You might recall that Elon Musk as part of his attempt to buy Twitter claimed that there are way more bots on the platform than what Twitter reports. When Twitter called BS on that he than claimed that he was going to walk away from the deal. Though most see this as him trying to find an off ramp from an ill-advised decision. Fast forward to last week where it appears that Twitter is giving Musk what he wants:
Twitter is preparing to grant Elon Musk unprecedented access to platform data in an effort to address his concerns about automated accounts, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday. Citing a person familiar with the company’s thinking, the report says Twitter is preparing to give Musk access to the so-called “firehose” API that contains every tweet as it is posted.
And:
Taken as a whole, Twitter’s firehose API shows what a user would see if they followed every account on Twitter — although the sheer volume of data is impossible to obtain or parse without automation. Nonetheless, it is one of the company’s most closely held resources, in part because of its value for ad-targeting and platform surveillance. Multiple companies and organizations have, or have had, access to the feed in real time, including MIT researchers and Google many years ago.
But while firehose data could be immensely valuable as raw material for a study on automated activity, the sheer scale of the data makes it unwieldy, and conducting a full study of automated activity would require significant time and resources. Nonetheless, providing the data will be politically useful as Twitter seeks to fend off Musk’s concerns and ensure that he honors the initial buyout deal.
I think that this could be “be-careful of what you wish for because you just might get it” situations. Assuming that this is accurate, this sounds like Twitter is saying “you’re a smart guy, here’s the data, you figure it out.” In short, they’re calling his bluff. And they’re making it more difficult for him to simply walk away from the deal without cutting a billion dollar cheque. It will be interesting to see where Musk goes from here and what he does to find an off ramp from this deal as I truly believe that this is what he is doing.
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This entry was posted on June 13, 2022 at 9:35 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Twitter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Musk To Get Data To Prove Or Disprove His Beliefs About The Number Of Bots On Twitter
You might recall that Elon Musk as part of his attempt to buy Twitter claimed that there are way more bots on the platform than what Twitter reports. When Twitter called BS on that he than claimed that he was going to walk away from the deal. Though most see this as him trying to find an off ramp from an ill-advised decision. Fast forward to last week where it appears that Twitter is giving Musk what he wants:
Twitter is preparing to grant Elon Musk unprecedented access to platform data in an effort to address his concerns about automated accounts, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday. Citing a person familiar with the company’s thinking, the report says Twitter is preparing to give Musk access to the so-called “firehose” API that contains every tweet as it is posted.
And:
Taken as a whole, Twitter’s firehose API shows what a user would see if they followed every account on Twitter — although the sheer volume of data is impossible to obtain or parse without automation. Nonetheless, it is one of the company’s most closely held resources, in part because of its value for ad-targeting and platform surveillance. Multiple companies and organizations have, or have had, access to the feed in real time, including MIT researchers and Google many years ago.
But while firehose data could be immensely valuable as raw material for a study on automated activity, the sheer scale of the data makes it unwieldy, and conducting a full study of automated activity would require significant time and resources. Nonetheless, providing the data will be politically useful as Twitter seeks to fend off Musk’s concerns and ensure that he honors the initial buyout deal.
I think that this could be “be-careful of what you wish for because you just might get it” situations. Assuming that this is accurate, this sounds like Twitter is saying “you’re a smart guy, here’s the data, you figure it out.” In short, they’re calling his bluff. And they’re making it more difficult for him to simply walk away from the deal without cutting a billion dollar cheque. It will be interesting to see where Musk goes from here and what he does to find an off ramp from this deal as I truly believe that this is what he is doing.
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This entry was posted on June 13, 2022 at 9:35 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Twitter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.