What's Next for Twitter? (nbcnews.com) 174
Elon Musk no longer wants to buy Twitter, which now will "pursue legal action" simply to "enforce" their planned merger agreement, according to the company's chairman.
But however that plays out, Twitter is now in a worst-case scenario, one Wall Street analyst argues to NBC News: Dan Ives, a managing director and senior equity research analyst covering the technology sector at Wedbush Securities, said Twitter's stock price stands to suffer significant damage.... "The company has been in pure chaos — people have left in droves, and now competitors are going to seize on the ad dollars. With the employee turnover, it's going to be viewed as damaged goods from another potential buyer...."
Ives believes the damage to Twitter's value has only just begun. "When you have a cult figure like Musk — one of, if not the, most followed person in world — calling out Twitter, now it has a ripple effect that's hard to quantify," Ives said. "From advertisers to employees to the political firestorm that could ensue," he said. "For Twitter, it's not about the court battle and the legal ramifications, and how that plays out, that will be debated by lawyers. But it's a public company that needs to be run, and now it's hanging in the wind."
But however that plays out, Twitter is now in a worst-case scenario, one Wall Street analyst argues to NBC News: Dan Ives, a managing director and senior equity research analyst covering the technology sector at Wedbush Securities, said Twitter's stock price stands to suffer significant damage.... "The company has been in pure chaos — people have left in droves, and now competitors are going to seize on the ad dollars. With the employee turnover, it's going to be viewed as damaged goods from another potential buyer...."
Ives believes the damage to Twitter's value has only just begun. "When you have a cult figure like Musk — one of, if not the, most followed person in world — calling out Twitter, now it has a ripple effect that's hard to quantify," Ives said. "From advertisers to employees to the political firestorm that could ensue," he said. "For Twitter, it's not about the court battle and the legal ramifications, and how that plays out, that will be debated by lawyers. But it's a public company that needs to be run, and now it's hanging in the wind."
$44 billion dollars (Score:3)
Why can't he build a competitor to twitter from that? Spend $3 billion on servers and software development (use the open source twitter clone software like mastodon.) Offer the top 4000 twitter and tiktok people $10 million dollars cash to switch over exclusively for one year.
Re: $44 billion dollars (Score:3)
Or spend just 20 billion dollars getting influencers to switch or at least advertise the new company and the another 20 billion bucks on a bot army to spam Twitter telling eople to switch. If twitterâ(TM)s bot detection sucks as asserted it should not be a problem.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Or even better, he could find 44,000 cancer sufferers and fund their treatments.
But, yeah, I guess another social network is cool too.
That's a nice well meaning answer, but rather than fix the problem of individuals why not instead address the underlying issue that that is the USA healthcare system?
Buy a man to fish and he eats for the day. Teach a man to fish...
Re: $44 billion dollars (Score:2)
Elon is more of the âoegive a man a fire, and heâ(TM)ll be warm for a night, set a man on fire and heâ(TM)ll be warm for the rest of his lifeâ school of thought
Re: (Score:2)
And he discovers that someone else owns the rights to extract fish and starves anyway?
Fair point, let's change the analogy then.
Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for the night. Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Re: (Score:3)
Because people who invest into building a better future do not sink money into dead end projects that have little to no hope of providing long standing betterment for mankind.
The choice being proposed was between cancer treatment and another social network. Not sure how you think an new twitter clone will be for the betterment of mankind.
New garbage fire! Now with extra garbage!
Re: (Score:3)
Once you strip off the excess emotion, histrionics, and points of view that you invented out of whole cloth for me, your entire argument is predicated on the idea that a twitter clone is advancing human progress.
I disagree that this is the case.
Wittering on about how I'm vile and the cause of war and other astoundingly hyperbolic garbage doesn't change my opinion of twitter, a twitter clone and social networks in general.
Re: (Score:3)
Because he signed a legally binding contract to buy Twitter, as-is, at a specific price. And of course getting people to move from one platform to another is difficult, but mostly the first part.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, that's like complaining he's not going to buy a used car because it didn't have a drive train.
Re:$44 billion dollars (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, that's like complaining he's not going to buy a used car because it didn't have a drive train.
After being too stupid to try turning the key to see if it even starts before agreeing to buy it.
Re:$44 billion dollars (Score:5, Insightful)
This right there.
It still puzzles me to no end how this man ended up as one of the richest people on the planet. If anything, it's proof that "getting rich" by "work" is no different than doing it via the lottery: All you need is a shitload of luck. Sure, there'll be people who claim in either case that some sort of skill is involved, but no later than now you can look at the people who claim that there is some skill required to do it with "work" with the same disdain and contempt as you always looked at the ones who claim that you require a certain spark of genius or inspiration to fill out that lottery ticket.
