Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) stock is in the spotlight today following a report from The Washington Post that the social media platform intends to comply with Elon Musk’s demand to see bot data. An anonymous source close to Twitter says the company is prepared to give Musk access to its full “firehose.”
This firehose refers to the platform’s stream of data, which contains more than 500 million tweets per day. Previously, the Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO had threatened to back out of his $44 billion Twitter acquisition if the company did not provide evidence that bots comprise 5% or less of users. The firehose data “could be provided as soon as this week.”
In response to the article, Twitter spokesman Scott Bisang referred the news outlet to an earlier company statement:
“Twitter has and will continue to cooperatively share information with Mr. Musk to consummate the transaction in accordance with the terms of the merger agreement […] We believe this agreement is in the best interest of all shareholders. We intend to close the transaction and enforce the merger agreement at the agreed price and terms.”
Let’s get into the details of what this news may mean for TWTR stock.
TWTR Stock: Twitter Offers Musk Access to Bot Data
According to The Washington Post, Twitter executives are skeptical that Musk’s access to the firehose data will reveal anything. Around two dozen companies already have access to the data. Rather, some executives and several analysts believe Elon Musk is using the data as an excuse to lower the acquisition price — or back out of the deal completely.
Twitter’s bot data is important, however. That’s because an understatement of bots could directly affect the company’s financials, such as its advertisement efficiency.
Earlier this week, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced he would be investigating Twitter over its bot count. Paxton has asked the platform to provide “details on 23 items” including “extensive data on the social network’s daily, monthly and monetizable active users” as well as figures on the categories of inauthentic accounts.
Meanwhile, data and research firm GlobalData released a report this morning estimating Twitter’s spam accounts. The firm concluded that around 10% of Twitter’s active accounts are engaged in “posting spam content.”
As part of this study, GlobalData selected a sample of 22,000 random tweets. Next, it identified “unique handles” among the tweets, as well as the profiles behind each tweet. For every handle, the firm collected the last 200 tweets, then used a set of parameters to identify legitimate accounts. Out of 18,332 unique handles, GlobalData concluded that 1,803 were spam accounts.
On the date of publication, Eddie Pan did not hold (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.
