10 ms·

Twitter admits it overstated users for years ahead of Elon Musk takeover

113 points by nimbius 5y ago

bdcravens 5y ago
"accidentally"
tnzk 5y ago
> Twitter also said it accidentally over-counted the number of monetizable daily active users because of a feature that allowed people to link multiple separate accounts together in order to conveniently switch between them. It counted those two separate accounts as two users for more than three years. Feels like they can be technically two users. Is there a strict regulation how they should be counted for tech giants like Twitter? definition for
- jedberg 5y ago
  There is no legal definition of MAU. However the industry standard is that it represents total number of customers, so it wouldn't make sense to count one person twice if they have two accounts, because they are still just one customer.
  - jdrc 5y ago
    often they are agents that manage social media for different businesses. they should be counted as separate
    - jedberg 5y ago
      They are still one set of eyeballs and one brain to advertise to. Since the metric is mainly for the purpose of "how many eyeballs might see these ads" it still makes more sense to count them as one.
  - numpad0 5y ago
    Feels like a quirk comes from the fact that a lot of prominent pseudonymous Twitterers, that they make accounts per communities and go extra miles to dis-link each ones, especially from real life identities.
  - NaturalPhallacy 5y ago
    Tangential, but twitter's customers aren't their users, it's their advertisers. The users are the product.
reisr3 5y ago
Somewhere at Twitter HQ, there are two boxes full of notecards: 1. Things that need to be "fixed" in the code, immediately, before Elon gets here. 2. Things we'll need to publicly admit before Elon gets here.
- adrianb 5y ago
  But a public company has higher public transparency obligations than a private one. Why do you think being afraid of Elon will make them more transparent than being afraid of the SEC?
  - christkv 5y ago
    They are worried about the lawsuits that would be filed against the board and the executive if they find fraud after the deal closes.
  - mdorazio 5y ago
    Cynically, the SEC will only issue fines in most cases. Elon will (according to accounts from friends who have worked at his companies) fire leadership without hesitation and possibly publicly shame them, too.
    - martythemaniak 5y ago
      > and possibly publicly shame them, too You accidentally hit upon what "free speech" means when used by whales. If Musk berates and bullies an employee with endless racist and sexist slurs, he'd get in trouble. But if he points his mook armies at that same employee and subjects them to the same abuse, it's all good. Just freedom of speech.
      - wholien 5y ago
        > But if he points his mook armies at that same employee and subjects them to the same abuse, it's all good. Just freedom of speech. What does "points his mock armies at the same employee" mean here? Any examples?
Mikeb85 5y ago
Curious if Musk can sue them for a better price. This could get Twitter in some regulatory trouble...
- jedberg 5y ago
  He can still back out of the deal. This is part of the due diligence. I suspect it's coming out now because they know that Musk will reveal it if he finds out through due diligence.
  - chernevik 5y ago
    I don't think so. I've read that he doesn't have a due diligence provision in the merger agreement. And, I don't see any such provision in the agreement, which I _think_ is here: https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/0001418091/000119312522120461/d310843d8k.htm https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/0001418091/0... He could back out paying the $1 billion breakup fee, and I suppose he might have some cause of action if there were serious problems with the reps and warranties. But IANAL.
  - rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
    >He can still back out of the deal. That would cost him (or Twitter) $1B.
- powera 5y ago
  I assume Mr. Musk waived his right to any due diligence as part of his agreement with the Twitter board.
  - Mikeb85 5y ago
    It's a public company so all the information should be there, due diligence isn't really a thing in this case. It's more the aspect that Twitter likely committed a financial crime, defrauding shareholders and the acquiring party.
    - 5y ago
stuckinhell 5y ago
I'm still waiting for an explanation on why liberal accounts have lost thousands followers but conservative accounts have gained thousands. I'm fairly liberal myself, but seeing what is clear shadow banning/suppression especially of politicians is borderline voting interference and should be punished heavily at both the corporate and personnel level.
- runjake 5y ago
  Do you have any evidence or examples of this? I don't know one way or another but Twitter and Twitter users strike me far more as liberal heavy.
  - awflkjwlaegkj 5y ago
    [dead]
  - chernevik 5y ago
    On the conservative side: https://twitter.com/SethDillon/status/1519688581261967366 https://twitter.com/SethDillon/status/1519688581261967366
  - q3 5y ago
