Verified bots problem on X (Twitter): You won't believe your eyes!

Problem with verified bots on X, formerly Twitter

It seems that X, the company formerly known as Twitter, has a problem with verified bots. Although X owner Elon Musk has suggested that forcing users to pay for verification would help eliminate bots (aka automated accounts) on the platform, this doesn't seem to be the case. A video gaining popularity on rival platform Instagram Threads shows X's search results where numerous bots, many of them verified with a blue badge, post a variation of the phrase "I'm sorry, I can't provide an answer as it goes against OpenAI's usage policy".

Bots using artificial intelligence

The answer is what OpenAI's chatbot says when the user asks a question or requests a task in violation of OpenAI's terms of use. In this case, it also indicates that the X account in question is using AI to create its publications.

A video showing the activity of bots

A video of these search results was posted on Threads by Parker Molloy, Chicago-based writer and former editor-in-chief of Media Matters. He commented that "Twitter is a ghost town".

Accusations of bot activity from X

In comments posted in response to the video, one user claimed that the bots' activity could be coming from X itself. They argued that many of these verified accounts appear to be old abandoned accounts that have been taken over, then turned into verified accounts using AI to automate the account. They suggested that this could be an effort to increase metrics such as daily and monthly active users.

An inadequate solution

It seems that some of the bots' accounts are indeed older, according to the "creation date" displayed on their X profile. For example, you can see an example of this here. These accounts also publish content that appears to be the result of an AI query.

Of course, this doesn't prove that the account is managed by X himself, rather than by a spammer who has squatted on an abandoned Twitter account.

Bots aren't the only problem

However, AI-powered accounts aren't X's only problem. Many bots and bot farms operate without the aid of OpenAI and are harder to detect. According to data extracted from Fedica, a social network publishing and analytics platform, only 202 accounts have published OpenAI's automated response in the last 30 days. While some were real people joking about the bot problem, the majority were automated responses. It's possible that other bots have already been deleted by X, but this data isn't available.

Verified bots are mainly accounts from November 2023

It seems that the verified bots are mainly accounts created between November 24 and 26, 2023.

Persistent problem for X

This isn't the only area where X is having trouble with bots. The company admitted last summer that it had a problem with verified spammers when it announced new direct messaging options. The new features aimed to reduce spam in users' inboxes by moving messages from verified users you don't follow to the "Message Request" inbox, indicating once again that X's verification system was failing to weed out spammers as hoped.

X did not respond to requests for comment on this subject.

The company claims 550 million monthly users, according to Musk, and records 500 million posts per day, including posts, replies, quotes and re-postings, according to X CEO Linda Yaccarino. None of the executives specified whether bots were included in these statistics.