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

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

#321

Post by bostonsre » Fri, Aug 05, 2022, 10:52 PM UTC

theptip wrote: post #145

bostonsre wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Musk didn't do (and subsequently waived) due diligence. Wasn't him collecting all of this MAU stuff to analyze it part of the due diligence needed in order to close the deal?

No. He signed the merger agreement without doing DD into mDAU, and didn’t write any contingencies around mDAU onto the contract. You do your diligence BEFORE signing the merger agreement.

O, that seems pretty odd. I can't think of any reason for them to do that beyond trying to get out of the deal or incredible negligence on the musk side in not doing that before hand. Were they able to get that data before hand if they wanted it?

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

#322

Post by dragontamer » Fri, Aug 05, 2022, 10:52 PM UTC

Banana699 wrote: post #320

dragontamer wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Legally ? I don't know, I'm not a lawyer, and law can frequently have surprising implications in the twists and turns of the its logical structure, which - as a bonus - differ by time and exact place. The contract states the place of the law. Specifically: in the Delaware Chancery Court. The contract also states the time and conditions of the contract. Have you read the contract? Its public. Furthermore, the date o…

How does any of this change or contradict what I said? And doesn't the US legal system allow for escalation to the Supreme Court, which can override lower courts? So technically whatever the Delware Court is not the final say on whatever happens. >Trial date set to October This is so so awesome, I will get to see Twatter defenders rage and fume for 2 more months? ^__^

> and law can frequently have surprising implications in the twists and turns of the its logical structure, which - as a bonus - differ by time and exact place.

There's no twist or turn of the law I can possibly imagine between today, and October, in the Delaware Court of Chicanery.

There is a reason why contract laws are written to be argued in this court. Its considered one of the most straightforward courts in the entire country, with legal expertise / judges who specialize in corporate contract law.

--------

But sure, I'm all ears. What kind of "surprise legal twist" do you think will happen over the next 2 months? I really don't think its too complicated of a court case. Its just fun / fascinating to watch from the perspective of internet celebrities.

In any case: the time has been set. October 2022. The location has been set, Delaware Court of Chicanery. The arguments have been set: we know what Elon is seeking to argue, and we know what Twitter is seeking to argue. Not much else to hypothesize here, really.

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

#323

Post by bhouston » Fri, Aug 05, 2022, 10:53 PM UTC

polishdude20 wrote: post #299

How much of this show and dance is really about covering up something else that Musk did? Is it possible this is done to overshadow other newsworthy stories that would be even more detrimental to his reputation?

It will be an incredibly expensive show and dance. Not sure it is really worth it.

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

#324

Post by bhouston » Fri, Aug 05, 2022, 10:54 PM UTC

rchaud wrote: post #136

Few accounts post as much vapid engagement-bait and as frequently as @elonmusk does, so I have sympathy for the bot analysis tool.

I couldn’t take it and had to block elonmusk on Twitter. It was just dumb bait tweets but everyone was constantly reacting to them. Horrid and I have better things to do with me time.

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

#325

Post by netsharc » Fri, Aug 05, 2022, 10:57 PM UTC

cycomanic wrote: post #314

jollybean wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Twe…

I appreciate your analysis, but would like to add that I feel that "traditional conservatives" seem to have largely disappeared or become voiceless not only in the US but also in other places like e.g. the UK. I imagine in decades prior traditional conservatives would have found people like Trump or Boris Johnson obscene and distasteful. However, I don't see many of that old guard speak out against them. It seems wit…

> many see winning as more important than values.

Interesting thought. For some analogy, if a bunch of skinheads joined my local baseball team and started playing dirty against the other teams and became the champions, would I care that my team has been hijacked, or would I not care because now my team is winning?

Obviously in the political example, the skinheads talk about "values" and people who want to be deluded just nod and repeat "values!", or they demonize the opponents by saying they'll bring in "dirty migrants", etc...

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

#326

Post by bostonsre » Fri, Aug 05, 2022, 10:58 PM UTC

zinekeller wrote: post #149

bostonsre wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter added a loop hole saying that their data might be incorrect. It seems disingenuous to absolve them of all sins if their data is hugely incorrect to the point where it's fraudulent just because they added that loop hole.

> It seems disingenuous to absolve them of all sins if their data is hugely incorrect to the point where it's fraudulent just because they added that loop hole. If there's an actual industry standard then you could argue that Twitter is lying. However as everyone in the legal community knows there are two important concepts here: wilfulness and negligence. Did Twitter willfully do this or is this just because there i…

Yea, makes sense. Seems like it will be hard to prove malice over incompetence and vice versa.

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

#327

Post by onos » Fri, Aug 05, 2022, 11:00 PM UTC

cycomanic wrote: post #314

jollybean wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Twe…

I appreciate your analysis, but would like to add that I feel that "traditional conservatives" seem to have largely disappeared or become voiceless not only in the US but also in other places like e.g. the UK. I imagine in decades prior traditional conservatives would have found people like Trump or Boris Johnson obscene and distasteful. However, I don't see many of that old guard speak out against them. It seems wit…

I wonder if the lack of voices you notice is at all related to the well-publicized data indicating conservatives do not feel they can express their opinions publicly without risk of punishment.

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

#328

Post by 762236 » Fri, Aug 05, 2022, 11:01 PM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #317

762236 wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Because twitter wasn't trying to make those viewpoints go away or hide them from the world. They just didn't want to themselves amplify those views to hundreds or thousands or more people. Twitter's not trying to keep gender critical viewpoints a secret, or remove them from anywhere outside of twitter.

They did amplify, or I wouldn't have learned about them. Twitter does seem to be trying to keep gender-critical viewpoints secret, but covertly, as they make it really easy to get banned for "hate speech" when you engage in gender-critical speech. The same for other topics that people label as misinformation, such as sharing the actual statistical results from vaccine trials. I never cared about the statistical results until people got banned for sharing them, thus Twitter indirectly amplified.

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

#329

Post by the_duke » Fri, Aug 05, 2022, 11:03 PM UTC

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…

IANAL, but "we use our own metric" doesn't sound like an excuse for publishing numbers to shareholders that aren't a best effort estimation based on reasonable methods.

If the methods were reasonable is of course possible, but up for debate and at least questionable.

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

#330

Post by davesque » Fri, Aug 05, 2022, 11:06 PM UTC

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…

You left out the part where the buyer will also destroy the city in which the house is located purely out of spite if he is forced to go through with the purchase. That is, I fully expect Musk to go full troll mode and reverse bans on all the bad actors who have been rightfully kicked off the platform if he's forced to buy Twitter. He'll claim it's for free speech when it's really just to own the libs.