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Judge Orders Twitter to Provide More Spam Account Data to Elon Musk's Lawyers (cbsnews.com) 85

Posted by EditorDavid from the battle-over-bots dept.
From the Washington Post earlier this week: On Tuesday, The Washington Post reported that Twitter's former head of security, Peiter Zatko, had filed a whistleblower complaint with federal regulators, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, accusing Twitter of "Lying about Bots to Elon Musk...."

"Twitter executives have little or no personal incentive to accurately 'detect' or measure the prevalence of spam bots," the complaint alleges, adding "deliberate ignorance was the norm" among its executive team.
The same article notes that three people familiar with Twitter's spam-detection, processes said Twitter's "internal bot prevalence numbers" were almost always less than 5%. (And the article reminds readers that Musk himself had waived his right to perform "due diligence" prior to striking the deal.)

But here's that Tuesday article's most prescient sentence. "The judge has rejected Musk's requests for information from more than 20 company leaders — including Zatko — but the whistleblower claims could open the door for them to make further requests, legal experts said."

Sure enough, Friday night CBS News reported that the judge "ordered both Twitter and Tesla CEO Elon Musk to turn over more information to opposing lawyers..." Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick on Thursday ordered Twitter to provide Musk's attorneys more data regarding the company's estimates that less than 5% of the accounts on its platform are fake.

The judge also rejected Musk's attempts to shield details about analyses he used in his attempt to terminate the deal. That work was done by data scientists who examined live-feed information from Twitter about public user accounts to test the company's daily-user counts....

The judge rejected more comprehensive data requests from Musk's attorneys as "absurdly broad," noting that a literal reading of the request would require Twitter to produce "trillions upon trillions of data points" reflecting all data collected on roughly 200 million accounts over three years. But McCormick did order Twitter to produce information on 9,000 accounts that were reviewed in connection with company's fourth-quarter audit, a data subset that has been described as a "historical snapshot."

McCormick also ordered Twitter to turn over documents regarding other metrics, regardless of whether they expressly address "monetizable daily active users," or mDAU. Musk's attorneys have suggested that a comparison of Twitter's mDAU with other metrics, such as "User Active Minutes," could support their theory that the company has fraudulently misled investors and securities regulators about the scope of activity on its platform.
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Judge Orders Twitter to Provide More Spam Account Data to Elon Musk's Lawyers More

Judge Orders Twitter to Provide More Spam Account Data to Elon Musk's Lawyers

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  • You can buy twitter followers for 25 cents/1000 follows. Elon has this one won already. If twitter disclosed how many follow bots they have, it wouldn't look good for them.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by sinij ( 911942 )
      Now imagine if further analysis shows that much of what was happening politically for the last few years was out of touch journos getting high on their own bot supply and that politicians that relied on that noise to form policy were badly out of touch with the reality.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by teccy ( 4624417 )
      And where do you find this in the contract? Oops, you don't.

    • Re:You can buy twitter followers... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Saturday August 27, 2022 @01:03PM (#62828021) Homepage Journal

      None of that matters at all unless Twitter has documentation which acknowledges that, because the argument hinges on Twitter knowingly pretending they have less bots on their service than they do. If there are just more bots than they know about, that's Musky's problem, because he skipped due diligence. THAT was the time to determine whether Twitter had a clue about how many bots were on the service. Now he has to prove that they knew they had more than they were saying, because he thought he was playing four dimensional chess and that skipping due diligence would be a master stroke of something other than his penis. He clearly thought that avoiding due diligence would mean that he could utilize the argument that Twitter was wrong and therefore he shouldn't have to pay, but finding out whether Twitter was competent to report their own numbers is literally part of the due diligence that he skipped.

      They call it due diligence because it is due. Elon didn't do the due and now he's screwed, unless he can find a smoking gun. And the judge is not letting him drag net Twitter's documentation to find it, he's got to pick a spot if he wants to fish. If he'd done due diligence, he might have found something to poke at, but again, he didn't. Let's hear again about how Elon is the most competent genius around, I could use a chuckle.

      • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Now he has to prove that they knew they had more than they were saying, because he thought he was playing four dimensional chess and that skipping due diligence would be a master stroke of something other than his penis. He clearly thought that avoiding due diligence would mean that he could utilize the argument that Twitter was wrong and therefore he shouldn't have to pay, but finding out whether Twitter was competent to report their own numbers is literally part of the due diligence that he skipped.

        Elon Musk skipped due diligence because he knew that he didn't need it. He knew that he could do exactly what he is doing right now.

        That's one of the benefits of being rich. He can literally do anything he wants, and if there is a problem he can just keep hiring more lawyers until the problem goes away. And if the lawyers can't make the problem go away he will offer to "settle" for what amounts to pocket change.

        Elon Musk is the real life version of the old comic book character Richie Rich. A 12 ye

        • What's he's doing now is PR, and PR doesn't mean much in court. It's the same that Trump is doing, getting the public on your side when you know you've got a poor legal leg to stand on. Why rich people do the PR instead of getting decent legal advice upfront is beyond me.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by tragedy ( 27079 )

          Elon Musk skipped due diligence because he knew that he didn't need it. He knew that he could do exactly what he is doing right now.

          Wouldn't that be fraud? I'm not a lawyer, but it has to be some sort of tort. You're supposed to enter into contracts in good faith.

      • It is never good when a judge uses words like "absurdly broad". I think the judge gets it. I suspect the judge may allow a slight redux in the purchase price, maybe 50/share. But elon in a fit of fancy made an offer, and I think the judge will broadly enforce it. Contracts. Big boy pants.
    • Twitter's house of cards will soon collapse.

      • Twitter's house of cards will soon collapse.

        This is such a dumb thing to say, why would it? Everybody knows advertising is a scam, but everyone still does it, because they are unwilling to compete on quality. It's hard to justify when most people are happy to buy shit.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Doesn't matter. Musk made a decision to buy, and agreed to, without doing due diligence. He's gotta work harder than "I think there are spambots" to get out of it. Buyer beware.

  • Twitter data (Score:5, Informative)

    by iAmWaySmarterThanYou ( 10095012 ) on Saturday August 27, 2022 @10:53AM (#62827725)

    I've worked at a mid sized social media company and seen first hand how that company and our other social media partners (not Twitter but other big names you know) track, handle and create user meta data.

    The odds that Twitter has a handle on this are very low. Not necessarily because they're maliciously hiding it. I don't know either way on that. But, because this is an incredibly difficult problem. Looking at any random account you simply can't know for sure in many cases as most people aren't super active and they just resend the same links and memes to their friends the same way a bot would.

    Doing the same analysis in bulk with code? Good luck getting an accurate number of humans vs bots if the bots are putting in any reasonable effort to hide and not do dumb things like post hundreds of times a minute.

    • Re:Twitter data (Score:5, Insightful)

      by fluffernutter ( 1411889 ) on Saturday August 27, 2022 @10:57AM (#62827739)
      Musk seems really ignorant when it comes to technology. I myself was wondering what algorithm he thought Twiiter could use to determine 'what is a bot'. Generally bots are made to look human and do not announce themselves as bots.

      • Musk seems really ignorant when it comes to technology.

        This is what blows my fucking mind.

        If whatever methodology he comes up with for determining if something is a bot is as bad as his statistical analysis methodology, it's a bad fucking joke.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          Musk seems really ignorant when it comes to technology.

          This is what blows my fucking mind.

          If whatever methodology he comes up with for determining if something is a bot is as bad as his statistical analysis methodology, it's a bad fucking joke.

          Twitter claims in its court filings that the tools Musk is using claims Musk's twitter account is a bot!

          https://arstechnica.com/tech-p... [arstechnica.com]

          • Unsurprised. I'd love to see a psychiatric evaluation of the guy. He's not stupid, so why try to push stupid fucking shit through the media cycle? Is it because he has determined that this is all really a popularity contest? Or is it because he actually thinks he's smarter than everyone else around him?
            Judging from hearing him talk, and his personal accomplishments, I wouldn't rate him much more than slightly above average intelligence.

            Wish the dude would stick to being a nerdy entrepreneur. He seems pre

    • The interesting part here is that if Twitter can identify spam to such a degree that they exactly know what is a spam account or not they would probably earn more money selling that technical solution than allowing spam accounts inflating mDAU revenue.

