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Seems like he's looking for a tactical retreat — the bots question is hyper-subjective, and provides the company a lot of wiggle-room. How many Twitter account

by muglug 4y ago

Seems like he's looking for a tactical retreat — the bots question is hyper-subjective, and provides the company a lot of wiggle-room. How many Twitter accounts were created in automated fashion, but designed to look authentic, and haven't yet been removed by anti-spam measures? That could conceivably be around 5% of active accounts if Twitter is doing its job. If you wanted to inflate that number you could include account takeovers, which are a little harder to measure (created by a real person, but taken over by a botnet using hacked/easy-to-guess credentials). And if you want to inflate the number further, don't just count account numbers — instead look at the % of total activity (likes, retweets, follows) that those accounts represent. You can reasonably expect that number to be higher, given how many dormant accounts Twitter has. Elon has alleged that his followers include lots of bots. That's not necessarily surprising as "follow Elon's account" is the sort of thing a bot developer might program in to look authentic.

onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
> You can reasonably expect that number to be higher, given how many dormant accounts Twitter has. You would measure it in terms of MAU - not total created accounts - right?
- muglug 4y ago
  MAU has to be done sort-of retroactively: you could say "given the accounts we now know to be bots and have removed, what percentage of January 2022's MAU were inauthentic". Sometimes bot accounts will do organic-looking behaviour for at least a month to evade automatic detection, before doing explicit bot-like things (following particular accounts en-masse).
farmerstan 4y ago
I disagree. I think it’s the opposite, Twitter should be providing this data and it’s pretty straightforward. Not providing it or pretending to provide it seems like a way to get out of the sale but leaving open a way to sue him for breach of the sale.
- muglug 4y ago
  It's not "pretty straightforward" — you can't provide the raw data behind all your accounts because that data includes a ton of PII. Any data you do provide will be based on some sort of analysis and/or sampling.
  - farmerstan 4y ago
    You don’t have to send the databases over to comply. You can give on-premises access to your data to Musk representatives and let me make their own queries to satisfy themselves. It’s not hard.
    - yzmtf2008 4y ago
      Assuming it is not hard (it is). Why? It’s not like Twitter is asking to be bought here. Musk voluntarily waived his rights to due diligence. Presumably his representatives have reviewed this agreement?
      - farmerstan 4y ago
        yzmtf2008 4y ago
        Agreeing to be bought doesn’t create any obligation on Twitter’s part to do anything that’s not in the contract. Especially for things that Musk has explicitly waived.
    - jcranmer 4y ago
      I can't even. The potential privacy violations are the same whether you're giving the database to the other party or letting the other party come to your premises to have sufficient access to the database. No wait, I take that back: they might see (very slightly more) stuff by walking on-site. It's the data being requested that's a privacy violation, not the place where that data is viewed.
bmitc 4y ago
As far as I understand, Musk explicitly waived the opportunity to do due diligence (like investigate bot prevalence) in the purchase agreement. Then he turned around and requested numbers that would have been discovered while doing an investigation, such as the one he waived. Further, Musk is a hypocrite. There are proven bots, potentially even directly sponsored or controlled by Musk or Tesla, that are pro-Tesla and have been shown to correlate with Tesla’s stock price and active correlated with negative Tesla sentiment on Twitter. This whole thing is a circus orchestrated by him to either make money on his stock purchase or seed discontent on Twitter through his free speech and bot rhetoric or both.
- adolph 4y ago
  > whole thing is a circus orchestrated by him Is it not a conspiracy theory if only one person, "him," is doing it?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - camjohnson26 4y ago
    Conspiracy implies more than one person are conspiring.
- sixQuarks 4y ago
  Where is your proof that he waived the opportunity to do any due diligence?
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > Where is your proof that he waived the opportunity to do any due diligence? The merger announcement [1]. Consummation of the Merger is subject to approval by Twitter's shareholders and the U.S. government. No boilerplate diligence clause. That "the acquisition proposal was no longer subject to the completion of financing and business due diligence" was also cited by Twitter in its proxy statement [2]. [1] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000119312522120474/d310843ddefa14a.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000119312522... [2] https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001418091/ee07b45a-163f-4cba-ad33-68ddc6063fc8.pdf https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001418091/ee07b45...
duxup 4y ago
At some point it just feels like we’re just watching someone act out…. and the tech / business has nothing to do with it.

