Musk Takes 9.2% Stake In Twitter

[disneysteve]

I really don’t understand the whole bot issue. I only follow people on Twitter who I know personally or a few who are verified accounts from a couple of celebrities and government officials. I couldn’t care less if there are a bunch of fake accounts. I don’t see those.

I do realize from a business standpoint it’s an issue if you say you have a certain number of active users and the truth is the real number is way lower.

[kork13]

From a societal & national security standpoint, the presence of bots is dangerous. It's an easy way for foreign powers (or anyone really) to generate an outsized degree of information influence in the social commons.

They can manipulate the algorithms used by social media companies to self-generate a huge (fake) following, then start posting propaganda. Those posts get shared & hyped by all of the other fake accounts, making the algorithms think it's a big news story. This in turn proliferates the propaganda out to the general community as a top story & it'll start popping up in feeds even for folks who don't follow people beyond their close contacts. Then once it gets in view of enough hotheads & firebrands, they take over & start posting it out even further beyond the reach of the bots. At that point, it's unstoppable unless it gets caught & taken down by one of the social media company's human fact-check reviewers.

That's how you get fake phenomena on social media, and it's exactly the strategy employed by Russia, China, and others (as an example) back in 2020 to negatively influence/dissuade voters & discredit the election process.

From the company's point of view, they don't really care about the societal or national security issues involved... For them, it simply discredits their service, and will eventually tend to drive away customers & advertisers, because they lose trust in the information available on the platform. That's the only reason that the companies actually care about fake users.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

From a societal & national security standpoint, the presence of bots is dangerous. It's an easy way for foreign powers (or anyone really) to generate an outsized degree of information influence in the social commons.

They can manipulate the algorithms used by social media companies to self-generate a huge (fake) following, then start posting propaganda. Those posts get shared & hyped by all of the other fake accounts, making the algorithms think it's a big news story. This in turn proliferates the propaganda out to the general community as a top story & it'll start popping up in feeds even for folks who don't follow people beyond their close contacts. Then once it gets in view of enough hotheads & firebrands, they take over & start posting it out even further beyond the reach of the bots. At that point, it's unstoppable unless it gets caught & taken down by one of the social media company's human fact-check reviewers.

That's how you get fake phenomena on social media, and it's exactly the strategy employed by Russia, China, and others (as an example) back in 2020 to negatively influence/dissuade voters & discredit the election process.

From the company's point of view, they don't really care about the societal or national security issues involved... For them, it simply discredits their service, and will eventually tend to drive away customers & advertisers, because they lose trust in the information available on the platform. That's the only reason that the companies actually care about fake users.

it's how fake news is spread. i guess i should add that people probably shouldn't be reading twitter for news but oh well

[disneysteve]

it's how fake news is spread. i guess i should add that people probably shouldn't be reading twitter for news but oh well

I see nothing wrong with getting news from twitter or facebook as long as you stick to the feeds of legit organizations. It amazes me how readily some people will accept as truth what some random stranger on the internet posts.

[ua_guy]

D'oh...!

Musk abandons deal to buy Twitter; company says it will sue

https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk-twitter-inc-technology-4193a27d86458952542dfa2176150a01

[kork13]

D'oh...!

Musk abandons deal to buy Twitter; company says it will sue

https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk...2dfa2176150a01

I saw that. Almost predictable, given the public fuss that was being made about the fake accounts. Though it does bring back the question (from the beginning of this thread in April) of whether this acquisition attempt was merely a stunt for Musk to make a point.

Another theory I've seen posed is concerning the sharp decline in both TWTR's share price as well as TSLA's... So the purchase now looks even more over-priced than it originally was, and Musk also can't leverage his TSLA ownership as powerfully in funding the purchase. All of which gives Musk plenty of reasons to try to terminate the transaction.

Who knows what termination clauses may have existed in the purchase agreement, but Twitter has also stated that they'll sue Musk to force him to complete the purchase in accordance with the agreement. This will become messy & expensive, and almost certainly will drag TWTR and potentially TSLA share prices down.

[james.hendrickson]

D'oh...!

Musk abandons deal to buy Twitter; company says it will sue

https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk...2dfa2176150a01

I saw that - I wonder what his real reason was for backing out of the deal. Probably the guy was just too busy to comfortably take on another company. Evidently he just had his ninth child, so his personal life must be very complex.

[disneysteve]

Musk abandons deal to buy Twitter

Not surprised and glad to hear it.

[ua_guy]

I'm not really surprised either. What a ride for his board(s) and shareholders though. And the news about his 9 living kids. I don't really care too much about people's personal lives but I was really disappointed to hear that. I hope he's been a good father, but something tells me his companies and making money have come first.

[rennigade]

He wanted Twitter to provide proof that a certain percentage of tweets weren't bots and they couldn't do it. This isn't good for anyone. If you're on Twitter, you're getting news from bots or have interacted with bots. Have fun getting your news from Russian troll farms.

[bjl584]

Who knows what termination clauses may have existed in the purchase agreement, but Twitter has also stated that they'll sue Musk to force him to complete the purchase in accordance with the agreement. This will become messy & expensive, and almost certainly will drag TWTR and potentially TSLA share prices down.