    • It is a non-trivial problem.

      Note, however, you need not accurately identify each specific bot account in order to get a reasonable count. Sampling works. It's simple multiplication if you do human and in-depth automated analysis of 10,000 accounts, and although you're wrong about some you're wrong roughly equally in each direction.

      That is, if you wrongly label a few bots that are in fact human and vice versa, that doesn't change your count. Your count changes significantly only if you systematically and sig

      • It is a non-trivial problem.

        Note, however, you need not accurately identify each specific bot account in order to get a reasonable count. Sampling works. It's simple multiplication if you do human and in-depth automated analysis of 10,000 accounts, and although you're wrong about some you're wrong roughly equally in each direction.

        That is, if you wrongly label a few bots that are in fact human and vice versa, that doesn't change your count. Your count changes significantly only if you systematically and significantly err in a chosen direction.

        However, the fact that it's not stupidly easy comes in handy when Twitter execs don't WANT to tell advertisers "20% of the clicks you think you're getting on Twitter are actually fake".

        But how do you make sure that in-depth analysis isn't biased? One number I'd be curious to see is definitely human vs definitely bot vs unsure.

        It would be certainly be more informative than the 5 vs 20% numbers that have been thrown around.

  • Due Diligence (Score:3)

    by NagrothAgain ( 4130865 ) on Saturday August 27, 2022 @10:54AM (#62827727)
    Musk waiving due diligence isn't a "get out of jail free" card for Twitter. It's a murky legal field, but if Twitter is found to have been fabricating matters of material fact which are relevant to the company's value it may provide Musk with an "out."

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by sinij ( 911942 )
      You saying IF as if there is doubt that Twitter was cooking the books. The only question is how many past CFOs and CEOs going to go to jail in addition to the current crew.

      • The only question is how many past CFOs and CEOs going to go to jail in addition to the current crew.

        CFO and CEO going to jail for lying about bots? https://a.pinatafarm.com/620x4... [pinatafarm.com]

        The Wolf Of Wallstreet guy defrauded hundreds of millions and got two years in minimum security with Tommy Chong as a cell mate. You really have some anger issues over twitter.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by sinij ( 911942 )
          Securities fraud is still nominally illegal, so yes jail.

          • Securities fraud is still nominally illegal, so yes jail.

            Are we talking about Twitter or Musk? Cuz really that statement could go either way.

          • Proving securities fraud in this instance would require a smoking gun- an email or recording with some dude twirling his fucking Snidely Whiplash mustache talking about how they're going to fleece those advertisers for so much money by doing this.

            So no, not jail. Because that's not how that shit happens.
            Now Musk, he's treading very close to securities fraud, and if he's not careful, he may end up with a company he didn't want, and a prohibition against running it.
      • You are so fucking disconnected from reality, lol.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by teccy ( 4624417 )
      That's a BIG if and doesn't look at all likely, Musk's 'total number of bots'-smokescreen notwithstanding.

    • Waiving due diligence means that Musk has to prove malice, because incompetence would have been revealed during the due diligence he didn't do.

      It means that unless the guys at Twitter are a lot less competent than I'd bet they are, ol' Musky is screwed. He's got to prove they know they're wrong.

      • The stuff coming out of the whistle-blower story seems to indicate that they flat out lied about "bots" and possibly a bunch of other stuff from before Musk even started running his mouth about Twitter. Will it end up mattering? I have no clue.
        • Unfortunately the stuff coming out of the whistle-blower (if you can call him that, given his exposure as possibly complicit in his own claims) also smell a lot like sour grapes.

    • Very highly unlikely. If Twitter was maliciously misrepresenting what they already knew... Elon would be the least of their problems. Elon is a potential owner, there already are heavy institutional owners of Twitter (60%).

      If Twitter was doing something this illegal, the SEC will ruin the Executives lives. The current owners will burn it to the ground in additional lawsuits. Their Public Auditor would lose credibility.

      You think heavy weights like Vanguard, Morgan, Wells, etc would let this stuff fly?

