Can Twitter’s New Copypasta Policy Resolve Musk’s Concerns Over Spambots?

Twitter has announced new proposals to deal with spam and duplicate content on its site.

The “Copypasta and Duplicate Content” policy refers to attempts by individuals to duplicate content from original sources and then share it.

An example of a violation is identical or near-identical content tweeted by an individual account or several accounts. Duplicate or copy-pasted tweets that the company thinks will “disrupt the experience of others” also come under the category.

In its May release, Twitter said: “In order to help people find credible and authentic information, and to promote a healthy public discourse on Twitter, we limit the visibility of duplicative (or also known as ‘copypasta’) tweets.”

The microblogging site also noted that duplicate content can be used to artificially amplify content, suppress information, or manipulate its trends. This could include tweets promoting trading bots, crypto scams, bot-enabled pump and dumps, and fake accounts promoting dubious giveaways. 

Musk vows to solve bot menace 

The site’s new owner, Elon Musk, said that he would consider modifying the platform’s approach to controversial and problematic content, including tweets by crypto scam bots.

“A top priority I would have is eliminating the spam and scam bots and the bot armies that are on Twitter,” the Tesla chief told TED Curator Chris Anderson. 

“They (scam bots) make the product much worse. If I had a Dogecoin for every crypto scam I saw, we’d have 100 billion Dogecoin,” Musk said.

However, the new policy doesn’t ensure automatic tweet removal or account suspension of the author of the duplicate tweet. Instead, such tweets are subject to review and enforcement under the platform manipulation and spam policy and any other rules violations, the release noted.

We’ve been continuously working to combat spammy &
duplicative content on Twitter at scale and our new Copypasta and Duplicate Content policy clarifies what constitutes a violation along with what happens when it is violated. https://t.co/qA7uhMlgRD https://t.co/W9IyKRXFcQ

— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) May 10, 2022

Fewer than 5% of Twitter users are spam accounts

Twitter estimates that false or spam accounts represented fewer than 5% of its monetizable daily active users during Q1 2022.

However, Twitter bots are quickly activated by crypto and wallet trigger words to respond to tweets with malicious links and dubious emails. For instance, MetaMask is a popular keyword for Twitter bots to steal wallet access.

According to research by Beeping Computer, “Tweets containing the words ‘support,’ ‘help,’ or ‘assistance’ along with the keywords like ‘MetaMask,’ ‘Phantom,’ ‘Yoroi,’ and ‘Trust Wallet’ will result in almost instantaneous replies from Twitter bots with fake support forms or accounts.”