Re:$44 billion dollars (Score:5, Insightful)
Musk had rich parents who helped him get started. So did Bezos, do did Gates, so did Trump. Having rich parents is the winning lottery ticket.
Re: (Score:2)
Reminds me of the old saying, how can you make a small fortune with the internet? By throwing a big fortune at it.
Re: (Score:2)
Not luck. Opportunity combined with your work.
You can work hard at throwing a dart at a dart board and hitting the bullseye. What separates you from people like Musk is that after Musk tried and failed his wealthy upbringing will give him a second chance to throw a dart. And a third, and a fourth until he hits it.
It's the same reason why people loan money to Trump despite him having lost more money than I ever will.
Re:$44 billion dollars (Score:4, Insightful)
Luck is a factor, but luck alone is not enough in my experience. What I think is needed:
1) luck. Okay, you do need luck as well. Someone I know started a company and straight away got to create a team of freelancers for government and be the billing partner. He took an obscene percentage and this how he quickly got major cash to build his company. He really believes he is all that, but I have never noticed an original thought in him. His 'skill' is cashing in on whatever fad IT managers now believe in. He does well, but I don't seem him reach the level of success the great ones have.
2) risk appetite. You have to be able to risk it all. That is especially hard if you have already achieved something and have a well paying job. The more comfortable you already already are, the less appealing it is to jeopardize it. Musk could, after the sale of Paypal, retire very comfortably. He did not, in fact he very much risked what he had on multiple occasions.
3) 'hard' work. It is not so much that every hour counts and should do everything yourself. Far from it, hard working people that don't delegate don't get rich. It means that you have to always put work first. Evenings, weekends, no signing of at Friday 17:00h for beers. There is period when life is put on hold.
4) be ruthless when needed. Don't keep your best friends around if they are not really contributing.
5) be technical enough to understand what you're building. You have to make the right decisions. You don't have to be the best software developer, but you need to have the discussions with the developers at their level.
6) understand the business side. The coolest tech does not mean you get rich.
Decades ago I tried to build some internet services with some others. We failed, not because our ideas were bad, in fact others have gotten rich doing exactly what we tried to build. Most successful ideas are usually not that unique. Speaking for myself, I lacked the risk appetite and was not prepared to put life on hold.
Having said that, definitely hard work alone won't get you rich.
Re: (Score:3)
Since he has had access to some internal Twitter info, setting up a competitor could land him in legal hot water. It would look a lot like he pretended to want to buy Twitter in order to get access to their corporate secrets, so he could launch a rival.
Re: $44 billion dollars (Score:2)
The deal itself was predicated on Twitter giving honest assessments of the percentage of users that are actually bots (fake accounts). Twitter initially claimed that bots only made up around 5% of users; it would appear that Musk has discovered this to be false.
Re: $44 billion dollars (Score:2)
He didnâ(TM)t agree to buy as-is though. And itâ(TM)s not Musk refusing to go along, itâ(TM)s his creditors, primarily Morgan Stanley thatâ(TM)s throwing up their hands. They made clear that Twitter isnâ(TM)t cooperating, isnâ(TM)t showing them necessary documents, top people have left and others within the organization have threatened to sabotage the operation.
All this points to a company that does not have control over its employees. They have let people run wild pulling it i
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Did you miss the part where I said offer around $10 million to the top few thousand influencers? Many of them don't even make a million dollars a year .. so 10 million is 10 years salary in one year after which they can switch back. If the top few thousand influencers switch, so will many of their followers.
Re: (Score:2)
Your platform will start out as a cesspool from day 1, only serving to amplify the instinct of moderate people to steer well clear. Until your platform can atract the moderate crowd, it is dead in the water.
Sounds perfect for Elon Musk, Donald Trump, about 1/2 the GOP, etc..
Re:$44 billion dollars (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft has demonstrated to everyone the lesson that, no matter how much money you spend, it's extraordinarily difficult to break into an established market. There's no guarantee that any amount of money spent could actually unseat Twitter. Established network effects are insanely difficult to work against. Remember Mixer? What you suggested was exactly what MS did with top streamers ($30 million to popular streamer Ninja alone). Most are now all back at Twitch, millions of dollars richer thanks to their short-lived exclusivity bonanza, while Mixer is dead and gone.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm not sure it really proves that. First off, Wikipedia lists a total of three streamers that moved exclusively to Mixer. Secondly, Ninja moved on July 31, 2019, the others apparently joined Mixer later. Finally, Microsoft shut Mixer down June 22, 2020, less than a year later, at the start of the pandemic lockdowns.
