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

arstechnica.com

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

#21

Post by colinmhayes »

convery wrote: post #10
mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #7

> "To the contrary, Musk forwent all due diligence—giving Twitter twenty-four hours to accept his take-it-or-leave-it offer before he would present it directly to Twitter's stockholders," Twitter wrote. Bot/spam account analysis is just trying to do PR spin. Musk has no legal standing to use any of that to back out of the merger. > The five-day trial is now scheduled to begin on October 17 So we will see about 2 more…

> Musk has no legal standing to use any of that to back out of the merger. The claim is that Twitters SEC filings had bots at ~5%, and Musk made the investment based on that. From the leaked recordings of staff, everyone knew that the percentage was much higher.

That is a misreading of twitters filing.

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

#22

Post by jjeaff »

nomel wrote: post #14
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 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.

Whether they inflated their numbers or not, the burden would be on Musk to prove that and it would be completely impossible to do that with a 3rd party tool. You are a monetizable user on Twitter if you just log in and read tweets. Something that no 3rd party tool could possibly track.

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

#23

Post by mywittyname »

Sebb767 wrote: post #15
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…

> arguing that Twitter lied about its numbers for years specifically so that someone would buy it at an inflated price? On one hand, venture-funded hockeystick-startups like Twitter definitely aim for a quick exit to make cash, so it's not totally out of the blue. On the other hand, Twitter is publicly traded and therefore already had its exit.

And the Twitter board was also very much publicly saying, "don't buy us."

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

#24

Post by colinmhayes »

nathanvanfleet wrote: post #9
pcmoney wrote: post #6

Musk seems like a smart guy who got overconfident and out of his area of expertise and made a series of incredibly stupid decisions. Pretty much every legal and financial professional without a vested Musk related interest seems to think similarly. Matt Levine has been lights out on this topic. Everyone knows his bot claims are just FUD to try and weasel out of writing a check he no longer has the guts to cash with c…

Do you mean he only recently got overconfident? Just a reminder that he already got fined $40 million for his "going private at 420" joke.

The private at 420 thing was absolutely worth $40 million. It helped elevate Tesla to the meme stock stratosphere even more than they already were. His Twitter antics turned a 200 billion dollar company into a trillion dollar one.

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

#25

Post by Sebb767 »

mywittyname wrote: post #23
Sebb767 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> arguing that Twitter lied about its numbers for years specifically so that someone would buy it at an inflated price? On one hand, venture-funded hockeystick-startups like Twitter definitely aim for a quick exit to make cash, so it's not totally out of the blue. On the other hand, Twitter is publicly traded and therefore already had its exit.

And the Twitter board was also very much publicly saying, "don't buy us."

Clearly reverse psychology, confirming that this was indeed their play all along!

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

#26

Post by nerdawson »

Sebb767 wrote: post #15
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…

> arguing that Twitter lied about its numbers for years specifically so that someone would buy it at an inflated price? On one hand, venture-funded hockeystick-startups like Twitter definitely aim for a quick exit to make cash, so it's not totally out of the blue. On the other hand, Twitter is publicly traded and therefore already had its exit.

There will be members of staff who’s job depends on the value of the stock and countless more with total comp tied to it.

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

#27

Post by pauldenton »

jjeaff wrote: post #16

I find it rather ridiculous and in bad faith that Musk is harping on the bot issue for 2 reasons. First, it wouldn't matter anyway. He signed away any and all rights to due diligence in the agreement. And secondly, it's completely impossible for any outside analysis to determine the number of active users on Twitter because most active Twitter users don't tweet or interact in anyway. They just read tweets and those u…

"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

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

#29

Post by mywittyname »

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…

This provides a lot of insight into how that man got to the top. He clearly has no qualms about lying and bullshitting his way into and out of anything and no amount of proof to the contrary will ever get him to admit he was wrong.

I guess this is similar to the "reality distortion field" people claim Jobs had. Except the examples given there were more of him not believing people who said something couldn't be done.

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