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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

#291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who could possibly be on the side of the buyer? Except you can just buy up supporters by gaslighting huge masses of people on Twitter. The house in question. Its so ridiculous. Musk's popularity is largely *BECAUSE* of his Twitter antics. So this "buyer" is basically someone who has come to house-parties / benefited from the house in question for the last decade. And the people arguing against the (current owners)…

> Musk's popularity is largely BECAUSE of his Twitter antics I don't really buy this. I knew loads of Musk fanboys who were crazy about him before Teslas even become available. The 50+ folks that I'm friends with have mostly never used Twitter or read a Musk tweet, but they think Teslas are cool and are reminded that StarLink brought rural Ontario better internet than our own government tried to do for decades. Obvio…

The fanboyism is quite considerably amplified by his public statements.

Without them, we may not get much press at all from him, he may be a bit of an unknown quantity.

His Social Media / PR is a gigantic part of his value. It distorts reality to a much, much larger audience.

Do you remember 'Maroon 5' the band? They had 'Really Big Hits' back in the day . Banger / Chart toppers. But it wasn't until the lead singer was on 'The Voice' did it make them a 'Household Global Name'. There were a poppy band with a tiny bit of an edge that appealed to a demographic, now, they are like 'Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune' - multigeneratoinal giants.

Musk has fanboys that are Dentists in Malaysia, street kids in Cairo, wannabe ballers in mid level cities in China etc. etc..

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

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 att…

Musk got himself in between a rock and hard place here. Either he has to buy Twitter at a higly inflated price with all kinds of efdects on his Tesla shares and, maybe, even SpaceX ownership. And he looks like a bad business man. Or he vets out of the deal, has to pay billions for nothing and still looks like a bad business man. Since all his wealth is based on Tesla, and more specifically on Tesla's public perceptio…

> And he looks like a bad business man.

Musk already looked like a corporate bottomfeeder to anyone who was actually paying attention to his behavior.

You're right, though. Obviously, other facets of this situation were going to affect Tesla, but I hadn't really thought about the effects on Musk's reputation could impact his companies' share prices. TSLA is as much a cult of personality as it is a stock.

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

#293
post #259
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…

It appears to me that the seller was, in your analogy, misrepresenting the condition of the house. This is my totally unscientific analysis based on my private random sample of accounts I interact with, so, not particularly robust as a decision making tool for a big sale.

In the analogy, the contract was done with no intentional representations by the seller at all, and the buyer waived contingencies/bought as-is.

It’s almost impossible for a seller to misrepresent anything material in that situation.

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

#294
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called the Streisand effect.

Fake streisand effect. Pretending even the tiniest act of moderation is a massive campaign to hide information.

How is it fake? I'd have never learned about, e.g., some of the gender critical viewpoints, if Twitter hadn't banned people expressing them. It wouldn't have come on my radar. But since Twitter did ban some of those people, those viewpoints came on my radar (being relayed by others via screenshots), which raised my awareness of it. That fits the definition of Streisand effect.

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

#295
post #14
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.

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

#296
post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Musk's popularity is largely BECAUSE of his Twitter antics I don't really buy this. I knew loads of Musk fanboys who were crazy about him before Teslas even become available. The 50+ folks that I'm friends with have mostly never used Twitter or read a Musk tweet, but they think Teslas are cool and are reminded that StarLink brought rural Ontario better internet than our own government tried to do for decades. Obvio…

> I don't really buy this. I think you're both correct. My experience is as you described, but Musk has also developed a following among political conservatives attracted to his abrasive, thumb-nosing antics.

It's not 'conservatives' as 1/2 of them loath that stuff - and 'agitation' is traditionally an artifact of leftist populism (with traditional conservatives usually being small-c, establishment, older etc.) - it's more a bit of a businessy libertarianism, with hints of anti establishmentism that's in many ways more popular among the youth. Also, it's a hugely populist and international appeal, spreading his 'Noisy Tweets' around the globe.

See how much more popular he is now that he makes 'controversial' statements [1]

It's as PR trick as old as time.

Edit: but yes, technically he has taken a public shift to the 'Current American Right' in the mysterious political situation we are in, that's fair to say. Just wanted to indicate it's a 'new and kind of specific normal'.

[1] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=CA&q=%...

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

#297
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…

> 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. What is that commonly-used aphorism? "One man's trash is another man's treasure"? Like, even if this is true , Musk didn't do (and subsequently waived) due diligence. > No, really, this is the allegation No further comment on it. > Count 2 is that Twitter committed [Texas fraud st…

Also I’m pretty sure Musk himself wrote on public Twitter that he would trim the fat once he owns the company ..

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

#298
post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> But like I mentioned above if owning a profitable mine of some type was all it took to be an entrepreneur at Musk's level we would be drowning in them and he wouldn't be such a big deal in the first place. I don't have an opinion on how big being born wealthy plays in his success. Just curious though -- how many profitable mines do you think are in operation and how many people do you think own them as a percentage…

What level of profit did the mine bring in? That's the real question that I've never seen an answer to.

You can own a gold mine in the California mountains and come out of it with nothing but debt. It would sound like you're rich in the newspaper stories, though.

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

#300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently Twitter subpoenaed Musk's friends and colleagues who were actively tweeting about the deal with what is believed to be an attempt to prove he encouraged his posse tweet negatively to force a lower price.

David Sachs, prominent VC was one of those subpoenaed and he definitely seemed a little sensitive about it: https://twitter.com/DavidSacks/status/1554258141876932608

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