Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If twitter bot number is, say, 30% Can you define with specificity what the “twitter bot number” is? Because Twitter doesn’t claim that 5% or fewer of accounts are bots. They claim that “according to their ongoing reviews and subjective numbers” less than 5% of accounts they qualify as an monetizeable user are “false or spam”. Twitter could be 90% bots and spam, and not be even slightly inaccurate in their statemen…
> They claim that “according to their ongoing reviews and subjective numbers” less than 5% of accounts they qualify as an monetizeable user are “false or spam”. Yes, it's just a short version for the sake of the discussion. Let's just say this number is not 5%. It's 30% when evaluated by an independent third party. Other comments claim that this number can be 90% 80% and it wouldn't matter. Twitter would be relieved…
I don't see any other comments saying the number can be 90% or 80% (other than mine, where I was pointing out the difference between before removal and after removal). Can you cite Which comments specifically are you referring to and whihc part of them you're disagreeing with? I'm just not seeing that.
I mean, it's fine for you to disagree with _that_, but it seems like you're disagreeing with a straw-man.
> You'd imagine it is impossible, but it's not
I wouldn't imagine it would be impossible. I think it's unlikely, but it's always possible that Twitter is perpetrating a deliberate fraud in its SEC filings. My priors on that are pretty small (1-5%?), but sure, of course it's possible.
If Twitter is actually perpetrating a deliberate fraud, and Elon is able to get the goods in discovery, then sure he'll likely win the case. That's a really high bar, though, and does not square with your prior argument that if a third-party analysis comes to a 30% bot number, then the SEC will bring charges.
That's simply not sufficient to cause the SEC to bring charges. Rather, you would need the additional evidence you think might come out in discovery.
My point is this: "The true bot number is 30%" and "The true bot number is 30%, and Twitter knew that and deliberately lied in its SEC filings" are two different statements. One is sufficient to bring a charge, and the other is not.
> You can bet there will be at least one person pointing out in the email/doc that "hey, our approach of evaluating numbers doesn't look right, and here's why....". Then, that person has been ignored.
Is is possible? Sure, of course. Would I put a bet on that exact scenario happening? Probably not.
Seems just as likely that someone sends the email that "our approach doesn't look right, and here's why...", and someone engages and responds with "I disagree, that methodology does X, and we chose to do Y because Z, but let's talk about it". Or, I could also see absolutely nothing internal on this because it's a box-ticking exercise as part of their SEC filings and nobody internal really cares.
> Coming up with a number like this will inevitably have multiple valid approaches.
The problem is that its not enough to show that someone else has a different valid approach. The need in court (and for the SEC) would be to show that Twitter's approach is not valid. It's really not enough to show that Twitter could have made different choices and got a different outcome. You need to show that Twitter's approach and outcome was unreasonable.
Anyway, my fundamental disagreement with your statement is that a "bot rate" of 30% automatically implies fraud and an SEC charge. I don't think it's that simple.