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Meanwhile other people argue that, even if twitter reports a wildly wrong number, twitter still isn't at fault. It seems like people like to exaggerate both wa

Meanwhile other people argue that, even if twitter reports a wildly wrong number, twitter still isn't at fault. It seems like people like to exaggerate both ways.

NotTameAntelope 4y ago
There’s no version of this where Twitter is at fault…
- ergocoder 4y ago
  If twitter bot number is, say, 30%, you mean twitter will not be charged by SEC? Yeah, I disagree.
  - NotTameAntelope 4y ago
    You can disagree all you want, Twitter made it clear its bot number could be wildly off. It never lied and the SEC understands that (unlike you). Buying into Elon Musk’s bullshit is a gigantic waste of time.
    - ergocoder 4y ago
      > You can disagree all you want Everyone can disagree at any time. It's a discussion forum where diverse opinions are welcome. Are you gonna yell "water is wet" next? > Twitter made it clear its bot number could be wildly off An example: NVIDIA made it clear that they don't have full and accurate information of what their buyers use their chips for. Maybe some customers buy NVIDIA to hold and do chicken dance? who cares? Yet they were charged by SEC for not identifying that a large chunks of their buyers used it for crypto mining. Because this misled investors and shareholders on the company's outlook. The disclaimer doesn't protect the company from reporting wildly inaccurate numbers.
      - NotTameAntelope 4y ago
        The disclaimer absolutely protects the company from reporting a wildly “inaccurate” subjective number, which is apparently a concept you simply do not understand.
  - ncallaway 4y ago
    > 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 statement to the SEC, if they were correctly identifying those accounts and only tracking the remaining 10% as monetizable accounts. Further Twitter very clearly disclaims that identifying a “false or spam” account is a subjective measure that requires them to apply “significant judgement” to determine. Because it’s subjective, it wouldn’t be sufficient to show “the bot number” (which I’m going to treat as “the percent of mDAU which are false or spam accounts”) is 30%. You’d also have to show that Twitter knew that their process and judgement were flawed to the point of deliberately being deceptive. Below is the specific statement Twitter put in their quarterly 10-K filings. I don’t see them catching a charge from the SEC for merely being wrong. > The numbers of mDAU presented in this Annual Report on Form 10-K are based on internal company data. While these numbers are based on what we believe to be reasonable estimates for the applicable period of measurement, there are inherent challenges in measuring usage and engagement across our large number of total accounts around the world. Furthermore, our metrics may be impacted by our information quality efforts, which are our overall efforts to reduce malicious activity on the service, inclusive of spam, malicious automation, and fake accounts. For example, there are a number of false or spam accounts in existence on our platform. We have performed an internal review of a sample of accounts and estimate that the average of false or spam accounts during the fourth quarter of 2021 represented fewer than 5% of our mDAU during the quarter. The false or spam accounts for a period represents the average of false or spam accounts in the samples during each monthly analysis period during the quarter. In making this determination, we applied significant judgment, so our estimation of false or spam accounts may not accurately represent the actual number of such accounts, and the actual number of false or spam accounts could be higher than we have estimated. We are continually seeking to improve our ability to estimate the total number of spam accounts and eliminate them from the calculation of our mDAU, and have made improvements in our spam detection capabilities that have resulted in the suspension of a large number of spam, malicious automation, and fake accounts. We intend to continue to make such improvements. After we determine an account is spam, malicious automation, or fake, we stop counting it in our mDAU, or other related metrics. We also treat multiple accounts held by a single person or organization as multiple mDAU because we permit people and organizations to have more than one account. Additionally, some accounts used by organizations are used by many people within the organization. As such, the calculations of our mDAU may not accurately reflect the actual number of people or organizations using our platform.

Meanwhile other people argue that, even if twitter reports a wildly wrong number, twitter still isn't at fault. It seems like people like to exaggerate both ways.

NotTameAntelope 4y ago

There’s no version of this where Twitter is at fault…

ergocoder 4y ago
If twitter bot number is, say, 30%, you mean twitter will not be charged by SEC? Yeah, I disagree.
- NotTameAntelope 4y ago
  You can disagree all you want, Twitter made it clear its bot number could be wildly off. It never lied and the SEC understands that (unlike you). Buying into Elon Musk’s bullshit is a gigantic waste of time.
  - ergocoder 4y ago
    > You can disagree all you want Everyone can disagree at any time. It's a discussion forum where diverse opinions are welcome. Are you gonna yell "water is wet" next? > Twitter made it clear its bot number could be wildly off An example: NVIDIA made it clear that they don't have full and accurate information of what their buyers use their chips for. Maybe some customers buy NVIDIA to hold and do chicken dance? who cares? Yet they were charged by SEC for not identifying that a large chunks of their buyers used it for crypto mining. Because this misled investors and shareholders on the company's outlook. The disclaimer doesn't protect the company from reporting wildly inaccurate numbers.
    - NotTameAntelope 4y ago
      The disclaimer absolutely protects the company from reporting a wildly “inaccurate” subjective number, which is apparently a concept you simply do not understand.
- ncallaway 4y ago
  > 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 statement to the SEC, if they were correctly identifying those accounts and only tracking the remaining 10% as monetizable accounts. Further Twitter very clearly disclaims that identifying a “false or spam” account is a subjective measure that requires them to apply “significant judgement” to determine. Because it’s subjective, it wouldn’t be sufficient to show “the bot number” (which I’m going to treat as “the percent of mDAU which are false or spam accounts”) is 30%. You’d also have to show that Twitter knew that their process and judgement were flawed to the point of deliberately being deceptive. Below is the specific statement Twitter put in their quarterly 10-K filings. I don’t see them catching a charge from the SEC for merely being wrong. > The numbers of mDAU presented in this Annual Report on Form 10-K are based on internal company data. While these numbers are based on what we believe to be reasonable estimates for the applicable period of measurement, there are inherent challenges in measuring usage and engagement across our large number of total accounts around the world. Furthermore, our metrics may be impacted by our information quality efforts, which are our overall efforts to reduce malicious activity on the service, inclusive of spam, malicious automation, and fake accounts. For example, there are a number of false or spam accounts in existence on our platform. We have performed an internal review of a sample of accounts and estimate that the average of false or spam accounts during the fourth quarter of 2021 represented fewer than 5% of our mDAU during the quarter. The false or spam accounts for a period represents the average of false or spam accounts in the samples during each monthly analysis period during the quarter. In making this determination, we applied significant judgment, so our estimation of false or spam accounts may not accurately represent the actual number of such accounts, and the actual number of false or spam accounts could be higher than we have estimated. We are continually seeking to improve our ability to estimate the total number of spam accounts and eliminate them from the calculation of our mDAU, and have made improvements in our spam detection capabilities that have resulted in the suspension of a large number of spam, malicious automation, and fake accounts. We intend to continue to make such improvements. After we determine an account is spam, malicious automation, or fake, we stop counting it in our mDAU, or other related metrics. We also treat multiple accounts held by a single person or organization as multiple mDAU because we permit people and organizations to have more than one account. Additionally, some accounts used by organizations are used by many people within the organization. As such, the calculations of our mDAU may not accurately reflect the actual number of people or organizations using our platform.