On Friday, the tech billionaire Elon Musk introduced that he was terminating a $44 billion deal to purchase Twitter. The rationale, he mentioned, was an ongoing disagreement over the variety of spam bot accounts on the platform. Now, the difficulty of what constitutes a spam bot account, and what number of at present exist on Twitter, is prone to be on the coronary heart of the authorized battles between Mr. Musk and Twitter over the fraught deal.

What are spam bots?

Whereas generally referred to as “bots” or “spam” or “pretend accounts,” all check with inauthentic accounts that imitate how individuals use Twitter. Some spam accounts are automated, however others are operated by individuals, making it sophisticated to detect them.

Bots can tweet at individuals, share tweets, comply with and be adopted by different individuals, amongst different issues.

Why are spam bots a problem?

Mr. Musk has been voicing concern over spam bots on Twitter for years. In 2020, he appeared at an occasion for Twitter workers, and inspired the corporate to do extra to forestall and take away spam bots.

Since saying his intention to purchase Twitter in April, Mr. Musk has repeatedly tweeted about spam bots on the platform. In Could, when Parag Agrawal, Twitter’s chief govt, tweeted about how the corporate detects and fights spam bots, Mr. Musk responded with a poop emoji.

In a six-paragraph letter on June 6, Mr. Musk’s legal professionals demanded extra info from Twitter, stating that the corporate was “refusing Mr. Musk’s information requests” to reveal the variety of pretend accounts on its platform. That amounted to a “clear materials breach” of the deal, the legal professionals continued, saying it gave Mr. Musk the suitable to interrupt off the settlement. The subsequent day, Twitter agreed to permit Mr. Musk direct entry to its “fireplace hose,” the every day stream of thousands and thousands of tweets that stream by way of the corporate’s community.

Because it went public in 2013, Twitter has estimated that roughly 5 % of its accounts are spam bots. On Thursday, the corporate advised reporters that it removes about a million spam bot accounts every day, and locks thousands and thousands extra per week till the individuals behind the accounts can cross anti-spam exams.

The corporate does, nonetheless, permit spam bot accounts, which it prefers to name automated bots, that carry out a service. Twitter encourages many of those accounts to label themselves as bots for transparency. The corporate argues that lots of these accounts carry out a helpful service.

How have spam bots been used on Twitter?

Twitter defines good spam bots as automated accounts that “assist individuals discover helpful, entertaining and related info.” For instance, @mrstockbot offers individuals automated responses after they ask for a inventory quote, and @earthquakebot tweets about any earthquake with a magnitude of 5.zero or greater worldwide as they happen.

However different spam bots are utilized by governments, companies or dangerous actors for quite a few nefarious functions. Throughout the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, Russia used spam bot accounts to impersonate People and attempt to sow divisions amongst U.S. voters.

Spam bots that have interaction in scams are often discovered on Twitter making an attempt to steer individuals to ship cryptocurrency, or digital foreign money, to on-line wallets for prizes that don’t exist. Typically spam bots are additionally used to assault celebrities or politicians and to create a hostile setting for them on-line.

Kate Conger contributed reporting.