    Not evidence but people claiming this happened: https://twitter.com/cbouzy/status/1518953731961802752 https://twitter.com/cbouzy/status/1518953731961802752 https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1519002011651477511 https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/151900201165147751... https://twitter.com/MZHemingway/status/1518946715407106048 https://twitter.com/MZHemingway/status/1518946715407106048 I already got downvoted for posting this yesterday, lol.
- svnpenn 5y ago
  I agree with the other reply. Unless you have evidence to support this, it's just a conspiracy theory.
  - fullshark 5y ago
    Can someone explain the conspiracy theory? I don't get what it implies...that twitter was overstating liberal followers but understating conservative followers in a way to juice liberal tweets? That thumb on the scale was then removed before Musk took over? Seems pointless and much easier to achieve through other means. Ultimately this nonsense just confirms to me that Musk is right and twitter's algorithm needs to be open source and the rules surrounding banning people need to be clear to ensure trust.
tristanj 5y ago
I looked at the actual data and concluded this is a non-story. Twitter overstated users by <1% each quarter the past 2 years. That is not an egregious accounting error. This happened because they double counted users who used linked accounts. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/twitter-announces-first-quarter-2022-120000391.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/twitter-announces-first-quart...
- jklm 5y ago
  Thanks for being one of the few readers that does a bit of fact checking on news - keeping the old HN alive.
- BaseballPhysics 5y ago
  The headline is also misleading, implying that Twitter deliberately revealed this information in advance of the Musk purchase when in fact this was just part of their normal quarterly reporting.
  - RobertRoberts 5y ago
    Did they report this error last quarter also? If not.... then what?
    - BaseballPhysics 5y ago
      To my knowledge they're revealing this for the first time in this quarterly report. As for "then what", there's always the possibility of a shareholder lawsuit or Musk using this as a pretext to back out of his offer. That said, the OP indicated the impact on MAU is pretty small (I didn't check this myself), so in the end it's probably all sound and fury signifying nothing.
  - rchaud 5y ago
    The comments on this link unfortunately show that many people still only just read the headline before jumping in with their 2c.
djyaz1200 5y ago
Twitter needs to get smaller to get better, specifically they need only real people (no bots). While this usage misstatement is minor it points to a longstanding directional problem whereby they focused too much on vanity metrics. I'd argue this a reason why they didn't do a better job challenged all the fake/bot accounts because those are great at pumping up vanity metrics.
NaturalPhallacy 5y ago
Just like reddit did before their bait & switch.
McLaren_Ferrari 5y ago
As a guy who follows sports it's really baffling to me how with politics there is not one iota of self-criticism among the political party voters and especially among single issue voters. Like, sure maybe Twitter and all social media are part of a giant conspiracy, but had Republicans presented Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio as the nominee in 2016, there are 70% chances are they'd still be in the WH. In sports you first focus on the low hanging fruit which is the stuff that you can control, this is why Trump's friend and legendary coach Bill Bellichick has 8 SuperBowl rings. If you are at the SuperBowl and field a QB which lasts only one half then having referees which penalize you becomes much less relevant.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > it's really baffling to me how with politics there is not one iota of self-criticism among the political party voters and especially among single issue voters. Uh, there's a whole lot of internal, including self, criticism within political parties. There are strategic reasons much (but very much not all) of that is deliberately done in a way to be outside of the public eye.
  - McLaren_Ferrari 5y ago
    When HRC lost I maybe heard 5% of Dems voters saying that she was a bad choice. When Trump lost 0% of Republicans voters admitted that they fielded a QB which lasted one half in the SuperBowl. It's all about referee blaming and accusing the other team of deflating footballs, not one iota of self-criticism.
- BaseballPhysics 5y ago
  I can't help but be impressed by the remarkable hoops people will jump through to make everything about US politics. Here we have a simple story about Twitter's financials, but nope, apparently we gotta debate US political party structure...
- TMWNN 5y ago
  >had Republicans presented Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio as the nominee in 2016, there are 70% chances are they'd still be in the WH Cruz or Rubio might have been like every other Republican candidate since 1988, in being unable to win the midwestern swing states PA, MI, and WI that Trump won for the first time in three decades.
sys_64738 5y ago
When due diligence is done then these lies about user count would have been exposed so they got to come clean about this "accident" now.

