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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

#231

Post by loceng »

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…

I imagine the argument is whether the method Twitter used, and was seemingly acceptable by SEC, is ethically, morally, or logically a reasonable measure.

E.g. Can they 100% say that there are less than 5% bot accounts, or is that 5% number being pulled out of their ass - and saying "less than 20% of accounts are bots" would hold as much water? That is therefore then a misrepresentation, fraud IMHO - and stockholders should be suing not only Twitter but also the SEC.

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

#232

Post by bhouston »

ErikVandeWater wrote: post #221
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…

Well this analogy leaves out Twitter censorship, which makes Twitter unlikeable.

I think Twitter is in a tough spot when it comes to deciding how to handle hate speech and harassment.

In many ways they are like Amnesty International in that no matter which human rights issue they report on, there will be a contingent that says, well everything else you says is true, but the stuff you said about me is completely wrong and you've loss all credibility.

It is a hard spot to be in trying to be neutral in a world of actors who only want the other side criticized or censored and never themselves.

I am glade I do not have such a role. I wouldn't be able to take the constant flak from all directions for actions or inaction.

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

#233

Post by jonathankoren »

spywaregorilla wrote: post #214
megablast wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Only if the deal fails outside reasons like regulatory action. Simply changing your mind, or claiming that you should have done due diligence after you explicitly waved it, doesn't count.

Personally, I want the court to rule for specific performance (ie. Pay the $44 billion) He fucked up.

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

#234

Post by toast0 »

hunterb123 wrote: post #112
jjeaff wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have seen no credible evidence that Twitter is wrong about their numbers. Nor do I even see any possible way an outsider could figure that number out.

Have you seen credible evidence that they are right about their numbers? Without Twitter providing more context and showing their work, the number can't be trusted, thus it isn't credible. If you claim you have such a low number of bots (5%), you better prove it, otherwise I'll assume the worst and go with 20%. Anyone that goes on Twitter knows it's above 5%. All 3rd party estimations are well above 5%. Prove it Twit…

It would be hard for them to be wrong about their numbers, given how subjective they are.

Their methodology is pick 100 users from the mDAU every day, then have a human decide botornot.

If you wanted to show those numbers were wrong, you might ask to see those specific users and come up with your own botornot score. Or if you thought those weren't inaccurate, but maybe not a representative sample, you might ask for 10,000 users counted as mDAU on a specific day (or each day) and botornot them and see if that matches the 100 sample. If you didn't trust twitter's sampling, you could ask for the full list of users and sample it yourself before botornot.

But instead, it seems like they were trying to count botornot for the full population without considering if they were in mDAU or not, which makes it a flawed comparison. The counterclaim says mDAU isn't the appropriate measure for some of the alternate revenue plans Musk was considering, and that's probably true, but it's not relevant to twitter's current business and if their numbers were accurate to the degree they were measured.

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

#235

Post by 2c2c2c »

ctvo wrote: post #150
iasay wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If his popularity is due to what he posts on twitter it would appear that a large proportion of the human race are deranged morons.

He can be popular due to Twitter and people can also not be deranged morons. Twitter is very popular with a few niche groups: Journalists and people in tech for example. The former is influenced by Elon's antics on Twitter and end up writing news stories or making documentaries [1] about him. People learn about Musk through these respectable publications. The latter group spreads the gospel of Elon's TED talks and pr…

anti musk sentiment mostly stems from the post-2016 leftist surge. most of the mainstream internet was technocratic before

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

#236

Post by [deleted] »

TapWaterBandit wrote: post #178
ctvo wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He can be popular due to Twitter and people can also not be deranged morons. Twitter is very popular with a few niche groups: Journalists and people in tech for example. The former is influenced by Elon's antics on Twitter and end up writing news stories or making documentaries [1] about him. People learn about Musk through these respectable publications. The latter group spreads the gospel of Elon's TED talks and pr…

The emerald mine stuff is super overblown and only matters to people who don't like Musk for other reasons. If owning some natural resource like a mine or two was all it took to become a trailblazing entrepreneur who played a key role in Paypal/Tesla/SpaceX then Musk wouldn't be as popular as he is with many because there would be so many more like him around. Musk is clearly an extraordinary individual even if he so…

[deleted]

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

#237

Post by Kye »

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…

This would make a perfect episode if Knight Rider ever got another reboot.

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

#238

Post by qwertox »

I have 30 Twitter accounts, but only one is used. It's only used to be able to occasionally search for news on Twitter.

I wonder if those other 29 accounts are actually removed from the active accounts count when trying to sell their numbers.

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

#239

Post by jassmith87 »

qq66 wrote: post #228

All of this is just a theatrical farce by business guys. The market went down, Elon doesn't want to pay, Twitter has a pretty good negotiating position, the parties will settle out of court for $3-5 billion.

Why settle? There is a reasonable shot of forcing musk to pay a 200% premium. $3-5 billion is a steep discount. Twitter should settle for nothing short of specific performance.
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