
Frank Bergman
Published September 2, 2022
From Slay News
An investigation into Twitter users by a leading cyber security specialist has revealed that 80 percent of the social media platformās accounts are fake.
The expert analysis has revealed that the number of fake accounts on Twitter is far larger than the 5% of all users that the company claims.
A report from former CIA and FBI cyber security specialist Dan Woods indicates that most of the platformās accounts are either fake or spam bots.
Woods, global head of cyber security provider F5ās intelligence, where he examines bot traffic, found that as many as 80% of Twitter accounts are fake.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who filed to cancel his agreement to buy Twitter in July after accusing the company of lying about the number of fake accounts on its platform, reacted to the report.
Musk is locked in a legal battle with Twitter after terminating his deal to buy the Big Tech company.
Musk has cited the vast presence of Twitter bots as a reason for backing out of his purchase of Twitter.
He asserted that Twitterās claim that less than 5% of its accounts were fake was false and has argued that the number is closer to 20 percent.
Musk has also stated Twitter āfailed or refused to provideā further information about spam bots.
āSure sounds higher than 5%!ā Musk tweeted in response to Woodsā findings.
Elon Musk
Sure sounds higher than 5%!
Eight in 10 Twitter accounts are fake, says expert
Ā·Follow
On a $/bot basis, this deal is awesome
In his July filing, Musk charged, āSometimes Twitter has ignored Mr. Muskās requests, sometimes it has rejected them for reasons that appear to be unjustified, and sometimes it has claimed to comply while giving Mr. Musk incomplete or unusable information.ā
Muskās attorneys have also subpoenaed Twitter whistleblower Peiter Zatko, the companyās former security chief.
As Slay News reported, Zatko alleges that Twitter had intentionally minimized its estimate of the number of bots using the platform.
On August 6, Musk challenged Twitter chief executive Parag Agrawal on Twitter, snapping, āI hereby challenge @paraga to a public debate about the Twitter bot percentage.
āLet him prove to the public that Twitter has <5% fake or spam daily users!ā
Woods told The Australian that he created a fake Twitter account with which he bought over 100,000 fake Twitter followers.
āIām not a programmer, but I watched YouTube and in a weekend I wrote a script that automatically creates accounts on Twitter without encountering any obstacles,ā he explained.
āThereās huge demand [for bots], thereās a marketplace to serve that demand and if I can write a bot that creates accounts on Twitter, and Iām not even a programmer, imagine what a sophisticated programmer could do.
āTwitter doesnāt want (its number of bots) to be that high, so theyāre going through the motions of canceling some accounts.ā
āIām not saying theyāre lying,ā he added.
āBut weāve really studied these accounts and weāve come to the conclusion that there are a lot more fake accounts than Twitter is letting on.ā
