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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

#91

Post by cma »

kergonath wrote: post #69
mywittyname wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This provides a lot of insight into how that man got to the top. He clearly has no qualms about lying and bullshitting his way into and out of anything and no amount of proof to the contrary will ever get him to admit he was wrong. I guess this is similar to the "reality distortion field" people claim Jobs had. Except the examples given there were more of him not believing people who said something couldn't be done.

Jobs’ RDF was a manifestation of his charisma: he could make people think something really hard was actually easy (when dealing with engineers and designers) or the other way around (when dealing with customers). Jobs did bullshit, but AFAIK more on the design and marketing side than on the business side (give or take the backdated stock option thing and his first stint at Apple, when he wasn’t in control). Certainly…

> (give or take the backdated stock option thing and his first stint at Apple, when he wasn’t in control). Certainly nothing like Musk’s shenanigans.

Don't forget Jobs' prime role in having companies collude together to depress wages by not recruiting each other's employees:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...

"an interconnected web of express agreements, each with the active involvement and participation of a company under the control of Steve Jobs...and/or a company that shared at least one member of Apple's board of directors."

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

#93

Post by siliconc0w »

Musk has a chance if he can show that Twitter knowingly mislead the public about the bot %. It sounds like their methodology was indeed pretty weak, arguably deliberately so, and they had people on staff that should've known this would produce poor estimates with a large margin on error.

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

#94

Post by mherdeg »

seydor wrote: post #43

I wish this whole saga ended, and Musk buys reddit instead. This current saga is pure entertainment, which will end up in some kind of settlement and will leave the lawyers a lot richer.

I'm amazed by how reddit has turned itself around from "the place where the commenter zeitgeist involves wishing physical violence on the CEO" to "the place I append to all my searches with a site: prefix to find meaningful Web discussion and product reviews".

There was a surprising and unpredictable community turnaround from about 2015-2021; don't know if it will last, but it's surprising how much better it is now.

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

#95

Post by kergonath »

jsnell wrote: post #88
kergonath wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They must have some internal documentation though, and the process can be looked at during the trial, right? So it cannot be replicated by third parties, and Musk does not know what he’s talking about (shocker!), but it can be verified a posteriori . And I assume it will be at some point.

I don't think it would be verified by somebody being given access to Twitter's internal data and redoing their process. At most both sides will trot out some expert witnesses to talk about whether the process / rating guide described in the internal docs are reasonable (what Twitter does doesn't need to be perfect, just not outright fraudulent). I look forward to finding what kind of a kook Musk finds as his expert.…

> I don't think it would be verified by somebody being given access to Twitter's internal data and redoing their process.

Indeed. But surely they have at least internal audits. They seem like they take this stuff seriously.

> I look forward to finding what kind of a kook Musk finds as his expert

Indeed! If he picks his experts like his lawyers, this could be spectacular.

> e.g. evidence of the process not being followed, or of the numbers being tampered with

Yeah, he sounds like he’s hoping to find a smoking gun where some Twitter higher-up admits fudging the numbers. To be fair, if that is true, then Twitter deserves to be raked over the coals, even though it would not be sufficient to get Musk out of this mess.

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

#96

Post by hunterb123 »

pwinnski wrote: post #85
hunterb123 wrote: post #28

Quoted post unavailable.

Given the language twitter surrounded that number with, they probably could. They called out that it was uncertain, described how they estimated it in detail, and stated that reality could be higher or lower. Given all of that, they could have said the number was .01% or 90%, and neither would have been misrepresentation.

Exactly, so what's the point of Twitter's number or using it for valuation?

Now knowing it's surrounded by loose language because the number is so loose, assume the worst prediction, which is 15-20% from 3rd parties.

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

#97

Post by runako »

jsnell wrote: post #60
Invictus0 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter's methodology for checking bot accounts is clear, consistent, and has been detailing in its SEC filings for years. Anyone that cared could have easily double checked them. Recalling from memory, all they did is take a random sampling of accounts and have a human rate the accounts as a bot or not--back when Twitter had an API it would have been even easier to do this.

No. Nobody outside of Twitter can repeat the analysis. First, only Twitter knows which users are active (the population being analyzed are the DAUs). People doing bot analysis from publicly available define activity based on the account tweeting, which will probably skew heavily toward spam bots. Second, the mDAU metric is the DAUs with known bots having been removed. Nobody outside of Twitter knows which active acco…

> No. Nobody outside of Twitter can repeat the analysis.

This is true of most material statements provided by companies in every industry:

- Revenue? Trust the company, I cannot independently verify from outside the company.

- Retail same-store sales comparable? Have to trust the company's numbers.

- Headcount? I have to trust their number again here.

- Expenses? I have no way to verify this unless I work at the company, in a very senior position.

Outside verification of data is not a concern relevant to corporate disclosures.

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

#98

Post by 8ytecoder »

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…

He claimed to buy Twitter, specifically, to clean it up; to get rid of bots. That was his stated goal.

"If our twitter bid succeeds, we will defeat the spam bots or die trying!"

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1517215066550116354

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

#99

Post by yieldcrv »

hunterb123 wrote: post #28

Quoted post unavailable.

> Can we start a tip jar every time someone says the "he signed away his due diligence" talking point?

I would love to see how Delaware Chancery Court treats this concept. So going in front of a judge is the best way to find out!

I routinely accept contracts and agreements with parts I know I'm going to ignore or violate just because I understand the jurisdiction. It's more efficient than negotiating and actually having lawyers making revisions for months at great cost.

I'm not familiar with this nuance of Delaware but its not outside of the realm of possibility that there is an argument that can help Elon.

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

#100

Post by kergonath »

cma wrote: post #91
kergonath wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jobs’ RDF was a manifestation of his charisma: he could make people think something really hard was actually easy (when dealing with engineers and designers) or the other way around (when dealing with customers). Jobs did bullshit, but AFAIK more on the design and marketing side than on the business side (give or take the backdated stock option thing and his first stint at Apple, when he wasn’t in control). Certainly…

> (give or take the backdated stock option thing and his first stint at Apple, when he wasn’t in control). Certainly nothing like Musk’s shenanigans. Don't forget Jobs' prime role in having companies collude together to depress wages by not recruiting each other's employees: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L... "an interconnected web of express agreements, each with the active involvement a…

> Don't forget Jobs' prime role in having companies collude together to depress wages by not recruiting each other's employees

Yes, indeed! I forgot to mention that.

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