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Ariana Baio
Jun 07, 2022
Elon Musk threatens to walk away from Twitter deal over bot data
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Elon Musk is once again calling out scammers on social media using his most beloved format: meme.
On Tuesday Musk, 50, tweeted pointing to the increasing number of 'scam ads' on YouTube videos. The tweet comes just a day after the Tesla CEO threatened to revoke his $44 billion Twitter bid over the company's refusal to allow him to conduct an independent review of the number of scam and bot accounts.
Minutes later, the SpaceX founder followed up his tweet with a Spongebob Squarepants meme calling out YouTube for not moderating the number of spam ads despite the social media platform's censoring of swear words.
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It's no surprise Musk is calling out YouTube, the billionaire has campaigned against bot and spam accounts on Twitter.
In Musk's initial SEC filing, he cited his desire to take the company private in order to maintain itself as a free speech platform. Later, Musk told the public and investors part of the platform's maintenance would be to reduce the number of fake accounts.
Twitter says less than five percent of Twitter users are spam or bot accounts but Musk and others have claimed that number to be much higher.
\u201chttps://t.co/2ELe1W5ZXC\u201d— Elon Musk (@Elon Musk) 1654616354
The number of spam advertisements on social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and more has risen in the past couple of years.
Despite YouTube not allowing users to upload content that uses "deceptive practices" or "content where the main purpose is to trick others into leaving YouTube for another site" many find misleading advertisements on the page.
Google, which owns YouTube, states in its advertisement policy that advertisers may not run "ads, content, or destinations that attempt to trick or circumvent our ad review processes."
Yet, fake advertisements bypass Google's anti-scam policy.
In response to Musk's tweet, other Twitter users echoed the frustration. YouTuber Mr. Beast replied to Musk explaining how scammers have used his face to trick users.
\u201c@elonmusk I\u2019ve gotten fake ads of me giving away money at least a thousand times and feel bad for the hundreds of thousands of people that have been scammed :/ \n\nI\u2019ve been screaming at them for forever to figure this out\u201d— Elon Musk (@Elon Musk) 1654616354
Other people wondered if Musk's frustration with the platform would lead to him bidding to acquire it too.
\u201cI don't know if I should feel excited or worried at the prospect of Elon Musk buying out YouTube.\u201d— Marc Aranibar (@Marc Aranibar) 1654629015
"Is he going to acquire Google now?", Nihar tweeted.
"Next target," Dinesh wrote.
"Please buy YouTube," Ajey said.
Musk's current Twitter deal is on hold but he has said he remains committed to acquiring the social media platform.
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