Twitter Bots and Elon Musk's Crusade Against Them

And that's a problem generally that a lot of people have with the censorship that's on social media. Twitter in particular. You know, one of the weird things that's happening now with Elon Musk buying Twitter or attempting to buy Twitter, they've done something different. And one of the things they've done different is I gained, now it's 900,000 followers in the month or so. What? Yes. And a lot of people really like you. So maybe 900,000 more people were like, I decided I loved you. I think I was in a box. I think I was restricted. Well, Megan Kelly said the same thing. Did you hear her say that? She said she gained a lot. She gained a ton. Like 100,000 or I don't remember the number, but a lot. It was really noticeable. And so she was like, I'm pretty sure Twitter was, you know, messing around with my account. Yeah, I think so. I think there's something something was going on. I mean, I'm just guessing. The other option could be their bots that I've gained 900,000 bots. But it's every time I look, it's like another 100,000. It's crazy. It grows faster than anything. And Instagram is the opposite. Instagram seems to have hit the brakes on me. Like somewhere around six months ago, something happened. It seems like it's slowed down growth a lot. I don't check it too much. So I might be wrong. I might be, you know, I mean, maybe it's something they've done with their algorithm where they prefer videos over photographs now, which I think they do. They are. They're trying to go more video, I believe. Because that's where the viral effect really takes place. And I see with my kids with TikTok, you know, one daughter who's a heavy TikToker. Oh, yeah. She's always doing dance. Never been on TikTok. I don't really understand how you're not 14. That's true. But little girls, they get together and they do dances and they like to like memorize dances and sync it to music. And then they're watching all these other people TikTok and doing all these other. And it's like TikTok just hits you with video after video after video and they just get you hooked. You open that app up and it's like you're already like, oh, movement, things are happening. And this is what they're trying to do, I believe, with Instagram. I think so, too. And I did. I've read that. I don't get it because I hate watching videos on Instagram and I hate watching videos on my phone in general. Like if I get it because I'm an old person, I guess, like I'm like, if I want to watch a video, I want to look at a big screen like I'll watch stuff on my laptop. But I hate I don't like reading stuff. I don't like using my phone. I don't even like texting on my phone, to be honest. Like I text on my laptop. But I mean, I sort of think that Instagram messes with me a little bit, too. They refuse to verify my account. I've tried like five times. How many followers do you have? Fourteen thousand. No, sorry. Is that right? What's the number that you think you get to get checked? Who cares? I don't want to pretend like I like don't give a shit because I do give a shit, but not that big of a shit. Is there a number that you have to reach before they'll verify you? Oh, I went up to fourteen point three K today from. Congratulations. Thank you. But I just felt like my my posts were getting less traction all of a sudden and they were no different than what I'd been posting before. Yeah, I don't know what that is. Like that could just be coincidental. But I know some people have definitely been fucked with. And, you know, wasn't there a football player who complained a lot about it, Jamie? And then eventually he got let out of Instagram jail. Why does he need a like he's a football player? Like, what does he need an Instagram account? I need an Instagram account because it's how I make a living. Well, he does, too. That's how you get sponsors. When you're a football player, you have to get sponsorships. Lots of followers. Yeah, they're more fun. Fine. I'm sorry. Football player like sports. Well, you think about it. I mean, if you have a large following like a Tom Brady, I mean, God, how many sponsors does he have? Oh, OK. You know, I mean, that's that's an amazing way to get income. You don't need an Instagram account to throw a ball. You need it for Gatorade and Nike and all the car sponsors and all kinds of different things. When those guys have a large following, that's very valuable, which is really an interesting thing. It's like, what is social media for? I mean, are you using it for as a business or using it to be social? Are you just having fun and expressing yourself or are you using it to maximize your brand? Air quotes. I mean, I don't brand. I swear to God, I don't. I'm obviously I'm very authentic person. I believe you. I just I mean, I have to use social media for work because I work for myself. So it's the only way I can get what I produce out into the world. And it's that's how I make an income almost solely through individual donations. Like so people who send me donations through my website or they sign up to my Patreon or they pay for a subscription on Subsapdac, which I don't I haven't put anything behind a paywall. So you can people can just choose to pay or not. So I just appreciate it if people pay because it's how I make an income. But like I don't have I don't there's no institution. There's kind of pure. Yeah. And but but I also I would not really I don't think I would have a public Instagram account if I hadn't been I didn't start a public Instagram account until I was kicked off of Twitter. Like I have to do that. I don't love spending a bunch of time on social media. Did you enjoy Twitter though? Yes. Yeah. I'm like I don't know why everybody complains about Twitter all the time because I really like Twitter. I tried to get back on because I know some people that were banned before they they try to get back on. They got back on. I I appealed twice since recently. Yeah. Yeah. So since Elon Musk announced that he was going to buy Twitter, we'll see if that actually goes through or not. They just gave into one of his demands. Oh, did they? Yeah, they just released the see if you can find what the article says. But essentially, he said unless they give him access to data so he can find out how many of these accounts are fake. Right. Because his his take on it was like if you were going to buy something and you were buying it under the assumption that OK, here it goes. Twitter set to turn bot data over to Musk. All right. So this says that Twitter's board is reportedly set to pull it about face offering Elon Musk internal data on hundreds of millions of tweets as advised for the billionaire to complete his acquisition of the social media company. Twitter set to turn over information to Musk capturing more than 500 million tweets. The device the post came from and other information about the account holders. The Washington Post reported Wednesday citing an unnamed person familiar with the matter. Such a move would help respond to Musk's repeated demands for more information about the composition of Twitter's user base and the extent of its problem with bots. Musk has challenged Twitter's claims that just five percent of its accounts are bots calling the way the company calculates fake accounts very suspicious in a May tweet. So I'm really interested to see how this plays out because he is what he would describe as a free speech absolutist. And I think that that is something that people are reluctant to to agree is a good thing because they're worried about the negative aspects of free speech. You know they're worried about assholes and you know and trolls and all that stuff. Toughing up man. Toughing up. And I'm not joking.