Just when Elon Musk’s Twitter saga seemed to be slowing down, the state of Texas throws its hat in the ring to liven up the proceedings.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Monday he is investigating Twitter over its reporting of how many accounts on the platform are from bots and fake users, saying the company may be misrepresenting the number to inflate its value and raise its revenue.
Twitter has claimed in its financial regulatory filings that less than 5% of its daily active users are spam accounts. But Paxton on Monday alleged that spam accounts could make up as much as 20% of users or more.
“Bot accounts can not only reduce the quality of users’ experience on the platform but may also inflate the value of the company and the costs of doing business with it, thus directly harming Texas consumers and businesses,” Paxton said.
False reporting of fake users could be considered “false, misleading, or deceptive” under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, he said. Paxton sent Twitter a civil investigative demand, requiring the social media company to turn over documents related to how it calculates and manages its user data.
Twitter could not be immediately reached for comment on the investigation.
Keeping mum on the bot question, whoever’s asking, seems to be Twitter’s official policy. And that silence speaks volumes.
The investigation comes as Tesla CEO Elon Musk is also raising questions about the number of fake accounts on Twitter. Musk, who is in negotiations to buy the social media company, threatened to walk away from the deal saying that Twitter has not provided data he has requested on spam accounts.
“This is a clear material breach of Twitter’s obligations under the merger agreement and Mr. Musk reserves all rights resulting therefrom, including his right not to consummate the transaction and his right to terminate the merger agreement,” an attorney representing Musk wrote in a letter to the Twitter’s head of legal, policy and trust.
The bird site’s game of chicken with Musk has given rise to chatter that the billionaire is backing out of the deal.
But if that’s his plan, there’s a major obstacle in the way.
With Elon Musk waffling on his commitment to buy Twitter for $44 billion, Twitter’s board of directors yesterday said it intends to enforce the merger agreement at the original price.
“The Board and Mr. Musk agreed to a transaction at $54.20 per share. We believe this agreement is in the best interest of all shareholders. We intend to close the transaction and enforce the merger agreement,” the Twitter board said in a statement reported by CNN and other media outlets. Twitter on Tuesday also released a preliminary proxy statement laying out reasons shareholders should approve the deal.
“Twitter is committed to completing the transaction on the agreed price and terms as promptly as practicable,” the company said in a press release announcing the proxy statement.
Backing out of the deal may no longer be a legal option. And you can bet Musk is aware of that fact, so his most likely motive in putting the purchase on hold is to expose the real proliferation of Twitter bot accounts. That effort had heretofore been deadlocked, with Twitter refusing to share their data. But the Texas AG may be about to force their hand.
The plot thickens. And this show will only get more interesting before it’s over.
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Either the AG was told by the derp state to investigate Twitter, or the derp state will tell him to back off, and Musk will be stuck with a crummy deal. Texas is lame either way.
It looks like Twitter tried stalling for time to escape Musk’s gambit. Now they’ve coughed up the data. Sanitized data, for sure, but the fact remains that they caved.
The smart bet is that Paxton’s investigation helped force Twitter’s hand.
I was not expecting Ken Paxton to get involved. I have no idea if this will go anywhere, but even if it doesn’t, forcing civil discovery seems to go right to the heart of the issue anyway.
Fun fact: The Tribune leans left, which makes this oddly even coverage all the more puzzling. Has someone in the Death Cult decided that Twitter is not the hill to die on?
That’s an intriguing question. Twitter is a major transmission node for Cult firmware updates. And they’ve never given up an organization they’ve captured.
This, and the recall of that San Francisco DA, may be signs of Death Cult fatigue.
From literally yesterday.
https://archive.ph/dFyYs
“The social media giant has agreed to hand over a “firehose” of data comprising more than 500 million tweets posted each day, according to The Washington Post, citing an anonymous source familiar with the company’s thinking. The outlet notes that the data, which reportedly includes account information, a real-time record of tweets and the devices users tweet from, could be given to Musk as soon as this week. Currently, about two dozen companies pay to access the data, according to the Post”
I suspect we’re gonna see some fireworks and soon.
In all likelihood, Twitter’s scrubbed the data. They’ve had plenty of time.
No matter. Musk challenged Twitter to a game of chicken, and they flinched first.
The outcomes at this point are:
-Twitter’s disclosure satisfies Musk, they close the deal, and he gets rid of the bots.
-Musk’s team and/or the TX AG call shenanigans on Twitter, and they’re forced to sell at a lower price.
-The deal crashes and burns, taking Twitter down with it.
More likely than not, it’s not data that’s been scrubbed. Rather, they’re more likely to pretend Twitter is a black box, and not collect data on this problem to start with beyond extremely basic info. After all, why would ever put yourself in the line of fire for a securities fraud case when you’re no longer useful to TPTB.