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In a tweet, Musk posted yet another poll asking users “should Congress approve the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill”, which includes aid to Ukraine, increase in defence spending and assistance to communities hit by natural disasters.
Ten minutes after posting the poll, Musk tweeted, “Bots incoming..” suggesting that bots prevail on Twitter. This essentially means that Musk’s previous claims of the platform being free from bots have fallen flat.
Twitter bots are ‘alive’
Earlier this month, he posted a popular meme suggesting that he had ‘killed’ the bots. The chatter around the presence of bots on Twitter grew after Musk seems to have agreed to the claims which hinted that his poll related to his stepping down as the company CEO was infested by bots.
A user, Wall Street Silver, suggested that the bots had a role to play in the polls as the number of votes exceeded the number of likes. In reply to that tweet, Musk said, “Interesting.”
After making tall claims of Twitter being bot-free, Musk has been quietly teasing that bots have not vanished. Musk recently tweeted that “Twitter usage (by real humans) once again reaches all-time highs.”
However, he made it clear that the company is working to weed out bots as soon as they show up. “They [bots] will try other methods [to comment/ tweet], but we’re shutting them down as soon as they show up. Twitter will also be moving to prosecute scammers anywhere on Earth,” Musk said in a post.
Deal-breaker bots
As mentioned, Twitter having bot accounts was the main reason why Elon Musk tried to back out of the deal. He blew up this scenario and asked the previous Twitter C-suit to declare what percentage of total accounts are bots. The company said about 5% are bots but refused to entertain Musk’s demand of making the nitty-gritty about bots public.
Twitter blue tick subscription: All you need to know