I think the real lesson is that if you want to draw people away from a competitor, you need to be in it for the long haul. Microsoft acquired Mixer in 2016 but only really started promoting it h
Re: (Score:2)
Or TRUTH Social. Trump had millions following him on Twitter, but very very few of them followed him over to his own social network. Half the ones who did got banned, because they were the ones trolling him on Twitter that he suddenly had the power to cancel.
Re: (Score:2)
Microsoft has demonstrated to everyone the lesson that, no matter how much money you spend, it's extraordinarily difficult to break into an established market.
Yes, especially if the competition abuses an effective monopoly position in basically every way possible. Oh, you didn't mean like that?
Remember Mixer?
No. I never went there.
It seems senseless to point out that most of a social network's users are not early adopters, but it does illustrate the network effect problem. Microsoft tried to go too hard with Mixer too fast. You have to get a user base of weirdos who will use any new social network just to get your numbers up before you start wasting money on promotion. If it do
Re: (Score:2)
That kinda begs the question of how "Twitter" in the context of the parent post is even defined.
It could mean Twitter as a brand as a whole, twitter.com, the corporation(s?) owning either of the above, or any shareholders of any such companies.
For any readers of this post, consider "Hostess" in the same light and ask the same question and you'll get where I'm going.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
People have tried. Google won't allow you to see it, amazon won't allow you to host it, and the payment processor duopoly won't allow it or its customers to transact. A handful of companies have total control over the world's infrastructure and finance right now.
Re: (Score:2)
Horseshit. There are alternatives to Twitter that show up just fine in Google. You don't need Amazon to host an online platform, in fact no popular social network is currently hosted by Amazon. There are alternatives, even ones run by right wing nutjobs that have no problem with payment processors or advertisers. Shit man even during the Trump insanity when a social network did get taken down it was done so briefly, being back up with different hosting and different payment networks shortly after.
The answer
Re: (Score:2)
People have tried. Google won't allow you to see it, amazon won't allow you to host it, and the payment processor duopoly won't allow it or its customers to transact. A handful of companies have total control over the world's infrastructure and finance right now.
You know you're a conspiracy theorist when you think a cabal is blocking the world's richest person from launching a micro-blogging website.
Re: (Score:2)
Why can't he build a competitor to twitter from that?
Money can't buy patronship. You can build what you want, but it's practically impossible to get a user base unless you're a leader in setting up your system. It's called the network effect.
Why would someone post on Musker if no one remusks, no news article picks up on the musk, etc. How many people use Truth social? less than 500,000? Quite a long stretch less than the number of rightwing nutjobs who post on Twitter. It's not so fun shouting when noone listens. You can't grandstand in a basement.
I'll take over (Score:2, Funny)
I'll take over and fix Twitter if the people there finally acknowledge that suggesting that we affix tiiiny little diapers to human face mites is not "hostile conduct" and unlock my account.
Re: I'll take over (Score:2)
Re:I'll take over (Score:5, Insightful)
It's deliberately arbitray and inherently inconsistent. Clear criteria, like clear criteria for sexual abuse, would permit people to say "I did not violate those roles" rather than leaving the rules in the hands of Twitter's bureaucracy for arbitrary and even capricious enforcement.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
While I'm sure it's impossible to enumerate all possible forms of trolling that they would like to ban, their decisions are generally a lot less arbitrary than people imagine. It's just that when someone gets suspended they tend to only post misleading reports about it, and Twitter doesn't supply details because there is no reason or benefit to them for doing so.
Other times it's completely justified, like Jordan Peterson's current suspension.
Re: (Score:2)
Other times it's completely justified, like Jordan Peterson's current suspension.
Out of curiosity, what part of it do you think justified it? My take is it was the full Godwin. He had lots of offensive ideas, but being offended is OK. I imagine the Nazi comparison was the tipping point.
Re: (Score:2)
Deliberately and repeatedly misgendering Elliott Page.
His plan was never to actually buy twitter. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
If that was his plan, he's an even worse negotiator than Trump. It simply cannot be stressed enough that the man signed a legally binding contract to buy Twitter as-is for around $54/share. He waived due diligence and there is no "get out of contract free" clause. Think of it like signing a lease for a house/apartment for $1,000/mo. That's a $12,000 contract split over 12 monthly installments. It doesn't matter if you live somewhere else for 2 months, your landlord is still going to demand the $2K for those
Re:His plan was never to actually buy twitter. (Score:5, Insightful)
>>He waived due diligence and there is no "get out of contract free" clause.
