Elon Musk announced on Twitter that his team would study “a random sample of 100 accounts” to check the social network’s calculation of spam and ghost accounts. Yes, but he also revealed the company’s method…
The situation does not calm down between Elon Musk and the management of Twitter. On Friday May 13, 2022, the multi-billionaire had added fuel to the fire by indicating that his plan to take over the microblogging site was suspended. “awaiting details supporting the calculation that spam/fake accounts actually represent less than 5% of users”. In the wake of this resounding declaration, the action of Twitter had immediately collapsed by 25% during the exchanges preceding the opening of Wall Street.
Some saw it as yet another obscure maneuver by Elon Musk aimed at influencing the stock markets or a sign of hesitation from the boss of Tesla and SpaceX suggesting that he could finally give up the takeover of Twitter, but the principal concerned quickly indicated that he was “still committed to acquisition”. A few hours later, the mogul also announced that his team would study a random sample of 100 accounts to verify the social network’s calculation of spam and fake accounts.
A sample size that was to remain confidential
Rather than limiting himself to this announcement, Elon Musk wanted to detail to a user who questioned him his way of detecting spam and fake accounts on the platform. “I chose 100 as the sample size because that’s what Twitter uses to calculate that 5% fake/spam rate”, tweeted the billionaire. However, these details did not please Twitter’s legal team, which took a dim view of the revelation of information deemed confidential.
Any sensitive random sampling process is fine. If many people independently get similar results for % of fake/spam/duplicate accounts, that will be telling.
I picked 100 as the sample size number, because that is what Twitter uses to calculate <5% fake/spam/duplicate.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 14, 2022
Indeed, Elon Musk indicated in a tweet that he had been reprimanded. “Twitter’s legal department just called complaining that I violated their NDA [Non-Disclosure Agreement, accord de non-divulgation, NDLR] by revealing that the bot verification sample size is 100!”he wrote on the microblogging site.
Twitter legal just called to complain that I violated their NDA by revealing the bot check sample size is 100!
This actually happened.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 14, 2022
Visibly little affected by this phone call, the boss of Tesla / SpaceX gave a layer on Sunday morning, indicating that he had not yet seen an analysis showing that the social network has less than 5% of fake accounts and spam. And if he felt that there is “chances are over 90% daily active users”he finds “very surprising that the most popular tweets of all time were liked by only 2% of daily active users”.