Texas AG investigates Twitter over potentially deceptive disclosures on bot accounts

The Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has begun an investigation into Twitter over potentially deceiving Texans regarding the number of fake bot accounts versus the actual number of real accounts.

Below is the press release:

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.”

Considering the fact that Twitter has been refusing to disclose these numbers to Elon Musk, who is trying to finalize a deal to buy the company, I think it’s reasonable to conclude they aren’t telling the truth about the number of fake accounts.

This really is a big deal considering that they charge companies and individuals to advertise on their service, which obviously would include Texans. If I were a paying advertiser on Twitter, I would want absolute assurances that real people are seeing my ads and not fake bot accounts.

If they won’t even share this information with someone who is legitimately attempting to purchase the company, then they might be fooling everyone else as well, which would open them up to major lawsuits. I think this is another reason Elon is demanding to know this information before finalizing the purchase.


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