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Disney found ‘substantial portion’ of Twitter users fake in 2016: former CEO
Arab News ^ | September 08

Posted on 09/15/2022 4:09:46 PM PDT by nickcarraway

Former Disney CEO Bob Iger said on Wednesday the entertainment giant had determined that a “substantial portion” of Twitter’s users were “not real” in 2016, when Disney was weighing a purchase of the social network.

Iger said the Walt Disney Co. and Twitter Inc. boards were prepared to enter negotiations when he got cold feet. He said that, with Twitter’s help, Disney had learned that “a substantial portion — not a majority -” of users were fake.

“I remember discounting the value” as a result, Iger said, in remarks at the Code Conference in Beverly Hills, California.

Iger did not specify what he meant by “substantial.” Twitter has consistently reported that fewer than 5 percent of its “monetizable” daily users are bot or spam accounts.

Iger’s comments come amid a legal battle between billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk and Twitter over Musk’s deal to buy the social media company for $44 billion. Musk, who is trying to walk away from the deal, has claimed that Twitter has misrepresented the prevalence of spam or bot accounts on the platform.

Iger did not mention Musk by name in his remarks on Wednesday, but he did say: “Interestingly enough, because I read the news these days, we did look very carefully at all of the Twitter users,” before going on to say that “a substantial portion” of Twitter users “were not real.”

In his memoir, “The Ride of a Lifetime,” Iger wrote that he had second thoughts about a deal with Twitter because of the “nastiness” of the discourse on Twitter that he feared would become a distraction. Twitter has sued Musk to hold him to the deal, and the trial is to begin on Oct. 17.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: fraud; twitter

1 posted on 09/15/2022 4:09:46 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway

Didn’t a court recently order Twitter to turn over the information Musk says he needed?

I think Musk has the winning hand.


2 posted on 09/15/2022 4:14:18 PM PDT by DannyTN
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To: nickcarraway

How many of the bots/fake users transgender?


3 posted on 09/15/2022 4:15:52 PM PDT by ConservativeInPA ( Scratch a leftist and you'll find a fascist )
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To: nickcarraway

Iger was a relatively smart and decent CEO. Chapek has to be the worst they’ve ever had. He does bring in the money though, at the parks at least. The movies just keep bombing.


4 posted on 09/15/2022 4:17:53 PM PDT by KnightAstronomer1
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To: KnightAstronomer1

I don’t know, Iger was pretty freakin bad. He actively kissed the collective liberal progressive azzes with the best of them.

He genuflected to Oprah fairly regularly if I remember correctly.


5 posted on 09/15/2022 4:30:14 PM PDT by traderrob6
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To: nickcarraway

Pssst.....they’re all fake!


6 posted on 09/15/2022 4:33:50 PM PDT by proxy_user
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To: nickcarraway

“Twitter has sued Musk to hold him to the deal.” Ha. Busted. If Musk passes on Twitter, then weakness is associated with Twitter.


7 posted on 09/15/2022 4:41:56 PM PDT by Falconspeed ("Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others." Robert Louis Stevenson.)
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Elon most certainly has the “winning hand”.
Twitter is such a vile Leftie Cesspool, and there’s NO way it’s worth (in my opinion) even close to what Elon’s initial purchase price was to be. Hopefully with facts coming out about HALF of Biden’s twitter users were fake will cause this sale to be pennies on the dollar. Lefties are the biggest liars in the universe.


8 posted on 09/15/2022 4:44:29 PM PDT by SoCalConserv ( )
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To: Falconspeed

Yes.................BUT there’s no way Musk will pay a high price for anything so filled with vile fake accounts. Elon could really turn twitter around and make it a level, fair playing field. ......but hopefully for a cost of pennies on the dollar..........


9 posted on 09/15/2022 4:50:11 PM PDT by SoCalConserv ( )
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To: SoCalConserv

I can’t imagine why he wants that total headache of a useless site. It’ll never be profitable, even if all the users were real.

The only thing I can think of is to use it as a mouthpiece like bezos did with Wapo.


10 posted on 09/15/2022 4:52:19 PM PDT by KnightAstronomer1
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To: Falconspeed

Yes.................BUT there’s no way Musk will pay a high price for anything so filled with vile fake accounts. Elon could really turn twitter around and make it a level, fair playing field. ......but hopefully for a cost of pennies on the dollar..........


11 posted on 09/15/2022 4:56:12 PM PDT by SoCalConserv ( )
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To: SoCalConserv

If Musk ever does buy Twitter one of the first things he should do is move the entire operation out of California and to a state like Oklahoma or West Virginia.


12 posted on 09/15/2022 5:00:56 PM PDT by neverevergiveup
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To: nickcarraway

Selling ad rates based on false numbers is criminal. Twitter execs belong in jail for fraud.


13 posted on 09/15/2022 5:19:28 PM PDT by Seruzawa ("The Political left is the Garden of Eden of incompetence" - Marx the Smarter (Groucho))
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