Except, he didn't, and there is... if you read the SEC filing he made. There's a slew of places where he has them over a barrel for refusing or failing to provide internal data for the due diligence elements they agreed to, and more than that, he has them absolutely dead to rights about maintaining their normal course of business during the transaction. Having multiple major C-suite officers leave the company is pretty much the definition of, uh, not adhering to that. Twitter can argue that they left of their own volition and Twitter can't chain them to their desk... that's Twitter's problem.
>>Think of it like signing a lease for a house/apartment for $1,000/mo. That's a $12,000 contract split over 12 monthly installments. It doesn't matter if you live somewhere else for 2 months, your landlord is still going to demand the $2K for those months.
If the lease says the place has to have four walls, a roof, water, electricity, no mold, and you get to inspect it before move in, the landlord won't let you inspect it, and you drive through the parking lot and can see it has three walls, half a roof, no electricity, the water is in places it shouldn't be, and the walls are moldy, then the landlord can demand the sun the moon and the stars... but all they're going to get is a long talk from code enforcement, and the small claims court judge is going to order your deposit returned.
Re: (Score:2)
The only people committing securities fraud here are twitter's execs. They utterly failed to comply with their obligations and are on the hook for a level of fraud and manipulation that's on par with Madoff.
Re:His plan was never to actually buy twitter. (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh, it's worse than that.
They're suing Musk to try and force the previously agreed sale, right? Their internal data and records are going to be exposed to discovery in that suit, and they're about to get a hostile colonoscopy with the world's biggest, most meticulous searchlight. Because of the nature of their claims and Musk's counterclaims, there's stuff they'll be compelled to hand over in discovery that they would never have to cough up in a million years for due diligence disclosures.
Here's the kicker: most of the stuff they're almost surely sitting on is proof that their SEC filings have been, at BEST, wildly deficient and misleading. And when THAT comes to light? The members of the board are personally liable, civilly and criminally. There's a pretty good chance that members of the Twitter BoD are going to federal prison.
And they know that.
They knew that the minute Musk started asking for data sufficient to prove their reported mADU and bot/spam proportions were junk. It's why they didn't give it to him. The minute he asked for that they knew they were screwed with no way out. Musk knows too, it's why he asked in the first place.
I'm pretty sure Musk will end up owning Twitter... but he won't be paying $44bil for it, and the board that approves the sale will have a lot of new faces on it because the old ones will be under federal indictment. And I'm pretty sure that was Musk's plan from the start.
Re: (Score:3)
Oh, it's worse than that.
They're suing Musk to try and force the previously agreed sale, right? Their internal data and records are going to be exposed to discovery in that suit, and they're about to get a hostile colonoscopy with the world's biggest, most meticulous searchlight. Because of the nature of their claims and Musk's counterclaims, there's stuff they'll be compelled to hand over in discovery that they would never have to cough up in a million years for due diligence disclosures.
Here's the kicker: most of the stuff they're almost surely sitting on is proof that their SEC filings have been, at BEST, wildly deficient and misleading. And when THAT comes to light? The members of the board are personally liable, civilly and criminally. There's a pretty good chance that members of the Twitter BoD are going to federal prison.
And they know that.
They knew that the minute Musk started asking for data sufficient to prove their reported mADU and bot/spam proportions were junk. It's why they didn't give it to him. The minute he asked for that they knew they were screwed with no way out. Musk knows too, it's why he asked in the first place.
I'm pretty sure Musk will end up owning Twitter... but he won't be paying $44bil for it, and the board that approves the sale will have a lot of new faces on it because the old ones will be under federal indictment. And I'm pretty sure that was Musk's plan from the start.
If that's the case then why are they suing Musk? Why not just let him walk away, or say you're going to renegotiate a lower price so people don't ask why they don't go after the $1B?
There's two possibilities here
1) Musk has changed his mind and the lawsuit and everything else is just a pretext so he can get out of the deal.
2) Twitter executives have been knowingly lying to the SEC for years and have now filed a lawsuit that will inevitably send them to federal prison.
Are you sure you're selecting the more l
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah... well, if Twaddle's lawyers can prove that they could end up with more thant $44B. Actually, just the turmoil that the incident has created for Twaddle will likely get them at least $15B in damages.
