?

Yikes.

The man doesn’t need to be jerked off by these Twitter assholes.