The Washington Post claimed on Wednesday that Twitter is prepared to give Elon Musk unprecedented access to platform data in order to resolve his worries about automated accounts. According to the story, Twitter is prepared to offer Musk access to the so-called “firehose” API, which contains every tweet as it is posted, citing a source familiar with the company’s thinking.
Musk signed a legal agreement to buy Twitter in April, but has since become more outspoken about alleged bot activity on the network, which some regard as an attempt to terminate or renegotiate the purchase on more favorable terms.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk accused Twitter of breaking the April agreement by failing to supply him with enough data on automated accounts in an SEC filing on Monday, rejecting the company’s offer to provide additional material on its internal research of the matter.
According to Musk’s attorneys, “Twitter’s recent promise to simply disclose further details detailing the company’s own testing techniques… is akin to dismissing Mr. Musk’s data demands.” “At this point, Mr. Musk feels Twitter is openly refusing to comply with its merger agreement responsibilities.”
Taken as a whole, Twitter’s firehose API depicts what a user would see if they followed every account on the platform, despite the fact that the sheer volume of data is hard to get or analyse without the use of automation. Despite this, it is one of the company’s most tightly guarded assets, because to its utility in ad targeting and platform surveillance. Multiple corporations and organizations, including MIT researchers and Google many years ago, have or had real-time access to the stream.
However, while firehose data might be extremely useful as raw material for a research on automated activity, the sheer volume of data makes it unmanageable, and a complete study of automated activity would take a large amount of time and resources. Nonetheless, disclosing the data will be politically advantageous as Twitter tries to assuage Musk’s fears and guarantee that the original acquisition agreement is honored.
Twitter is still optimistic that the purchase will go through as planned. A top official at Twitter informed staff in an internal meeting, according to Bloomberg, that the sale was going regularly and that a shareholder vote would be held in late July or early August. The stock of Twitter is still trading considerably below Musk’s $54.20 offer, indicating market doubt that the acquisition will go through as planned.