      • The heavyweights you speak of will be delighted to get their 54.20. And after that it is a private company that is all elon's. The difficulty is proving that malicious part. Twitter has always reported some of the accounts are bots. They have always said it is a difficult number to come up with. To prove malicious somebody is going to have to come up with some emails or paper that says "We always reported 5% but we KNOW it is 25% and we will SAY it is 5% to jack up the stock price." Good luck finding that e
    • Due Diligence doesnâ(TM)t mean what you think it means.

    • Proving fabrication is quite a high bar for a problem as complex as identifying which of the 1.3billion twitter accounts are bots. The defense against fabrication becomes easier the more complex the problem.

  • Fine, it's all bots. Every last account. All the way down.

  • I am clearly not a lawyer. But doesn't this look like standard discovery?

    If you are going to use a claim in court, you need to provide the basics evidence of your claim to the opposing side. And you are making a wild claim, you can not request the opposing side to provide you with an absurd amount of data in hope to find the needle in the haystack.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      Yes, I think so. But ISTM that Twitter is more likely to lose from the discovery than Musk.

      I'd hope they could both lose, but that would mean only the lawyers win.

      • Discovery could mean that Musk doesn't even get a trial, he gets a summary judgement that yes, he signed a contract requiring specific performance and yes, he waived due diligence and bought it as-is.

        He's required to share the data analysis that caused him to back out of the deal. That's highly unlikely to show that he had a valid reason, as per the contract.

        All the nonsense about it being bad for twitter requires some vast conspiracy to exist, and twitter to be completely inept at said conspiracy, and for

        • They're a corporation that sells advertising; do they actually have any need for the purported conspiracies? They make the amount the of advertising money they claim to make, right? That's all that matters when somebody is buying the company as-is; the money. Nothing else is material.

          I think that sums it up very well.

        • It's NOT so much the money a biz has made in the past BUT the money it will make in the future that drives any deal.

          If your future projections were just wrong its fine, but if they were fraudulent then you do end up in jail.

          More importantly, if the money they have been making was based on "knowingly" reporting wrong metrics to advertisers, then it means it's not going to continue at same level since now advertiser's know you were misrepresenting.

          Whichever way you look at it Twitter as we know it is dead and

  • Huh? (Score:2)

    by dohzer ( 867770 )

    Why? Why? Why? Why can't I say whatever nonsense I want on a media channel I don't own?!

  • Delaware Chancery Court Keeps Pushing Back On Elon Musk’s Legal Arguments As He (Mostly) Loses His Discovery Battles https://www.techdirt.com/2022/... [techdirt.com]

  • ... who keeps doing or saying very dumb things, then often doubling down on them. Is it just that he has no impulse control, is it because he craves attention and adulation, or is it something else?

    • No, I think you've just about nailed it.
      The dude is obviously smart, but if you were to analyze his behavior, you'd think he was a teenager. That intelligence doesn't do him one bit of good when he's led around by his ego. I'm pretty sure he's the kind of dude who would save the last 20k of the fortune he burned to win an argument just to whack the guy who beat him.

  • The whole thing seems to be an attempt to create a justification for a continuance (the judge has set a trial date much sooner than Musk's team wants) by creating a situation where they can claim:
    "We cannot possibly sift thru all of the data we received in discovery in time for the currently scheduled trial date, so lets push it back."

  • Twitter's SEC earnings reports are mostly negative. It's not like they fabricate the BOTS numbers like Enron to prop up their profits.

  • 85% (Score:2)

    by ruddk ( 5153113 )

    85% are just posting to create awareness and sell their products, brand of whatever.

  • If you are typically under 40, it's probably easier to believe anything you read on the internet, watch on videos etc. If you are typically over 40, you'll not believe anything your read, watch without researching it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Alcari ( 1017246 )
      I'd personally flip this around. I don't know a single person under 40 (or 60, really) that falls for nigerian prince scammers, or Q-anon conspiracy bullshit, or that facebook is selling all your data and you should copy-paste this message.

      But I know half a dozen >40 people who buy into this nonsense hook, line and sinker.

  • Musk wants out and Twitter's board doesn't want him to buy and ruin Twitter. So why not just shake hands and everyone walks away? I guess the lawyers need to be fed.

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