Hello, senior tech reporter Kylie Robison here. When Elon Musk purchased Twitter, now called X, for $44 billion, he claimed it had a serious bot problem. The problem was so serious, he claimed, that it was enough of a reason to back out of the deal altogether. That didn’t pan out for him, so when he purchased the platform he vowed to banish all bots. A part of Musk’s plan was to completely reform the verification system, by charging users $8 per month for the blue check that confers “verified” status. He said, “It is the only way to defeat the bots and trolls.”
I think about this grand vision of his often. Many journalists, including myself, can admit that we’re hopelessly addicted to the platform. And what I’ve noticed lately when I get my fix and scroll through my feed, is a whole lot of advertisements from users who have no posts, and are selling fake luxury goods. As a reporter on this beat, I’m of course thinking: How does Musk not have a massive issue with this?
There are also bots that reply to tweets with nonsense, have you ever noticed that? Recently, I got an Ethereum bot that replied to my tweet linking (what I assumed) was the owner to the bot. Against my better judgment, I messaged the bot owner.
“I spam and make money with it,” they told me when I reached out. I replied that I think it’s fascinating that people own these bots on a platform that lauds itself for preventing bots with blue checks. They responded, “Elon did a great job to prevent bots. Some things are just not possible, but he eliminated already 80% of spammer[s]. These blue checks accounts are hacked. It’s like you give your password to [someone], nothing to do with ‘bot account.’”
Well, that’s great. It’s not a “bot account” situation, it’s an undisclosed number of users getting hacked situation. Yet those blue check accounts are now buying ads in bulk. I came across a dozen or so ads just this week of these blue check accounts, all with little to no posts, scamming fake luxury goods. Has Musk forgotten this mission, or just given up?
What I’m thinking as I see these scammy marketers is just how desperate the company is for advertisers. X has seriously bled essential advertisers—losing potentially $75 million in revenue just this quarter, according to the New York Times. Disney, IBM, Apple, and more have paused advertising. Meanwhile, Musk took the stage at the New York Times DealBook Summit, and literally said “f--ck you” to advertisers. He called out Disney CEO Bob Iger specifically, too. Great strategy we have here!
Then there’s X CEO Linda Yaccarino, who, we reported exclusively last week, told staff to “put your heads together to bring new revenue into the company” due to so many advertisers fleeing thanks to Musk’s anti-Semitic comments. Yaccarino has publicly and internally praised the “candid” comments Musk made at the conference, yet they’re still working to get these advertisers back. Quite odd?
“What this advertising boycott is going to do is, it’s going to kill the company,” Musk said on the DealBook stage. “The whole world will know that those advertisers killed the company, and we’ll document it in great detail.”
He definitely has that right. As I watch spam accounts overtake my timeline, the same users Musk claimed to fight against, I wonder if he’s lost one of the only business plans for X he had. I guess I can buy a nice luxury purse for $100. Thanks, Elon!
Kylie Robison
Want to send thoughts or suggestions to Data Sheet? Drop a line here.
Today’s edition was curated by David Meyer.