Re:His plan was never to actually buy twitter. (Score:5, Interesting)
Another inconvenient fact is that Musk lured whales like Larry Ellison to commit billions of their own capital to this acquisition [theverge.com]. Were these investors also aligning to destroy Twitter? Doubtful. Occam's razor: The tech stock market crashed, Twitter's stock price significantly dropped below the committed purchase price, and this coalition of the willing investors called Elon and said, "Dude. No way are we over-paying for this company. Get us out of this deal." By the way, Ellison committed his $1 billion to the Twitter buyout scheme in early May. At the end of June, Ellison bailed off the Tesla Board of Directors [electrek.co]. Not a great sign of continued loyalty / faith / confidence in Musk there.
Re: (Score:2)
But to ruin it; or at least make life difficult for management and ownership.
Doubtful, I'm sure he was committed to buying and revamping Twitter, for a month or so.
But then people started saying things like:
- "Deleting only content that is clearly illegal will make the site so toxic most people will flee, and the most abusive content is often very political, meaning people will accuse you of censorship for deleting it."
and
- "Musk is becoming an increasingly politically polarized figure, buying Twitter will make him more polarized and hurt Twitter."
and
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Says the person posting on Slashdot
Re: (Score:2)
I see you haven't stumbled upon Reddit yet.
Well, one nice improvement would be... (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
What's a notification? Asking for someone who turned them off on their phone and ignores them in all other scenarios.
Ban Musk (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Ok, you can't get him for spreading misinformation, fine, get him for telling company secrets.
They did themselves no favors... (Score:2)
While Musk wrote and said plenty that hurt the deal, Twitter's executive board made plenty of public statements as well. The poison pill comments and share dilution statements, the walking back of declarations made during investor calls and SEC filings, and the highly public turnover of board members with their public declarations, plus they released plenty of comments about the acquisition generally...
Taken along with Musk's statements, the board members dug an awful lot of hole they're in all by themselv
To hell with Twitter! (Score:3)
I want to speculate what's next for Musk.
Because I suspect it will consist something along the lines of a deep and thorough investigation by the SEC.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm 100% convinced this whole play and dance was entirely meant to give Musk a 'legal' way to liquidate a massive amount of of Tesla stock (options).
If you do that when you use it to buy/merge another company you don't pay as much and it's not a reason for investigation generally.
But now.. Well.. We'll see, but this could be fun.
Re: (Score:2)
It probably depends on who in the SEC is in the pocket of which corporations.
I hate to speculate (pun intended) but sadly corruption is one of the trademarks of governments across the globe and even the US government is sadly not immune to it.
Also, important question. Who or what would the SEC be investigating?
Twitter and/or their executives, Elon Musk, both, or someone else?
And for the items on the list, how do they rank on priority for the SEC?
Secret FISC court order prohibiting free speech (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If that is indeed the case then he and his other investors have a valid claim since only by discovery would that actually be known.
Re: (Score:2)
Question: Would that discovery be vetoed on national security grounds? I half expect the feds to classify it
Watching the SEC get into a wrestling match with the FISC could be a healthy bit of revealing drama for our country.
This was not an investment (Score:2)
Spending a billion on a rising star, like early Netflix or Amazon (stay with me) back in the day is positive. Spending a billion to research new rockets is positive.
Spending a billion dollars on a yacht is wasteful... no matter what people say for "trickle down". But it is their money to waste.
Spending 44 billions on acquiring a working company to steer it to personal preferences... Worse than wasteful...
Re: (Score:2)
Spending a billion on a rising star, like early Netflix or Amazon (stay with me) back in the day is positive. Spending a billion to research new rockets is positive.
Spending a billion dollars on a yacht is wasteful... no matter what people say for "trickle down". But it is their money to waste.
Spending 44 billions on acquiring a working company to steer it to personal preferences... Worse than wasteful...
It's their money, if they want to waste it they can do as they please. Musk has investment partners in this with him, he's not fronting the entire $44B, he's spreading the risk.
Re: (Score:2)
Terms of the deal (Score:4, Interesting)
This could be a negotiating tactic since the stock has dropped significantly since the offer was tendered. I'm thinking that the number of bots and actual revenue is the big question marks in this deal. Advertisers want to know that they're reaching actual people in terms of what they pay for ads on the platform, if those numbers have been inflated then Musk and his partners can argue that the platform isn't as valuable as the Twitter board thinks it is. Their current market cap is $29B and if they have revenue streams of 100s of millions, not billions then the PE ratios are nowhere close to being justified. Looking at their FY2021 10K year end: [cloudfront.net]
Total revenue was $5.08 billion, an increase of 37%, compared to 2020. Advertising revenue totaled $4.51 billion, an increase of 40%, compared to 2020. Data licensing and other revenue totaled $571.8 million, an increase of 12%, compared to 2020. U.S. revenue totaled $2.84 billion, an increase of 36%, compared to 2020. International revenue totaled $2.24 billion, an increase of 37%, compared to 2020. Total ad engagements increased 7% compared to 2020. Cost per engagement increased 32% compared to 2020.
