Tony Khan Claims That Anti-AEW Twitter Accounts Are ‘Paid Bots’

AEW

It’s no secret that the Twitter wrestling world can be quite a tribal and toxic place at times, with many fans fighting hard for a select wrestling company like their lives depend on it.

That is of course, if these fans actually have lives and are not artificial intelligence, which is what AEW President Tony Khan has claimed in a series of tweets today (April 8).

Taking to Twitter, Khan boldly claimed:

An independent study has confirmed that much of the staunch anti-AEW online community aren’t real individuals, it’s a staff running thousands of accounts + an army of bots to signal boost them. Look closely, these aren’t real people. Who’d pay for such a *wildly* expensive thing?

Khan continued on, not providing evidence to his claim, and plugging tonight’s episode of AEW Rampage. He said:

Research this one yourselves. You internet detectives thrive in these situations. Speaking of wild things: You won’t want to miss @JonMoxley vs. @WheelerYuta on #AEWRampage @ 10pm ET/9pm CT on @tntdrama TONIGHT!

Khan’s thread was not over here, adding:

Their boiler room staff is going to be working overtime on a Friday, and I love it!

Khan then insinuated that these paid bots are easy to spot, as most of their interaction is retweets and responses:

Ever wonder why so much of the activity of these accounts is retweets and replies? Like who actually has 80% of their activity as straight up retweets?

Wrestling Inc. reached out to Khan for clarification on this claim, naturally. Khan’s response was the following:

“Waiting for final study but here’s what my expert confirmed,” Khan responded. “It’s people with real live accounts making posts and then using their bots to manipulate the social channel algorithm by backing them up with engagement from a made-up Twitter identity. Social media teams will often fight on this. Bots are great for numbers and when they’re gone, you’ll see a dip in digital conversation impressions – both those were either negative sentiment or not real anyway.

“For example, I tweet Megha only eats rotten bananas. I throw say 18 bots behind it (which takes about 5 minutes to do) Twitter security can’t differentiate when done well (neither can most social teams). The problem becomes, every time people type Megha into the search bar, because of a real account supported by bots- the first suggested result would be tweets about Megha eating rotten bananas. I’m oversimplifying, but that’s the 5 cent version of what’s happening.”

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• bots
• Twitter
• tony khan
• AEW

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