Elon Musk’s frequent Twitter polls are at risk of bot manipulation

Polls can be used for trivial matters, like helping decide what to eat for dinner. Musk uses them to determine Twitter’s fate, which gives for-hire services a greater incentive to learn how to manipulate the feature. — AFP

New Twitter Inc owner Elon Musk has outsourced several controversial decisions – like whether to reinstate former US President Donald Trump’s account, and if he should leave the Twitter CEO job – to public polling on the network, saying he intends to follow the will of the people. But the results of such surveys can be easily gamed by bots, according to new research.

With less than US$100, one can buy tens of thousands of votes for Twitter polls using bot-for-hire manipulation services, according to the nonprofit digital rights group Accountable Tech. The finding, first reported by Bloomberg, could spark new concerns about Musk’s reliance on the tool to chart the future of one of the world’s most influential social media companies.