Disney Found Substantial Number of Twitter Users Fake in 2016, Says Former CEO Bob Iger

Walt Disney had planned to purchase Twitter but decided to not go ahead with the deal.

Written by Siddhant Chandra, Edited by Richa Sharma | Updated: 8 September 2022 17:06 IST

Disney Found Substantial Number of Twitter Users Fake in 2016, Says Former CEO Bob Iger

Photo Credit: Reuters

Elon Musk has accused Twitter of misrepresenting number of bot accounts on its platform

Highlights

Iger did not reveal number of bots in relation to Disney’s findings
He didn't go ahead with the deal due to nastiness of discourse on Twitter
Twitter claims less than 5 percent of its users are fake

Disney had purportedly weighed the option of purchasing Twitter back in 2016, revealed former Disney CEO Bob Iger while speaking at the Code Conference in Beverly Hills, California, on Wednesday. Iger claimed that Disney discovered, with the help of Twitter, that a 'substantial portion' of Twitter's user base consisted of fake accounts. Walt Disney and Twitter were purportedly ready to enter negotiations when Iger decided to walk away from the deal. However, Iger did not mention a specific number when talking about the number of fake accounts.

As per a Reuters report, Iger — former CEO of Disney — revealed that the company was in talks with Twitter to purchase the social media platform in 2016. Without mentioning a specific number, he suggested that "a substantial portion" of Twitter users "were not real."

Twitter has maintained its claim that less than 5 percent of "monetisable" Twitter users are bot or spam accounts. The social media company is currently embroiled in a legal battle with Elon Musk who pulled out of a $44 billion (roughly Rs. 3.5 lakh crore) takeover deal.

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Musk and Twitter are set to go for a five-day trial, which will take place in October.

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Notably, Iger had mentioned in his memoir "The Ride of a Lifetime" that he had decided to not go ahead with the Twitter takeover deal in 2016 due to concerns about the "nastiness" of the discourse on the social media platform.

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