113 points by nimbius 5y ago

"accidentally"

tnzk 5y ago

> Twitter also said it accidentally over-counted the number of monetizable daily active users because of a feature that allowed people to link multiple separate accounts together in order to conveniently switch between them. It counted those two separate accounts as two users for more than three years. Feels like they can be technically two users. Is there a strict regulation how they should be counted for tech giants like Twitter? definition for

jedberg 5y ago
There is no legal definition of MAU. However the industry standard is that it represents total number of customers, so it wouldn't make sense to count one person twice if they have two accounts, because they are still just one customer.
- jdrc 5y ago
  often they are agents that manage social media for different businesses. they should be counted as separate
  - jedberg 5y ago
    They are still one set of eyeballs and one brain to advertise to. Since the metric is mainly for the purpose of "how many eyeballs might see these ads" it still makes more sense to count them as one.
- numpad0 5y ago
  Feels like a quirk comes from the fact that a lot of prominent pseudonymous Twitterers, that they make accounts per communities and go extra miles to dis-link each ones, especially from real life identities.
- NaturalPhallacy 5y ago
  Tangential, but twitter's customers aren't their users, it's their advertisers. The users are the product.

reisr3 5y ago

Somewhere at Twitter HQ, there are two boxes full of notecards: 1. Things that need to be "fixed" in the code, immediately, before Elon gets here. 2. Things we'll need to publicly admit before Elon gets here.

adrianb 5y ago
But a public company has higher public transparency obligations than a private one. Why do you think being afraid of Elon will make them more transparent than being afraid of the SEC?
- christkv 5y ago
  They are worried about the lawsuits that would be filed against the board and the executive if they find fraud after the deal closes.
- mdorazio 5y ago
  Cynically, the SEC will only issue fines in most cases. Elon will (according to accounts from friends who have worked at his companies) fire leadership without hesitation and possibly publicly shame them, too.
  - martythemaniak 5y ago
    > and possibly publicly shame them, too You accidentally hit upon what "free speech" means when used by whales. If Musk berates and bullies an employee with endless racist and sexist slurs, he'd get in trouble. But if he points his mook armies at that same employee and subjects them to the same abuse, it's all good. Just freedom of speech.
    - wholien 5y ago
      > But if he points his mook armies at that same employee and subjects them to the same abuse, it's all good. Just freedom of speech. What does "points his mock armies at the same employee" mean here? Any examples?

Mikeb85 5y ago

Curious if Musk can sue them for a better price. This could get Twitter in some regulatory trouble...

jedberg 5y ago
He can still back out of the deal. This is part of the due diligence. I suspect it's coming out now because they know that Musk will reveal it if he finds out through due diligence.
- chernevik 5y ago
  I don't think so. I've read that he doesn't have a due diligence provision in the merger agreement. And, I don't see any such provision in the agreement, which I _think_ is here: https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/0001418091/000119312522120461/d310843d8k.htm https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/0001418091/0... He could back out paying the $1 billion breakup fee, and I suppose he might have some cause of action if there were serious problems with the reps and warranties. But IANAL.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
  >He can still back out of the deal. That would cost him (or Twitter) $1B.
powera 5y ago
I assume Mr. Musk waived his right to any due diligence as part of his agreement with the Twitter board.
- Mikeb85 5y ago
  It's a public company so all the information should be there, due diligence isn't really a thing in this case. It's more the aspect that Twitter likely committed a financial crime, defrauding shareholders and the acquiring party.
  - 5y ago

stuckinhell 5y ago

I'm still waiting for an explanation on why liberal accounts have lost thousands followers but conservative accounts have gained thousands. I'm fairly liberal myself, but seeing what is clear shadow banning/suppression especially of politicians is borderline voting interference and should be punished heavily at both the corporate and personnel level.

