5 ms·

My favorite part is when the government suggests to Twitter that they should Ctl-F to find 'associated accounts'

roflyear 3y ago
Classic, and depressing.
josefresco 3y ago
What's funny is while the judge might look silly suggesting such a basic technique, Twitter's lawyers were clearly "playing dumb" saying that a search for "realDonaldTrump" produced "millions of emails" and therefore was unreasonable.
- progbits 3y ago
  Lawyers gonna lawyer, don't expect good intent from them. Edit, more accurately: do not anthropomorphize lawyers.
- justrealist 3y ago
  Well I think they were saying that (1) internally at Twitter there were millions of references to the realDonaldTrump account in slack/email (plausible) and (2) there were a ton of external communications about the account which were probably not material to this request.
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    They're deliberately playing dumb, though, in a way that was probably pretty transparent to the judge. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/15/special-counsel-obtained-trump-twitter-howell-00111410 https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/15/special-counsel-obt... That conversation refers to: > Among the data the search warrant commanded Twitter to produce: Accounts associated with @realdonaldtrump that the former president might have used in the same device. They know that doesn't mean "anyone who @mentioned him publicly".
    - peppermint_gum 3y ago
      This is not true. "Millions of emails" was in reference to this part of the warrant: "Communications between Twitter and any person regarding the account including contacts with support services and records of actions taken"
      - ceejayoz 3y ago
        A public @mention of Trump by a random person is not a "communication between Twitter [and that person] regarding the [@realDonaldTrump] account" by any sane reading. That item means they have to hand over things like support tickets or emails sent to the @realDonaldTrump account or Trump's social media team.
vineyardmike 3y ago
Google seems to be able to find associated accounts by seeing if one device is signed in multiple times. Same with Meta. The court specifically asked for other accounts used by trump on the same device. This SHOULD be as simple as control-F. Twitter almost certainly stores some sort of device identifier that can accomplish this.
- mschuster91 3y ago
  > Twitter almost certainly stores some sort of device identifier that can accomplish this. They definitely do, and use this as part of when they ban a user permanently - all other accounts (i.e. "backup" accounts) that have ever used the device in question get banned as well. Happened way too often in my circles.
riffic 3y ago
'grep' or 'SELECT' would have really made me laugh though.
tppiotrowski 3y ago
Here's the government attorney explaining how Twitter should do it: > To the extent that Twitter does not, it should be a simple process. You have cookies associated with an account; you have the email for the subscriber information; perhaps you have the phone number; you definitely have the IP addresses. Control F that through your system to see what other accounts have come from those IP addresses, are linked to that email address, are linked to the phone number, are linked to the same cookies. I don't profess to be a technological wizard, but it does not seem to be a complex issue. Reminds me of freelancing nightmares where the client would being with: "This should only take a few hours but I need a website with a simple store front and shopping cart...". The best response I came up with to these clients was: if you know exactly how long it will take then you must know exactly the steps involved and how long each takes so you can do the work yourself and you don't need me :P
- spencerflem 3y ago
  This one does though, surely these systems are already in place for blocking spam
  - JohnMakin 3y ago
    Of course they have this capability. They would have to.
- mikestew 3y ago
  So following your analogy (which I'll state upfront is a poor one), where do you think the government attorney is wrong? Because from where I sit the government attorney, if not completely correct, is at least on the right track. Other companies can piece this together (how else do they know that you are logged in somewhere else?), and I would be shocked if there isn't some means on Twitter's backend to do the same. And from reading the transcript, it would seem that Twitter's objection is about analyzing the data, as opposed to simply providing it.
  - tppiotrowski 3y ago
    I just think it will realistically take Twitter more than two weeks to come up with this data. Seems like a long time but my experience at companies of 1,000+ is that things move very slow.
morkalork 3y ago
Easy-peasy, just open the last 6 years of twitter access logs in Excel and ctrl-F for Donny's ip/device identifier!
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  Do you really think they don't have some sort of system to index data like device identifiers for quick searching? https://help.twitter.com/en/about-personalization-across-your-devices https://help.twitter.com/en/about-personalization-across-you... > By better understanding how different browsers and devices are related, we can use information from one browser or device to help personalize the Twitter experience on another. For example, if you commonly use Twitter for Android around the same time and from the same network where you browse sports websites with embedded Tweets on a computer, we may infer that your Android device and laptop are related and later suggest sports-related Tweets and serve sports-related advertising on your Android device.
  - morkalork 3y ago
    No, I just find the thought of a legal aide trying to open a comically huge .csv file in Excel humerous.
  - vineyardmike 3y ago
    If you make a data-access request in GDPR you might actually get a massive CSV file with this data in it. Obviously some automated system put it together, not control F, but the legal team totally could be using CSV
shrubble 3y ago
The joke's on the Court -- the lawyers are using Emacs which requires Ctrl-S instead!

