One of the creators of Botometer, a web tool used by Elon Musk to estimate the percentage of Twitter spam for a court case, reportedly said Musk's calculation "means nothing". Kai-Cheng Yang, a Ph.D. candidate at Indiana University, "questioned the methodology used by Mr. Musk's team and told the BBC that they had not approached him before using the tool", said a BBC Today article.
A court filing by Musk on August 4 claimed that a Botometer analysis of Twitter firehose data during the first week of July "shows that during this period, fake or spam accounts accounted for 33% of visible accounts." But as Yang pointed out, the Botometer provides scores from 0 to 5, with 5 being the most bot-like, and Musk's court filing didn't specify where he drew the line between human and robot. bot.
"In order to estimate the prevalence [of bots], you have to choose a threshold to reduce the score," Yang told the BBC. "If you change the threshold from three to two, you'll get more bots and fewer humans." Because Musk's court filing "doesn't spell out the specifics," Musk "has the freedom to do whatever he wants. So the number to me doesn't mean anything," Yang said.
"Technically, you can choose any threshold and get any outcome," Yang said in a previous interview with Yahoo. The Botometer is a project of the Social Media Observatory and the Network Science Institute at Indiana University.
Botometer classified Musk as a probable bot
The Botometer itself “once indicated that Elon Musk's own Twitter account was likely a bot, rating it 4/5,” as Twitter pointed out in a court filing. Musk's Botometer score reportedly fluctuated between 0.5 and 4, showing that the tool rates Musk as a human on some days and as a robot on others.
Twitter also pointed out that Musk and his team "did not state what score they apply to conclude that an account is spam; thus, their allegation is unverifiable." Twitter further noted that an account could be a bot without being what the company considers a fake account or spam. Twitter gave examples such as bots "reporting earthquakes as they occur or weather updates".
Other types of legitimate accounts can be considered probable bots by the Botometer. The Botometer gave my own verified Twitter account a bot score of 3 out of 5 today, and it rated the Ars Technica verified account 3.6 out of 5.
The Botometer website FAQ warns against labeling each account above a certain bot number. "It's tempting to set an arbitrary threshold score and consider anything above that number a bot and anything below a human, but we don't recommend that approach...We believe it is more informative to examine the distribution of scores across a sample of accounts,” the FAQ states.
Yang surprised Musk didn't create a better tool
Yang also spoke to CNN recently, expressing surprise that Musk used the Botometer instead of creating something more accurate. "To be honest, you know, Elon Musk is really rich, isn't he? I assumed he would spend money hiring people to build some fancy tools or methods himself," Yang told CNN.
Botometer is best used "to supplement, not replace, your own judgement," the tool's FAQ states, noting that "humans and machines have different strengths when it comes to pattern recognition. Some "Obviously" bot/human accounts according to a human observer will fool a machine learning algorithm. For example, Botometer sometimes categorizes "organizational accounts" as bot accounts. Similarly, a m...
One of the creators of Botometer, a web tool used by Elon Musk to estimate the percentage of Twitter spam for a court case, reportedly said Musk's calculation "means nothing". Kai-Cheng Yang, a Ph.D. candidate at Indiana University, "questioned the methodology used by Mr. Musk's team and told the BBC that they had not approached him before using the tool", said a BBC Today article.
A court filing by Musk on August 4 claimed that a Botometer analysis of Twitter firehose data during the first week of July "shows that during this period, fake or spam accounts accounted for 33% of visible accounts." But as Yang pointed out, the Botometer provides scores from 0 to 5, with 5 being the most bot-like, and Musk's court filing didn't specify where he drew the line between human and robot. bot.
"In order to estimate the prevalence [of bots], you have to choose a threshold to reduce the score," Yang told the BBC. "If you change the threshold from three to two, you'll get more bots and fewer humans." Because Musk's court filing "doesn't spell out the specifics," Musk "has the freedom to do whatever he wants. So the number to me doesn't mean anything," Yang said.
"Technically, you can choose any threshold and get any outcome," Yang said in a previous interview with Yahoo. The Botometer is a project of the Social Media Observatory and the Network Science Institute at Indiana University.
Botometer classified Musk as a probable bot
The Botometer itself “once indicated that Elon Musk's own Twitter account was likely a bot, rating it 4/5,” as Twitter pointed out in a court filing. Musk's Botometer score reportedly fluctuated between 0.5 and 4, showing that the tool rates Musk as a human on some days and as a robot on others.
Twitter also pointed out that Musk and his team "did not state what score they apply to conclude that an account is spam; thus, their allegation is unverifiable." Twitter further noted that an account could be a bot without being what the company considers a fake account or spam. Twitter gave examples such as bots "reporting earthquakes as they occur or weather updates".
Other types of legitimate accounts can be considered probable bots by the Botometer. The Botometer gave my own verified Twitter account a bot score of 3 out of 5 today, and it rated the Ars Technica verified account 3.6 out of 5.
The Botometer website FAQ warns against labeling each account above a certain bot number. "It's tempting to set an arbitrary threshold score and consider anything above that number a bot and anything below a human, but we don't recommend that approach...We believe it is more informative to examine the distribution of scores across a sample of accounts,” the FAQ states.
Yang surprised Musk didn't create a better tool
Yang also spoke to CNN recently, expressing surprise that Musk used the Botometer instead of creating something more accurate. "To be honest, you know, Elon Musk is really rich, isn't he? I assumed he would spend money hiring people to build some fancy tools or methods himself," Yang told CNN.
Botometer is best used "to supplement, not replace, your own judgement," the tool's FAQ states, noting that "humans and machines have different strengths when it comes to pattern recognition. Some "Obviously" bot/human accounts according to a human observer will fool a machine learning algorithm. For example, Botometer sometimes categorizes "organizational accounts" as bot accounts. Similarly, a m...
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