by muglug 4y ago

onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago

> You can reasonably expect that number to be higher, given how many dormant accounts Twitter has. You would measure it in terms of MAU - not total created accounts - right?

muglug 4y ago
MAU has to be done sort-of retroactively: you could say "given the accounts we now know to be bots and have removed, what percentage of January 2022's MAU were inauthentic". Sometimes bot accounts will do organic-looking behaviour for at least a month to evade automatic detection, before doing explicit bot-like things (following particular accounts en-masse).

farmerstan 4y ago

I disagree. I think it’s the opposite, Twitter should be providing this data and it’s pretty straightforward. Not providing it or pretending to provide it seems like a way to get out of the sale but leaving open a way to sue him for breach of the sale.

muglug 4y ago
It's not "pretty straightforward" — you can't provide the raw data behind all your accounts because that data includes a ton of PII. Any data you do provide will be based on some sort of analysis and/or sampling.
- farmerstan 4y ago
  You don’t have to send the databases over to comply. You can give on-premises access to your data to Musk representatives and let me make their own queries to satisfy themselves. It’s not hard.
  - yzmtf2008 4y ago
    Assuming it is not hard (it is). Why? It’s not like Twitter is asking to be bought here. Musk voluntarily waived his rights to due diligence. Presumably his representatives have reviewed this agreement?
    - farmerstan 4y ago
      - yzmtf2008 4y ago
        Agreeing to be bought doesn’t create any obligation on Twitter’s part to do anything that’s not in the contract. Especially for things that Musk has explicitly waived.
  - jcranmer 4y ago
    I can't even. The potential privacy violations are the same whether you're giving the database to the other party or letting the other party come to your premises to have sufficient access to the database. No wait, I take that back: they might see (very slightly more) stuff by walking on-site. It's the data being requested that's a privacy violation, not the place where that data is viewed.

bmitc 4y ago

As far as I understand, Musk explicitly waived the opportunity to do due diligence (like investigate bot prevalence) in the purchase agreement. Then he turned around and requested numbers that would have been discovered while doing an investigation, such as the one he waived. Further, Musk is a hypocrite. There are proven bots, potentially even directly sponsored or controlled by Musk or Tesla, that are pro-Tesla and have been shown to correlate with Tesla’s stock price and active correlated with negative Tesla sentiment on Twitter. This whole thing is a circus orchestrated by him to either make money on his stock purchase or seed discontent on Twitter through his free speech and bot rhetoric or both.

adolph 4y ago
> whole thing is a circus orchestrated by him Is it not a conspiracy theory if only one person, "him," is doing it?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- camjohnson26 4y ago
  Conspiracy implies more than one person are conspiring.
sixQuarks 4y ago
Where is your proof that he waived the opportunity to do any due diligence?
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > Where is your proof that he waived the opportunity to do any due diligence? The merger announcement [1]. Consummation of the Merger is subject to approval by Twitter's shareholders and the U.S. government. No boilerplate diligence clause. That "the acquisition proposal was no longer subject to the completion of financing and business due diligence" was also cited by Twitter in its proxy statement [2]. [1] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000119312522120474/d310843ddefa14a.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000119312522... [2] https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001418091/ee07b45a-163f-4cba-ad33-68ddc6063fc8.pdf https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001418091/ee07b45...

duxup 4y ago

At some point it just feels like we’re just watching someone act out…. and the tech / business has nothing to do with it.