A federal jury in California has determined that the tweets posted by Elon Musk in May 2022, where he questioned the figures for fake and spam accounts on Twitter, misled investors. The messages, which cast doubt on the platform's transparency and the purchase operation, were declared materially false or misleading by the court.
The technical challenge of auditing fake accounts tweet by tweet 🤔
The accuracy of metrics on spam and fake accounts is a complex technical problem that requires data analysis, detection algorithms, and statistical sampling. Affirming or denying specific figures in a limited character space, without presenting the methodology or audited data, simplifies a process that social networks themselves manage with entire teams of engineers and data scientists over extended periods.
The new due diligence methodology: Twitter thread 😏
It seems that the auditing process for a social network valued in billions has found its definitive tool: the follower poll. Why spend months with forensic analysis teams when you can launch a rhetorical question on the platform? It's an agile approach, although the courts suggest that for investment decisions it might be advisable to complement it with something more... like documents.