runjake 5y ago
Do you have any evidence or examples of this? I don't know one way or another but Twitter and Twitter users strike me far more as liberal heavy.
- awflkjwlaegkj 5y ago
  [dead]
- chernevik 5y ago
  On the conservative side: https://twitter.com/SethDillon/status/1519688581261967366 https://twitter.com/SethDillon/status/1519688581261967366
- q3 5y ago
  Not evidence but people claiming this happened: https://twitter.com/cbouzy/status/1518953731961802752 https://twitter.com/cbouzy/status/1518953731961802752 https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1519002011651477511 https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/151900201165147751... https://twitter.com/MZHemingway/status/1518946715407106048 https://twitter.com/MZHemingway/status/1518946715407106048 I already got downvoted for posting this yesterday, lol.
svnpenn 5y ago
I agree with the other reply. Unless you have evidence to support this, it's just a conspiracy theory.
- fullshark 5y ago
  Can someone explain the conspiracy theory? I don't get what it implies...that twitter was overstating liberal followers but understating conservative followers in a way to juice liberal tweets? That thumb on the scale was then removed before Musk took over? Seems pointless and much easier to achieve through other means. Ultimately this nonsense just confirms to me that Musk is right and twitter's algorithm needs to be open source and the rules surrounding banning people need to be clear to ensure trust.

tristanj 5y ago

I looked at the actual data and concluded this is a non-story. Twitter overstated users by <1% each quarter the past 2 years. That is not an egregious accounting error. This happened because they double counted users who used linked accounts. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/twitter-announces-first-quarter-2022-120000391.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/twitter-announces-first-quart...

jklm 5y ago
Thanks for being one of the few readers that does a bit of fact checking on news - keeping the old HN alive.
BaseballPhysics 5y ago
The headline is also misleading, implying that Twitter deliberately revealed this information in advance of the Musk purchase when in fact this was just part of their normal quarterly reporting.
- RobertRoberts 5y ago
  Did they report this error last quarter also? If not.... then what?
  - BaseballPhysics 5y ago
    To my knowledge they're revealing this for the first time in this quarterly report. As for "then what", there's always the possibility of a shareholder lawsuit or Musk using this as a pretext to back out of his offer. That said, the OP indicated the impact on MAU is pretty small (I didn't check this myself), so in the end it's probably all sound and fury signifying nothing.
- rchaud 5y ago
  The comments on this link unfortunately show that many people still only just read the headline before jumping in with their 2c.

djyaz1200 5y ago

Twitter needs to get smaller to get better, specifically they need only real people (no bots). While this usage misstatement is minor it points to a longstanding directional problem whereby they focused too much on vanity metrics. I'd argue this a reason why they didn't do a better job challenged all the fake/bot accounts because those are great at pumping up vanity metrics.

NaturalPhallacy 5y ago

Just like reddit did before their bait & switch.

McLaren_Ferrari 5y ago

As a guy who follows sports it's really baffling to me how with politics there is not one iota of self-criticism among the political party voters and especially among single issue voters. Like, sure maybe Twitter and all social media are part of a giant conspiracy, but had Republicans presented Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio as the nominee in 2016, there are 70% chances are they'd still be in the WH. In sports you first focus on the low hanging fruit which is the stuff that you can control, this is why Trump's friend and legendary coach Bill Bellichick has 8 SuperBowl rings. If you are at the SuperBowl and field a QB which lasts only one half then having referees which penalize you becomes much less relevant.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> it's really baffling to me how with politics there is not one iota of self-criticism among the political party voters and especially among single issue voters. Uh, there's a whole lot of internal, including self, criticism within political parties. There are strategic reasons much (but very much not all) of that is deliberately done in a way to be outside of the public eye.
- McLaren_Ferrari 5y ago
  When HRC lost I maybe heard 5% of Dems voters saying that she was a bad choice. When Trump lost 0% of Republicans voters admitted that they fielded a QB which lasted one half in the SuperBowl. It's all about referee blaming and accusing the other team of deflating footballs, not one iota of self-criticism.
BaseballPhysics 5y ago
I can't help but be impressed by the remarkable hoops people will jump through to make everything about US politics. Here we have a simple story about Twitter's financials, but nope, apparently we gotta debate US political party structure...
TMWNN 5y ago
>had Republicans presented Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio as the nominee in 2016, there are 70% chances are they'd still be in the WH Cruz or Rubio might have been like every other Republican candidate since 1988, in being unable to win the midwestern swing states PA, MI, and WI that Trump won for the first time in three decades.

sys_64738 5y ago

When due diligence is done then these lies about user count would have been exposed so they got to come clean about this "accident" now.