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Twitter says Musk’s spam analysis used tool that called his own account a bot

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Re: Twitter says Musk’s spam analysis used tool that called his own account a bot

#101

Post by jjeaff »

ncallaway wrote: post #63
pauldenton wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"He signed away any and all rights to due diligence in the agreement." Why do more fraudsters not use contracts If people can sign away due diligence, sign up for a Diamond, get a Lemon, and have no recourse, surely scammers would be doing this instead of structuring their scam in a way that has the potential of sending them to jail

I mean, that’s how a lot of immature markets without regulations work, until laws are added to say “you can’t do that for this kind of transaction”. That’s why many states have lemon laws for used car sales, to prevent exactly that kind of behavior in that market. Sales of corporations often don’t have consumer protection style regulations, because consumers don’t often buy corporations. The assumption is if you’re s…

We also can't forget that there was time for due diligence before the contract was signed.

Re: Twitter says Musk’s spam analysis used tool that called his own account a bot

#103

Post by matwood »

ncallaway wrote: post #80
AllegedAlec wrote: post #30

I'm still convinced he's just gonna use it to suggest that a judge should meet him in the middle; make him buy the company, but use the allegations of large numbers of bots to reduce the price.

I don’t think there’s any world where that happens. I think a judge would either order specific performance (e.g. do the thing the contract says, as specified in the contract), or we’re talking about damages (e.g. pay Twitter $X, but you don’t get anything in return). I think a purchase at a lower price would probably only come from a settlement between the parties, and… I think that’s likely. Twitter didn’t want to…

I agree there won't be any meet in the middle. Neither Musk nor Twitter want Musk to own Twitter now though. What's happening today is negotiating the break up fee which starts at the difference between current market cap and 54B (~22B today).

The accelerated trial date put Musk on notice. The SEC may not take enforcing the rules seriously, but Delaware has made it their business to enforce the rules that make it attractive for big corps to incorporate under. I don't think this makes it to trial where Musk will get destroyed, and bet they end up settling in the ~10B range.

Re: Twitter says Musk’s spam analysis used tool that called his own account a bot

#104

Post by nonethewiser »

phailhaus wrote: post #78
nomel wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I still can't get over the banana-pants insanity of the first count As someone who's unfamiliar with this, could you explain what's banana-pants insane about a company inflating their hard-to-discover numbers, for profit? I thought that was, unfortunately, banana-pants standard? For example, the fiction that is Twitter or Reddit's user count.

It's insane because Twitter has been very careful to explain that the 5% number is not some sort of "promise". > Additionally, our calculation of mDAU is not based on any standardized industry methodology and is not necessarily calculated in the same manner or comparable to similarly titled measures presented by other companies. Similarly, our measures of mDAU growth and engagement may differ from estimates published…

That's not what the original poster implied. He implied it's crazy because of the duration and specific purpose of the supposed lie.

Re: Twitter says Musk’s spam analysis used tool that called his own account a bot

#105

Post by jjeaff »

Imagine this whole ordeal playing out on a house that was not listed for sale.

The buyer starts harassing the homeowner to sell to them, they say no, so he buys up the mortgage lender and tries to force a sale. His antics are hurting the home's value so you relent to selling and give him an as-is sale contract, which he signs and gives you 24 hrs to respond or he will try to force a sale.

All the while, this is of course taking your attention away from your day job and costing you countless thousands in legal bills.

Then, soon after signing the contract, the housing market crashes and the buyer claims he peaked in the window and it doesn't look as nice as he imagined (even though he had previously been publicly announcing that your house was crappy on the inside and that he was going to buy it and fix it up) and so he wants to break the deal.

You sue to make the deal go through, he countersues that you misrepresented.

Who could possibly be on the side of the buyer?

Re: Twitter says Musk’s spam analysis used tool that called his own account a bot

#106

Post by codingdave »

jcranmer wrote: post #8

I think Musk's counterclaims are more interesting than Twitter's response. Here's the summary of the five counterclaims: * Twitter committed fraud by lying to the SEC about the mDAU numbers with the intent of inducing Musk to buy Twitter at an inflated price. No, really, this is the allegation (see paragraphs 202-206). * Count 2 is that Twitter committed [Texas fraud statute] by lying when it offered its shares. It's…

I don't honestly believe either side cares about the merits of the legal case - this is all just a very public and showy exercise to negotiate on a new price during a settlement.

Re: Twitter says Musk’s spam analysis used tool that called his own account a bot

#108

Post by hyperhopper »

mherdeg wrote: post #94
seydor wrote: post #43

I wish this whole saga ended, and Musk buys reddit instead. This current saga is pure entertainment, which will end up in some kind of settlement and will leave the lawyers a lot richer.

I'm amazed by how reddit has turned itself around from "the place where the commenter zeitgeist involves wishing physical violence on the CEO" to "the place I append to all my searches with a site: prefix to find meaningful Web discussion and product reviews". There was a surprising and unpredictable community turnaround from about 2015-2021; don't know if it will last, but it's surprising how much better it is now.

I don't think it ever changed: Reddit was always good for things like that, easily for over a decade now.

Its just that the userbase has broadened, and is no longer early-internet enthusiasts, and also censorship is far higher now

Re: Twitter says Musk’s spam analysis used tool that called his own account a bot

#109

Post by koheripbal »

codingdave wrote: post #106
jcranmer wrote: post #8

I think Musk's counterclaims are more interesting than Twitter's response. Here's the summary of the five counterclaims: * Twitter committed fraud by lying to the SEC about the mDAU numbers with the intent of inducing Musk to buy Twitter at an inflated price. No, really, this is the allegation (see paragraphs 202-206). * Count 2 is that Twitter committed [Texas fraud statute] by lying when it offered its shares. It's…

I don't honestly believe either side cares about the merits of the legal case - this is all just a very public and showy exercise to negotiate on a new price during a settlement.

That's the nature of almost all civil cases - they are pretexts for negotiations.

BUT, accusing Twitter of actual federal and state crimes is going to raise the awareness of several regulatory bodies, so this is going to get hairy.

Re: Twitter says Musk’s spam analysis used tool that called his own account a bot

#110

Post by ryandvm »

judge2020 wrote: post #86
pwinnski wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL, but I've read Twitter's SEC filings, and I don't see any potential inflation. The section on bots is extremely clear and specifically states that reality may be higher or lower than their rough estimate, after explaining exactly how they make the rough estimate. So... "We think it's 5% using these methods, but if those methods are wrong, then the actual number could be higher or lower." How does that lead to g…

The claim is that it's actually much higher, say 25%, but they're intentionally misrepresenting it as 5%; Elon only purchased it at the $54.20 share price because of the market valuing Twitter at a certain price ($45) based on those bot numbers. Musk is claiming that, if the bot numbers were correctly reported at the higher percentage, then the market would've valued twitter at a lower price and he would've offered t…

I suppose the next time Musk tries to buy something that costs $44 billion dollars he should do a little more homework. Waiving due diligence, though perfectly in line with his trollish vibe, is something he's going to regret for years.

The bottom line is the guy gets off on being an irreverent, flamboyant dipshit and this time it's biting him in the ass. And I for one am here for it. After the last few years I have run out of patience with assholes with money/power thinking they can do whatever they want in broad daylight. Christ, at least have the decency to be surreptitious about it.

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