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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

#211

Post by h2odragon »

usgroup wrote: post #32

Would their be any benefit to Musk going through this ordeal meanwhile fully intending to buy Twitter all along?

I think it may be: "Don't throw me in that briar patch."

The more vocal Twitter users were quite dismayed by the prospect of Musk owning their favorite forum. There was talk of getting the Government to block a deal somehow because "one person can't be allowed to own the public square."

Now they're as likely to be overjoyed if a court "forces" him to conclude the deal, even with a slightly smaller price than originally advertised. Whatever principles were served by the initial objection are less important than Dunking on Elon now that he's become pariah.

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

#212

Post by logicalmonster »

evan_ wrote: post #209
logicalmonster wrote: post #56

Twitter makes what seems like a good "gotcha" point here, but knowing a little bit about how social media bots work, I'd like to try and give my 2 cents about why Musk's profile is probably not a great one for this type of analysis. 1) Many people who create a brand new Twitter account just end up following a few celebrities and then either not tweeting much or forgetting about the account after a short time after de…

The people who sign up for Twitter, dork around for a little while, and then leave and never return are not counted among the monetizable daily active users.

Botometer's test claims to use over 1000 individual features in its analysis and it is unknown (to me, please clarify if you know) if they use Twitter's exact definition of monetizable daily active users in their system.

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

#213

Post by evan_ »

logicalmonster wrote: post #212
evan_ wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people who sign up for Twitter, dork around for a little while, and then leave and never return are not counted among the monetizable daily active users.

Botometer's test claims to use over 1000 individual features in its analysis and it is unknown (to me, please clarify if you know) if they use Twitter's exact definition of monetizable daily active users in their system.

What botometer does or does not do is completely irrelevant to twitter’s mDAU calculation.

No matter how many thousands of individual features botometer has, it cannot (and will never be able to) tell whether Twitter has served ads to that user today.

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

#214

Post by spywaregorilla »

megablast wrote: post #158
spywaregorilla wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are missing the obvious story. He locked himself into a price, then the price of things crashed. It has crashed so much that he's honestly better off just walking away and losing the billion dollars... but he doesn't want to lose a billion dollars so he's gonna do whatever he can do to get out of it.

He could lose a lot more than a billion. He could lose the entire amount he pledged.

Possibly. But it seem unlikely. The deal explicitly says he can back out for a billion dollars.

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

#215

Post by brandonagr2 »

hartator wrote: post #132
nojito wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of that matters when he waived due diligence. Again all of that information is public knowledge through twitter's SEC filings.

> None of that matters when he waived due diligence. Musk didn't though: “Despite public speculation on this point, Mr. Musk did not waive his right to review Twitter’s data and information simply because he chose not to seek this data and information before entering into the Merger Agreement. In fact, he negotiated access and information rights within the Merger Agreement precisely so that he could review data and i…

Twitter replied seeming to say the clause was to provide information only for the purpose of consummating the deal, information that would cause the deal to fall apart by outing their fraud wouldn't be covered by the clause as something they have to hand over.

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

#216

Post by jawns »

jjeaff wrote: post #105

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 co…

Imagine it playing out in a romance! "You cad. I never wanted to marry you, but I felt compelled to accept your proposal. But now that you are trying to back out, I am trying to force you to marry me, you idiot."

Although in this case, contrary to what it's arguing, Twitter doesn't actually want the marriage to happen. It just wants to keep the $1B engagement ring.

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

#217

Post by spywaregorilla »

dahdum wrote: post #205
spywaregorilla wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are missing the obvious story. He locked himself into a price, then the price of things crashed. It has crashed so much that he's honestly better off just walking away and losing the billion dollars... but he doesn't want to lose a billion dollars so he's gonna do whatever he can do to get out of it.

Oh it's definitely not about a billion dollars. He'd pay that out in an instant if he could. The contract he signed and the law itself is not on his side, he may yet slither out of his commitments, but Twitter would never settle for a mere $1B when they've lost so much more in value due to him.

Twitter hasn't lost anything due to him? Their share price would likely be lower if not for his dumb shenanigans. The contract is pretty clear that he can walk away for $1B, which is a lot of money.

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

#218

Post by _djo_ »

koheripbal wrote: post #109
codingdave wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No it won’t, because those are baseless allegations thrown out in order to add more noise and confusion.

You might get some red state DA eager for some publicity to make a song and dance about it for a bit, but that’s it.

If Musk’s team could produce actual data and evidence of criminal law breaches they’d be reporting them to authorities not adding them as minor points in a civil suit filing in Delaware.

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

#219

Post by tehwebguy »

Banana699 wrote: post #199
jjeaff wrote: post #105

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 co…

Quoted post unavailable.

> allows some opinions while banning others

Me: Holy shit! You were censored for wanting lower taxes?

Con: LOL no...no not those views

Me: So....deregulation?

Con: Haha no not those views either

Me: Which views, exactly?

Con: Oh, you know the ones

https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/105039166355267174...

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

#220

Post by Analemma_ »

hunterb123 wrote: post #182
pcmoney wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They literally never claimed this was accurate and even said their methodology could be wrong. Nothing in the contract says anything about bots. They don’t have to prove anything at all.

> They literally never claimed this was accurate > and even said their methodology could be wrong Yeah that's my point, their supplied number is unusable for investors, advertisers, etc. Combine that with the bot experiences on Twitter, the 3rd party estimates of 10-20% if looks way off. I don't see why NOW anyone would trust 5%. Diligence has NOW been done and that " methodology could be wrong " looks likely. -- EDI…

People keep trying to explain to you why you're wrong and you keep on ignoring them and persisting with your original false statement.

The 5% number claimed by Twitter is not the percentage of all accounts that are bots. That has never been the claim. Twitter separates its accounts into "mDAU"s and "other", and they are claiming 5% of the mDAUs are bots. You cannot falsify this claim with "bot experiences on Twitter", because all the bots you're seeing could be correctly classified as "other". Indeed, nobody outside Twitter can falsify this claim because it's a statement about Twitter's internal classification. The only thing that can falsify Twitter's claim is their own internal data, so that's why discovery is being done.

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