Average monetizable daily active usage (mDAU) was 217 million for the three months ended December 31, 2021, an increase of 13% year over year. Loss from operations was $492.7 million, or 10% of total revenue, in 2021, compared to income from operations of $26.7 million, or 1% of total revenue, in 2020. Loss from operations in 2021 includes a one-time litigation-related net charge of $765.7 million. Net loss was $221.4a million in 2021, compared to net loss of $1.14 billion in 2020, which was inclusive of a $1.10 billion provision for income taxes related to the establishment of a valuation allowance against deferred tax assets.
Cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments in marketable securities totaled $6.39 billion as of December 31, 2021.
So they brought in $5B, had a one-time legal charge of $800m, and still lost $221m for the whole year. They also lost $492m in operations, this is a board that's out of touch.
With a PE north of 138, Musk and his partners are smart for stepping back. Itn to watch though to actually see if the board takes a lower offer, fully discloses the bot count to get a more accurate picture of the number of real vs. fake users. Even their statement shows that they had 217m interactions where they could feed ads to users. That's far from the close to 400 million users that supposedly use the platform so truing those up is an important metric in terms of valuation Just based on off-the-cuff numbers, the PE base number is about $210m based on 12mo trailing earnings. That's not good, expenses are too high and I could see a re-offer of less than $20/share in their future.
Re: (Score:2)
Except he basically waived any claims to "due diligence" when he tendered his $44 billion offer for Twitter.
Due diligence happens *before* you make an offer. It is "a legally binding process during which a potential buyer evaluates the assets and liabilities of a company" [wordnik.com].
But then, Elon Musk thinks rules are for other people.
Re: (Score:2)
In the eternal words of Seto Kaiba, "Screw the rules, I have money".
And no, I don't think quoting a line from a silly spoof show of an even sillier cartoon about a children's card game doesn't fit here. At this point, it's hard to take any of this any more serious than that aforementioned card game.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
It seems pretty clear it should fall on Twitter. Elon Musk's claims are based on publicly visible data that anyone can verify. Twitter's counter-claim is that they have some magic algorithms that use special data that only they can see.
Does anyone, anywhere, seriously believe that only 5% of Twitter users are bots? Because that's what Twitter is claiming, and they're claiming they can't tell us how they arrived at that number because it uses special data only they can see.
Re: Terms of the deal (Score:3)
Yes, while both sides have issues, for the Twitter board their most damning statements come from their own investor relations calls and SEC filings. When even a shallow investigation shows both the investor statements and government filings are seriously distorted (at best) it weakens their position.
Musk did a lot of things badly, no dispute, but the Twitter board brought their own shovels to the hole they are in. That's part of what will make the legal wrangling so interesting. It will mostly be a case of
Re: (Score:3)
Does anyone, anywhere, seriously believe that only 5% of Twitter users are bots?
Monetizable users. Most of the bots are not monetizable, so they are not included in the number.
I don't know exactly what monetizable means in this context - is it paid-for accounts/ads, or is it someone's eyeballs or behaviour data you can sell - and at this point I'm afraid to ask.
Re: jeezus fuck guys (Score:2)
If only Musk, the worlds wealthiest investor, had hired a lawyer who had read at least âoeseveral Delaware court casesâ. Thatâ(TM)ll teach him to be so naÃve.
Who is canceling who? (Score:2)
Twitter decided to ban Jordan Peterson over a tweet, and he responds on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Now Dr. Peterson has a deal with Daily Wire to produce more content. Twitter wants to refuse Dr. Peterson access to their platform? Okay, but that that means Twitter lost value to anyone that wants to know what Dr. Peterson thinks on various subjects. I guess these people will have to go to Daily Wire now, or Substack, or wherever else Dr. Peterson and other people banned by Twitter go.
Elon Mu
Re: (Score:2)
Twitter decided to ban Jordan Peterson over a tweet, and he responds on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Now Dr. Peterson has a deal with Daily Wire to produce more content. Twitter wants to refuse Dr. Peterson access to their platform? Okay, but that that means Twitter lost value to anyone that wants to know what Dr. Peterson thinks on various subjects. I guess these people will have to go to Daily Wire now, or Substack, or wherever else Dr. Peterson and other people banned by Twitter go.
