X is alerting its users that they might notice a decrease in their follower numbers as it undertakes a major initiative to remove spammers and bot from the network. Through a statement from X’s Safety account, the company announced that starting Thursday, it will launch a substantial effort to delete accounts that breach its regulations on platform manipulation and spam.
Following the recent announcement of Kylie McRoberts as the new Head of Safety and Yale Cohen as the Head of Brand Safety and Advertiser Solutions, X is stepping up its fight against spam. These appointments signal a renewed focus on safety and security on the platform.
Elon Musk, who has been vocal about his commitment to combating spam, emphasized the importance of this issue in November 2022. He has expressed a desire to make anti-spam efforts a top priority at X.
However, tackling spam has been more challenging than anticipated, especially in the wake of significant staff reductions. These cuts have particularly affected the Trust & Safety team’s capacity to address issues. Moreover, the Head of Safety position was vacant for ten months following the departures of Ella Irwin and Yoel Roth, complicating the platform’s efforts to fight spam under Musk’s leadership.
Advancements in AI have also made it more difficult to reign in the spam.
It was highlighted earlier this year that Musk’s initiative to mandate payment for Verification on X hasn’t deterred spammers from the platform. There were instances where bots, identifiable by Verified blue checks, were responding to posts with a repetitive phrase, “I’m sorry, I cannot provide a response as it goes against OpenAI’s use case policy,” clearly indicating their non-human nature.
Moreover, a report from New York Intelligencer shed light on an increase in spam on X, particularly focusing on adult content. These spam accounts often post explicit replies and direct users to follow links in their bio, further exacerbating the platform’s spam issues.
Musk initially raised concerns about the extent of spam on the network as a significant issue when he contemplated withdrawing from the $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, citing misrepresentations about the prevalence of bots. However, nowadays, Musk is highlighting X’s record-breaking user traffic, though it remains unclear whether these figures account for bot and spam activity.
In their latest announcement, the X Safety team indicated that the platform is undertaking an extensive effort to eliminate spam and bots, acknowledging that this might lead to decreases in follower counts—a common outcome of such bot removal initiatives on social media.
To address potential errors, X has provided a link to a form, allowing users who believe they’ve been wrongly impacted by the bot sweep to submit an appeal.