Since Elon Musk became owner and CEO of Twitter, has put some of the company’s most far-reaching decisions to a vote. For example, the ability to verify a profile through Twitter Blue; unblock accounts that violated the rules in the past; or even question the community if he should resign as director of the social network.
The problem is that Elon Musk, perhaps, has not foreseen that your surveys could be manipulated by bots. The magnate himself, prior to finalizing the purchase of Twitter, had already suggested that a significant percentage of the activity on the platform was dominated by bots.
For this reason, it is curious that he has never stopped to think that a campaign with bots could influence the results of his surveys. In fact, a report from Accountable Tech (via Bloomberg) provides strong evidence in this regard.
First, the firm mentions that, for the moment, there is no evidence to show that the number of bots on Twitter has decreased since the arrival of Elon Musk. But this is not the most worrying. Due to the fact that a good number of employees left the company, either by dismissal or by their own decision, there are no guarantees that bot activity is actually being monitored and attacked.
“Bots are not only thriving with Elon Musk, but it’s now easier than ever to use them to manipulate Twitter polls. As long as Musk continues to put major platform decisions in the hands of anyone with a few dollars and some free time, Twitter is insecure and open to manipulation by bad actors, including foreign governments,” said Nicole Gill, CEO. from Accountable Tech.
Manipulating Twitter polls is within the reach of a few dollars
Of course, they did some experiments to back up their information. During this month they created the Twitter account @VoxPopuliVoxBot, from which they have launched different types of surveys. To no one’s surprise, they found that bot engagement can be quite high when money is on hand.
They point out that in countries like Russia and Iran there are services that offer to participate en masse in a survey. In exchange for $57 dollars they can generate about 26,000 votes fake in less than a day. Can you imagine what can be done with a larger budget and with full confidence that Twitter’s security will do nothing to stop it? It is very worrying, especially with the type of polls that Elon Musk shares lately.
However, that person or government interested in altering the results of a survey with so much scope, would have to diversify their money in different services. Why? According to Accountable Tech, hardly one person will be able to handle such a high volume of votes.
They calculate that, to really influence a survey through bots, they would have to spend between $2,600 and $3,600 dollars. However, they are still easily payable amounts for institutions or governments. No one can assure us that Elon Musk’s surveys are free of these practices.
Twitter and Elon Musk must improve poll security
Services also offer to post responses, become followers or generate interactions —likes, for example—in certain publications. However, Twitter still has technologies capable of detecting when the number of comments or followers rises artificially. For surveys, unfortunately, there is no similar protection, and it does not appear that Elon Musk and his leadership intend to implement it.
Within Twitter they know very well that the polls have room for improvement. Bloomberg retrieved an interview from rolling stones to Yoel Roth, who in the past served as director of security and trust at the social network. The aforementioned confessed that, when they were developing this function, they did not know whether to keep the vote anonymous or link it to the user.
In the end they opted for the first option, but that also opened the door to manipulation because any account can cast its vote. How to solve it? One proposal would be for the accounts to meet a minimum age, thus preventing newly created profiles from participating. Solution ideas will not be lacking; Whether Elon Musk wants to implement them is another matter…