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

arstechnica.com

371–380 of 585 posts

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

#371
post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except this is not a house. It’s a public company. And a lot of people own a piece of that company. And a lot of them were unhappy about how Twitter’s leadership was running things. I honestly don’t care, I’m not on either side. But this was not a house sale, and Musk wasn’t a crazy dude approaching a home owner. He had a lot of support from shareholders since day 1.

Yes. And he promised those shareholders $54.20 per share, signed the contract, and now the same shareholders are suing to get the money. They don’t care what happens to Twitter if Musk takes over since they’ll have cash instead of shares at that point and can reinvest in something more promising.

He didn't promise shareholders anything. He signed a contract, which is almost the opposite of a promise.

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

#372
post #351
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…

> Who could possibly be on the side of the buyer? I don't know. It just strikes me as weird as forcing someone to buy something that they don't want to own or run. Especially after fighting it for months and even adopting a poison pill. Imagine if you agreed to buy a house for $1 million and the housing market crashes and the house is worth $500k. And now multiply those values by 50,000. Why wouldn't you try to get o…

> forcing someone to buy something that they don't want to own or run

After they signed a contract to do so... and that is the entire purpose of writing up the contract.

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

#373
post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think Twitter is going to use the threat of specific performance to try and extract a damages settlement greater than the contractual $1B from Musk. Yeah that's what makes the most sense. Musk doesn't want to buy Twitter anymore, forcing him to buy it is not a very good solution. It's possible to do, and certainly enforceable, but not a desirable outcome for anyone. But, having him pay $10 or even $15 billions as…

Presumably if the fine is bigger then the delta between the current share price and what Musk offered, he'd be better off buying the company and then trying to turn around and sell it then paying the fine. Similarly, if the fine is smaller, Twitter share-holders would be better off just forcing him to buy and forgoing the fine. So a settlement number seems kinda hard to agree on, unless they have differing opinions o…

> Presumably if the fine is bigger then the delta between the current share price and what Musk offered,

Not necessarily. There's a world where Musk really can't get the financing together, and stumping up the $44B in cash is too much of a hurdle to be worth-while.

Imagine, you could either pay $1,000 as a fine, or spend $10,000 on a car that you're pretty sure you could sell for $9,200. Obviously, in absolute terms you're better off buying and selling the car. But if you only have $5,000, it might not be worth the hassle to raise the other $5,000 to be able to buy then sell the car. Not to mention the risk that once you get the car, and go to sell it, there's a chance it only sells for $8,800.

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

#374
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’s almost as if Musk used a smoke screen to sell $8.5B in Tesla stock before the crash while redirecting attention to Twitter so as to not raise suspicion about selling his own stock…and then instead of going through with the deal he allegedly sold his Tesla stock to complete, he wants to back-out without paying the $1B penalty. But that can’t be it and what really happened, Musk is buying Twitter for us and restor…

Ding ding ding

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

#375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a ridiculously tortured argument. The censor not extending his reach to outside venues doesn't make him any less a censor.

Streisand effect is about information someone is trying to keep hidden . This kind of Twitter moderation fits neither half of that. I don't want to fuss about what counts as "censorship" or not. That's not productive.

1. Detransition accounts are information 2. Twitter bans users specifically to suppress that information, i.e. minimize its reach, i.e. hide it

Bald-facedly denying censorship is certainly not intellectually productive, might I suggest you simply stop doing that?

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

#376
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.

thats definitely a recent development. conservatives weren't big proponents of early EVs.

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

#377
post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

thats definitely a recent development. conservatives weren't big proponents of early EVs.

Liking him for railing against government agencies and brash style doesn't necessarily mean they are EV fans.

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

#378
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.

LOL, their SEC filings basically say “these are our numbers but they’re highly subjective and could be way off”. Musk is either a liar or an idiot.

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

#379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To close the sale and end litigation

So right now the Twitter market cap looks to be about $12 billion dollars lower than the standing offer. I'd naively assume that the price to settle starts at $12 billion dollars, and maybe goes up rather than down -- right now that $42 stock price is at least anchored by the probability of Musk being forced to buy it at $54, so if this ends without a sale, we might expect the stock price to go down.

There is a zero perfect chance that Elon settles for anything near 12 billion as that is in the ballpark of what he was going to put into it. It'd just be cheaper to buy the company if he had to settle for that much.

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

#380
post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's a demonstrated fact that traditional conservatives are punished for expressing the opinion that Donald Trump is obscene and distasteful.
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