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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

#31

Post by linuxftw »

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... arguing that Twitter lied about its numbers for years specifically so that someone would buy it at an inflated price?

This describes the entire business model of WeWork (minus the self-dealing), why should Twitter be different?

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

#33

Post by Invictus0 »

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…

What's so interesting about it? It's total nonsense dressed up in legalese.

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

#34

Post by jcranmer »

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.

Twitter is a public company (and has been for 9 years), and has maintained the 5% mDAU disclaimer in its required annual reports for years. I don't know off-hand how long it's been doing so, but probably at least 4 or 5 years.

The allegation is saying not only that Twitter has been lying about that number--for years, on documents that land it in legal hot water if it's been lying--but that it was doing so specifically so that Musk would buy Twitter at an inflated price. The insane part is really that specific intent, not the lying about the numbers.

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

#35

Post by Ekaros »

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…

I have understood the same. This is Delaware, meaning they aren't going to give special treatment if they want to keep companies there. Deal is a deal. And Musk will pay, now how much might vary, but it will not be 1 billion cheap.

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

#36

Post by Sebb767 »

zinekeller wrote: post #18
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…

> 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…

> What information? The contract is already in the public, but okay you want to waste court time.

The contract stated that Twitter had to provide Musk with internal data as required to close the deal. His teams tokens were apparently rate-limited at some point and it took a while for Twitter to give him access to all data, a.k.a. 'the firehose'.

Just for completeness sake, Twitter seemed to still try (the token thing was probably a technical error) and whether giving him access to the firehose was actually necessary could even be contested, as he arguably wanted to use the data to not close the deal.

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

#37

Post by egypturnash »

spansoa wrote: post #19
jqgatsby wrote: post #5

plot twist: the spam analysis tool is correct, and Elon is actually a robot, ala Stephen Byerley in Asimov's "Evidence".

His Tweets are all done with an iPhone, as Twitter allows you to see what client a tweet was made from. The only way bot behavior could be done on a smartphone, is if the phone is an iOS virtual machine, and the tweets are programmatically generated using some algo.

You're neglecting the simple solution of a hot dog moved around by a few actuators. Musk could totally be replaced by one of these.

Or some other stylus that you can use on a touchscreen with your hands in non-conductive gloves. But a hot dog is funnier.

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

#38

Post by zinekeller »

jjeaff wrote: post #22
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.

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.

> You are a monetizable user on Twitter if you just log in and read tweets.

Actually, even logged-out users (until they forced everyone to log in to read timelines) are monetizable, so Musk is really trying to make something to get out.

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

#39

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

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…

And thirdly, his boast was that he would solve the bot problem and that would make twitter better. More bots means there's more room for him to improve the company - should be a good thing.
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