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Elon Musk says he’d fix Twitter by dealing with bots

There are many problems with social media but, according to Elon Musk, dealing with bots would alleviate a few of them.

The chief executive officer at Tesla and SpaceX spoke to Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey earlier today during a Twitter staff meeting.

The Twitter CEO asked Musk for direct feedback and how he would address the problems at Twitter.

Musk responded by saying it would be helpful to know whether a user is real or not. From this Twitter could determine whether a user is real and contributing to the conversation or simply trying to manipulate it.

“Basically, how do you tell if the feedback is real or someone trying to manipulate the system, or probably real, or probably trying to manipulate the system,” said Musk.

While quirky bots posting pictures of cats can be fun, data from the Pew Research Center released in 2018 reveals that bots sharing links to news and current affairs were incredibly prevalent on the site.

An analysis of 1.2 million tweets containing URLs revealed some incredibly interesting data. For instance, 66 percent of all tweeted links were shared by suspected bot accounts.

What makes this concerning however is that 66 percent of tweeted links to news and current events came from bots.

There exists the potential then for bots to skew the conversation and influence how people consume the news.

Musk’s suggestion of tackling bots then seems like a good way to start the process of addressing Twitter’s problems.

[Source – Bloomberg]

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