Elon Musk Goes After Accounts Using Bots to “Farm Engagement” on 𝕏

Rather than chase after every single bot account on social media, Elon Musk appears to be aiming for the major corporate players who have enabled the manipulation of conversation on 𝕏.

Elon Musk might be back working most of his time at Tesla, but a new problem with X Corp earned a post from him that should send shivers down the corporate spines that were attempting it.

As we have been reporting for weeks, a vast conspiracy of paid accounts on Elon Musk’s social media platform, formerly known as Twitter, has been utilized to manipulate trending topics, visibility of ideas and quiet critics of corporate products. In what appears to be a tremendous number of “verified”, blue check accounts purchased by a third party via long-dormant accounts on a black market, corporations have been able to bypass efforts to tamp down on fake accounts posting praise for their products and services. Social Media analyst, MasteroftheTDS, has been at the forefront of discovering how this new effort developed and was stood up by companies seeking to control online narratives. And once he had discovered the process, Musk was quick to take action:

BREAKING!

Another bot account I exposed, that was shilling for Star Wars: Outlaws, has been suspended for violating Twitter’s policies.

Someone is definitely watching, but who? pic.twitter.com/YHeToAIRaH

— MasteroftheTDS (@MasteroftheTDS) April 18, 2024

However, even the best attempts have been unable to quell the number of fake accounts being driven to boost corporate-desired narratives and overcome real public reactions. Properties like Warhammer 40K, Spider-Man 2, and more, all seem to have significant visibility boosts via bot activity.

Now, however, that may be coming to an end. In a reversal of who 𝕏 will be targeting, Musk announced on Friday, April 19th, 2024, that he plans to start targeting accounts that benefit from the fake engagement. That’s a top-down approach that just might work. On the flip side, it could anger corporations that were using these seedy tactics to game the system and make it appear their products were more popular than real people would have otherwise presented.

Any accounts doing engagement farming will be suspended and traced to source

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 19, 2024

While Musk was not very clear about the exact definition of “engagement farming,” one would have to assume that bot swarms all talking about a product certainly fits into the category. And while bots are not a new phenomenon, it’s nice that this latest iteration, in which they are attached to long-dormant accounts raised from the dead and given a verifiable bank account, is perhaps on the way out. One of the difficult things about free speech and discourse is that your own words can be lessened if they’re flooded by a sea of fake marketing accounts. And it would appear that Musk has realized the same.

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