Elon Musk wanted to buy Twitter so he could get some sane content moderation out of the platform. In the process of the purchase he found out that Twitter is an even bigger mess than originally thought. Now he wants out of the deal. His attempts to back out of the deal might just sink the platform for good. Which I guess is just as well.
Who is canceling who? Twitter has been driving off some of the most popular voices Twitter ever had. What did they expect to happen? Did they think they could keep banning content creators and keep attracting more content creators and content consumers?
Twitter created this mess. Maybe they can repair the damage by lifting their bans, and making promises to be more permissive in the future. Likely not. I believe they are sunk. I believe the people at Twitter know they are sunk. The buyout may have been their one option to change their behavior and blame it all on new ownership. Without that buyout there's no excuse for new behavior, and no reason to believe that any changes in behavior will be permanent.
Twitter just banned themselves.
I'm more concerned as to why Jordan Peterson is so concerned as to what other adults are doing with their bodies. Dr. Peterson (as you call him) sounds about as qualified as Dr. Phil. Maybe Colonel Sanders can offer advice on how Ukraine is doing in the war?
Re: (Score:2)
I'm more concerned as to why Jordan Peterson is so concerned as to what other adults are doing with their bodies.
It's called "public criticism". In a society with freedom of speech, it is one of the ways that speech is typically used.
Re: (Score:2)
Comparing one to the other is a bit odd as they are both well respected psychologists.
Comparing one to the other makes sense because both are only respected by rubes buying what they're selling. In one case it's mostly literal products, both sell lots of books, and in the other case it's also a line of bullshit that lets very judgemental people feel good about judging other people on specious bases.
Re: (Score:2)
Twitter also lost value as a fair arbiter of who is worthy to exist on its platform.
There's a reason people hate cheaters.
Terms of service are literally and figuratively a contract.
You agree to them when you sign on, yes, but there's also the understanding that the company isn't going to go out of its way to undermine the spirit of the agreement to cancel you.
If anyone in the userbase sees them pull something shady to get rid of someone they don't like, they will damage their reputation and that wil
To answer the question (Score:3)
Serious decline. If Twitter does sue, Musk will have discovery rights and the whole world is going to get to see just what a crap show Twitter's numbers really are. There's a good chance that the advertisers will be suing Twitter as well.
About the nature of the lawsuit between Musk and Twitter, there's that whole matter of their public earnings reports and statements, all of which Musk will have the right to verify.
There's good reason all those people left Twitter. They know what kind of crap has been going on. Don't think so, just ask yourself why is Parag Agrawal is willing to go to war to make Musk buy this white elephant.
Re: (Score:2)
If Twitter does sue, Musk will have discovery rights and the whole world is going to get to see just what a crap show Twitter's numbers really are.
Errr Twitter has already handed the entire world to Musk. That shit happened two months ago when Musk first said they didn't provide enough information. Prevailing wisdom at the time is that Twitter then proceeded to provide way too much information and that if Musk wanted to see the real numbers his legal team may spend a very long time pouring over all they have been given.
Your scenario is contrived. Musk already has access to everything he needs.
Re: (Score:2)
Errr Twitter has already handed the entire world to Musk.
Well, no. Twitter has continued to refuse to hand over IP address data for posts, which is one of the things you really need to have in order to make an analysis of real users versus bots. They made a big deal of the "firehose", but that just gave Musk a stream of all the public data that he could basically already get through scraping.
And where is that "prevailing wisdom", prevailing? Within Twitter? Because prevailing wisdom in the tech scene is tha
Re: (Score:2)
No. IP addresses tell you nothing about bots vs real people, handing over IP addresses also puts you in breach of many privacy laws, and simply suing someone does not give you discovery powers over something that could conflict with data privacy laws. There are many additional hurdles to get through before data like that can be handed over, and if it is the resulting court case often goes directly under seal.
And where is that "prevailing wisdom", prevailing? Within Twitter?
No. I don't know anyone within twitter much less know any twitter people moonlighting as commentator
Re: (Score:3)
IP addresses tell you nothing about bots vs real people
Wow that's massively wrong.
All those privacy stories you read here on slashdot about how ad profiling works and how much AdSense knows about you as a consumer and how they're trying to tie your ad profiles to your consumer credit history and purchasing... they aren't fake. Someone like Musk, running the companies he does, can do a lot more to an IP address or an account registration e-mail address, and especially to the two in combination, than just a w
Re: (Score:2)
If discovery shows that Twitter knows that the 5% numbers are not real / calculated in a manner to produce that figure (so is not accurate), not only will Musk get to bail, I think the advertisers / shareholders will also get to sue twitter.