Classic, and depressing.

What's funny is while the judge might look silly suggesting such a basic technique, Twitter's lawyers were clearly "playing dumb" saying that a search for "realDonaldTrump" produced "millions of emails" and therefore was unreasonable.

progbits 3y ago
Lawyers gonna lawyer, don't expect good intent from them. Edit, more accurately: do not anthropomorphize lawyers.
justrealist 3y ago
Well I think they were saying that (1) internally at Twitter there were millions of references to the realDonaldTrump account in slack/email (plausible) and (2) there were a ton of external communications about the account which were probably not material to this request.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  They're deliberately playing dumb, though, in a way that was probably pretty transparent to the judge. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/15/special-counsel-obtained-trump-twitter-howell-00111410 https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/15/special-counsel-obt... That conversation refers to: > Among the data the search warrant commanded Twitter to produce: Accounts associated with @realdonaldtrump that the former president might have used in the same device. They know that doesn't mean "anyone who @mentioned him publicly".
  - peppermint_gum 3y ago
    This is not true. "Millions of emails" was in reference to this part of the warrant: "Communications between Twitter and any person regarding the account including contacts with support services and records of actions taken"
    - ceejayoz 3y ago
      A public @mention of Trump by a random person is not a "communication between Twitter [and that person] regarding the [@realDonaldTrump] account" by any sane reading. That item means they have to hand over things like support tickets or emails sent to the @realDonaldTrump account or Trump's social media team.

vineyardmike 3y ago

Google seems to be able to find associated accounts by seeing if one device is signed in multiple times. Same with Meta. The court specifically asked for other accounts used by trump on the same device. This SHOULD be as simple as control-F. Twitter almost certainly stores some sort of device identifier that can accomplish this.

mschuster91 3y ago
> Twitter almost certainly stores some sort of device identifier that can accomplish this. They definitely do, and use this as part of when they ban a user permanently - all other accounts (i.e. "backup" accounts) that have ever used the device in question get banned as well. Happened way too often in my circles.

riffic 3y ago

'grep' or 'SELECT' would have really made me laugh though.

tppiotrowski 3y ago

Here's the government attorney explaining how Twitter should do it: > To the extent that Twitter does not, it should be a simple process. You have cookies associated with an account; you have the email for the subscriber information; perhaps you have the phone number; you definitely have the IP addresses. Control F that through your system to see what other accounts have come from those IP addresses, are linked to that email address, are linked to the phone number, are linked to the same cookies. I don't profess to be a technological wizard, but it does not seem to be a complex issue. Reminds me of freelancing nightmares where the client would being with: "This should only take a few hours but I need a website with a simple store front and shopping cart...". The best response I came up with to these clients was: if you know exactly how long it will take then you must know exactly the steps involved and how long each takes so you can do the work yourself and you don't need me :P

spencerflem 3y ago
This one does though, surely these systems are already in place for blocking spam
- JohnMakin 3y ago
  Of course they have this capability. They would have to.
mikestew 3y ago
So following your analogy (which I'll state upfront is a poor one), where do you think the government attorney is wrong? Because from where I sit the government attorney, if not completely correct, is at least on the right track. Other companies can piece this together (how else do they know that you are logged in somewhere else?), and I would be shocked if there isn't some means on Twitter's backend to do the same. And from reading the transcript, it would seem that Twitter's objection is about analyzing the data, as opposed to simply providing it.
- tppiotrowski 3y ago
  I just think it will realistically take Twitter more than two weeks to come up with this data. Seems like a long time but my experience at companies of 1,000+ is that things move very slow.

morkalork 3y ago

Easy-peasy, just open the last 6 years of twitter access logs in Excel and ctrl-F for Donny's ip/device identifier!

ceejayoz 3y ago
Do you really think they don't have some sort of system to index data like device identifiers for quick searching? https://help.twitter.com/en/about-personalization-across-your-devices https://help.twitter.com/en/about-personalization-across-you... > By better understanding how different browsers and devices are related, we can use information from one browser or device to help personalize the Twitter experience on another. For example, if you commonly use Twitter for Android around the same time and from the same network where you browse sports websites with embedded Tweets on a computer, we may infer that your Android device and laptop are related and later suggest sports-related Tweets and serve sports-related advertising on your Android device.
- morkalork 3y ago
  No, I just find the thought of a legal aide trying to open a comically huge .csv file in Excel humerous.
- vineyardmike 3y ago
  If you make a data-access request in GDPR you might actually get a massive CSV file with this data in it. Obviously some automated system put it together, not control F, but the legal team totally could be using CSV

shrubble 3y ago

The joke's on the Court -- the lawyers are using Emacs which requires Ctrl-S instead!