Elon Musk announced the X Corporation is purging bots from its social media website X and will bring “the full force of the law to bear” on people responsible for deploying and using the bots.
Ultron’s army in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Marvel Studios
Musk shared to X, “System purge of bots & trolls underway. Please reply to me or X Engineering if legitimate accounts are suspended.”
He added, “X Corp will be tracing the people responsible and bringing the full force of the law to bear upon them.”
System purge of bots & trolls underway.
Please reply to me or @XEng if legitimate accounts are suspended.
X Corp will be tracing the people responsible and bringing the full force of the law to bear upon them.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 4, 2024
READ: The Walt Disney Company Accused Of Using Bots To Boost Its Public Image And Business Successes
This announcement comes in the wake of social media analyst MasteroftheTDS and host of the YouTube channel Gothic Therapy accusing The Walt Disney Company of using bots to boost its public image and business success by getting certain topics to trend in order to falsely influence the wider public.
In a YouTube video published to his channel in February, MasteroftheTDS shared a post from MZoup98874 that reads, “Corporate profits are still the top concern of investors. Disney shares rose 11.5% after the company reported profits that exceeded analysts’ expectations and raised its upcoming revenue forecast. Shares of chip maker and designer Arm jumped 47.9% thanks to higher-than-expected profits and an optimistic business outlook. However, the 10-year US Treasury bond yield increased to 4.16% at the end of February 8. This development puts pressure on the stock market, despite a series of positive business results reports, showing that the US economy still maintains its strength.”
MZoup98874 on X
He then shared the numerous replies to the post that includes at least over 200 paid blue-check accounts that “are saying the same things in different variations of the wording.”
Next, he stated, “Why am I pointing this out? Let’s be fair here. The only thing that we’re seeing is bots. 1.5 million views with 380 likes is such a terrible ratio. But that alone doesn’t count for all these paid accounts responding.”
Ultron and his army in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Marvel Studios
MasteroftheTDS then asserted, “What’s happening here? To put it simply, these are all bots responding to this post to boost engagement and ads are being run on this post to drive income.”
He later added, “These bots are trying to promote this tweet and get certain things to trend. Now, they’re not just doing Disney, they’re also doing ARM, which is a chip manufacturer and is well-known and has a pretty decent share as well. But as you can see, this is recent, where they are trying to make it look like their stock is as good as ARM. They’re putting them together and they’re trying to show, ‘Hey, look we’re doing okay.’”
Towards the end of his video, MasteroftheTDS also promised he has additional evidence, “There is more to come guys, you ready for it? I have them promoting their parks, promoting their shows, all their Disney+ shows, promoting their comics. And I even have some stuff from DC as well.”
The Suicide Squad in Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League (2024), Rocksteady
In a follow-up video, MasteroftheTDS alleged that Warner Bros. Discovery attempted to artificially boost the sales of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.
He shared multiple threads of accounts that he alleges are bots that were praising Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. In response to these posts he notes that the same accounts are replying to each of the three threads.
He specifically highlighted one of the responses from X user TiwtZilla that reads, “Comment: ‘Wow, Suicide Squad taking on Justice League? This game sounds crazy fun! Can’t wait to dive into this gripping DC Story!'”
MasteroftheTDS questioned, “Did somebody forget to take out the comment prompt? Hmm?”
“I can tell you that they’ve been doing this with unpaid accounts as well, but again, caught red-handed,” he added.
A Terminator in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Tri-Star Pictures
In another video posted earlier this week, MasteroftheTDS asserted, “Bots including those with blue check marks are abusing the verification system to spread spam posing a challenge for platforms in maintaining verification integrity and combating spam on Elon Musk’s Twitter/X.”
He added, “We have plenty of bots out there now who have blue check marks. And the blue check mark was meant to give verification to actual people on Twitter.”
His co-host Writing Raven continued, “So that it would be harder for bots to actually, you know, be bots. However, there is may perhaps some marketing firm or other company out there or whatever it is that is using their own money to pay for blue check marks so that their bot accounts can continue manipulating everything.”
What do you make of Musk announcing that X Corporation is purging the bots from the platform and that he will bring “the full force of the law to bear” on those employing them?