I heard it is a 1 Billion dollar fee for backing out

[james.hendrickson]

From Fortune.com

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How Elon’s bizarre Twitter takeover saga could have just been a cover for him to sell $8.5 billion in Tesla stock
BY
ERIN PRATER
July 9, 2022 9:47 AM PDT

BERLIN, GERMANY DECEMBER 01: SpaceX owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk poses on the red carpet of the Axel Springer Award 2020 on December 01, 2020 in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Britta Pedersen-Pool/Getty Images)

SpaceX owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk poses on the red carpet of the Axel Springer Award 2020 on Dec. 1, 2020, in Berlin, Germany.

Elon Musk on Friday announced he was backing out of his $44 billion Twitter acquisition bid, blaming the social media platform's alleged lack of transparency regarding bots on the site.

As both sides prepare for a lengthy court battle, some Twitter influencers are floating an alternate theory for the change of heart: The bots were never the problem, merely a vehicle through which to covertly sell Tesla options that were about to expire.

"Entire thing was a clever ruse to SELL + LIQUIDATE $8.5 BILLION of TESLA STOCK (w/plausible excuse for doing it)," Josh Wolfe, co-founder of Lux Capital, tweeted Friday after the announcement. The tweet included math that suggested Musk would walk away with more than $7 billion in liquidated stock—even after paying the $1 billion breakup fee.

"Honestly think he can 'land rockets' but can't fix 'bots'?" Wolfe asked rhetorically.

More from Fortune.com

[disneysteve]

This isn't good for anyone. If you're on Twitter, you're getting news from bots or have interacted with bots. Have fun getting your news from Russian troll farms.

I really don't understand this. That isn't how Twitter works. The only tweets I see in my feed are those from people and services who I choose to follow: friends, relatives, and verified accounts from sources I trust. I just checked. I follow 246 accounts. In my case, they are folks in the Disney fan community, a handful of celebrities, the White House, POTUS, VP, a couple of bourbon sites, a couple of religious organizations, our state's account and governor, my township, the police and fire departments, and that's about it.

If there are a bunch of Russian trolls tweeting, I really don't care since I don't follow any of them so I don't see their content. There are some ads but as with everywhere else, I largely ignore those. I guess some could be trolls but scrolling through my feed, they all seem to be legit: AppleTV, YouTube, a couple of pharmaceutical ads, belVita cookies, Klondike bars. Nothing that seems at all suspect.

I'm honestly not even sure how I'd go about finding these troll accounts or why I would ever want to do so.

[ua_guy]

I really don't understand this. That isn't how Twitter works. The only tweets I see in my feed are those from people and services who I choose to follow: friends, relatives, and verified accounts from sources I trust. I just checked. I follow 246 accounts. In my case, they are folks in the Disney fan community, a handful of celebrities, the White House, POTUS, VP, a couple of bourbon sites, a couple of religious organizations, our state's account and governor, my township, the police and fire departments, and that's about it.

If there are a bunch of Russian trolls tweeting, I really don't care since I don't follow any of them so I don't see their content. There are some ads but as with everywhere else, I largely ignore those. I guess some could be trolls but scrolling through my feed, they all seem to be legit: AppleTV, YouTube, a couple of pharmaceutical ads, belVita cookies, Klondike bars. Nothing that seems at all suspect.

I'm honestly not even sure how I'd go about finding these troll accounts or why I would ever want to do so.

On a micro-level, think about how this works. Bob and Mike are friends on Twitter, and Bob tweets some meme of Biden slobbering on himself and pointing to $7.00/gallon diesel with the words "I did that!". Mike giggles because it's so true, so he re-tweets it so all his republican friends can laugh too. Well, what if that meme originated in a Russian think tank where they came up with the most divisive images and talking points, and the "I did that" meme made it to production. The antagonist is successful when this idea gains viral personality and enters the consciousness of real people sharing ideas and being influenced.

...Or a line graph which depicts mask compliance against case load over time in a particular region, an image which would infer wearing masks actually increases the spread of Covid. We've actually seen that one here. That kind of stuff gets like/shared/commented/retweeted/upvoted by the billions, and it starts in groups and with fake bot users which are programmed to catch the attention of their intended audience.

[disneysteve]

On a micro-level, think about how this works. Bob and Mike are friends on Twitter, and Bob tweets some meme of Biden slobbering on himself and pointing to $7.00/gallon diesel with the words "I did that!". Mike giggles because it's so true, so he re-tweets it so all his republican friends can laugh too. Well, what if that meme originated in a Russian think tank where they came up with the most divisive images and talking points, and the "I did that" meme made it to production. The antagonist is successful when this idea gains viral personality and enters the consciousness of real people sharing ideas and being influenced.

...Or a line graph which depicts mask compliance against case load over time in a particular region, an image which would infer wearing masks actually increases the spread of Covid. We've actually seen that one here. That kind of stuff gets like/shared/commented/retweeted/upvoted by the billions, and it starts in groups and with fake bot users which are programmed to catch the attention of their intended audience.

So basically as long as you use your brain and have the good sense to tell fact from fiction, the Russian bots won't affect you. But if you're someone who believes every conspiracy theory you read, it's probably best for you to stay off of social media.