And if twitter does not take legal action on musk to get the deal done, the board will probably get sued by shareholders as well.
Only way twitter / twitter's board stays alife is if they can proof that the 5% figures were accurate and show that they calculated it in a ma
Re: (Score:2)
Unless the feds intervene on national security grounds.
Wasn't there a rumor going around on Slashdot that FISC and the NSA were in bed with Twitter?
Another perspective: (Score:3)
Yet another warning to other companies: "Don't do business with Elon Musk."
Seriously, how many times has he causes massive damage and devaluation to other companies while he walks away with his nose in the air? Visionary or not, I wouldn't trust him with any business deal, because it sure as hell wouldn't benefit me (and that includes buying anything he's selling).
Re: (Score:2)
Seriously, how many times has he causes massive damage and devaluation to other companies while he walks away with his nose in the air?
Counter: How many times has he successfully bought out companies (not as big as twitter) leaving the sellers happy, but you blissfully unaware as it hasn't made the news?
The answer is many. Just because Musk had a feud with Twitter and a tiny handful of other companies doesn't mean he habitually walks away. That should be painstakingly obvious by the number of companies he is in fact currently running, the number he has run, and the number that each of those have acquired over the years.
Re: (Score:2)
You may not have much of a choice if you need to send up a satellite into space unless you are willing to spend a substantially higher amount. Spacex is probably the cheapest for anything that is not a cubesat (maybe even for cubesats).
Or if you are in some rural area with crap internet, Starlink may be your only choice for decent internet broadband as well.
Consider yourself lucky that you presumably have decent internet service from another ISP and you don't need a satellite launched. Musk is involved in t
Re: (Score:2)
What clearly IS pretty dangerous is to, in response to a VERY generous buy-out offer by Musk, quickly scramble and organize your "woke" management team to insert a poison pill into the company, make lots of public statements about how much you dislike the guy, eventually cave-in to reality and accept that your shareholders want to sell to him at a big profit and respond to this by depriving him of the information he wants that would prove you have not been lying to shareholders and particularly the SEC for
Sue Musk for stock manipulation (Score:2)
"When you have a cult figure like Musk — one of, if not the, most followed person in world — calling out Twitter..."
is a ridiculous sentence that gives Musk far too much credence. "Calling out" is simply spouting your opinion, it's not some sort of morally praiseworthy activity on its own. Musk made several baseless and damaging accusations against Twitter which badly affected their share price, commercial deals, and had other adverse effects. Musk being a serious business person, he must have k
Re: (Score:2)
Musk made several baseless and damaging accusations against Twitter
Such as...?
He's said he thinks there may be more bots than they are counting. While I'd agree that's a damaging accusation, is it really baseless?
Don't know about Twitter (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You'd think that's a good idea but unless the SEC does its job properly and holds *everyone* to the same standards on that point it would be better for the market if the SEC didn't investigate anyone at all.
The important question is can we trust the SEC not to have an investigator with a conflict of interest
Umpires are only valuable to baseball when they aren't being bribed by one of the teams in the league
Re: (Score:2)
But Musk should be investigated and if evidence can be found charged for stock manipulation because it seems this whole think was simply a way of divesting himself of Tesla stock.
The dude bought 9.2% of Twitter ($3.4 billion) just a month before all of this. So if you're theory is correct, he just lost hundreds of millions to do it. That idea just doesn't hold any water.
My Take (Score:2)
1) Twitter's reputation is trashed. It's become apparent that they do not have the audience they pretend to have. They tried to make a big show of giving Musk what they deemed "the firehose", but their stream of data didn't include IP address information or any of the other non-public data that would actually enable in depth research by an owner - instead it was just the same public data Musk and any viewer of the platform already has, only in a real-time stream.
2) It's also apparent that they curate speech
I'd hate to be Musk's lawyer (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Reopening my account (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
For years he sold electric cars to appear environmentally friendly. Who typically buys electric cars? People who would lean democrat. Suddenly his government subsidies stop and now he's Mr. Conservative, out to pwn the libs.
Re: (Score:2)
No one should expect anything different. That's the point. No one should believe anything he says merely because he said it. That would be stupid. Yet the world is positively littered with sycophants who believe every word that drips from Elon's shitgibbet is a pearl.
Re: (Score:2)
I cannot confirm that:
see https://www.spamcop.net/spamgr... [spamcop.net]
Re: (Score:2)