{"id":13151,"date":"2022-08-25T14:57:20","date_gmt":"2022-08-25T14:57:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2022\/08\/25\/theres-a-wonky-number-at-the-core-of-elon-musks-case-against-twitter\/"},"modified":"2022-08-25T14:57:21","modified_gmt":"2022-08-25T14:57:21","slug":"theres-a-wonky-number-at-the-core-of-elon-musks-case-against-twitter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2022\/08\/25\/theres-a-wonky-number-at-the-core-of-elon-musks-case-against-twitter\/","title":{"rendered":"There\u2019s a wonky number at the core of Elon Musk\u2019s case against Twitter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/8\/24\/23320461\/twitter-mdau-mudge-zatko-elon-musk-discovery\">https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/8\/24\/23320461\/twitter-mdau-mudge-zatko-elon-musk-discovery<\/a><br \/>\n<code><br \/><\/br><\/code><\/p>\n<div readability=\"107.879407256\">\n<p id=\"nKNo5G\">Listening to the lawyers representing Elon Musk and Twitter argue over which documents need to be provided as part of legal discovery today, I began to wonder if it is possible to measure anything at all.<\/p>\n<p id=\"wQglvJ\">The arguments centered on a wonky count of user numbers: mDAUs, or \u201cmonetizable daily active users.\u201d It\u2019s a nonstandard measure \u2014 most social media companies use daily or monthly active users \u2014 that focuses on which users can see ads. But Twitter is a nonstandard social media company! <\/p>\n<div class=\"c-float-right\">\n<aside id=\"I1uDZp\"><q>\u201cWe are allowed to question their process.\u201d<\/q><\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"Cl0n6k\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/7\/12\/23205624\/twitter-sues-elon-musk-acquisition-agreement\">Twitter is suing Musk for abandoning a deal<\/a> to buy the company for $44 billion. Part of Musk\u2019s argument is that he was misled about the amount of spam and bots on the platform and that, therefore, the deal can\u2019t be done. In today\u2019s hearing, Musk\u2019s lawyers claimed Twitter was cherry-picking documents the lawyers had requested on mDAUs. Alex Spiro, Musk\u2019s counsel, told the court that Musk wants to check <em>all <\/em>Twitter accounts. <\/p>\n<p id=\"x3uzLJ\">\u201cWe don\u2019t just have to take their word for it,\u201d Spiro said to the court. \u201cWe are allowed to question their process.\u201d Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick, who is overseeing the case in Delaware\u2019s Chancery Court, said she would take the matter under advisement before adjourning the hearing. <\/p>\n<p id=\"ZzjD4W\">I don\u2019t know if mDAU is actually a good metric. But this hearing suggests that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/8\/23\/23317857\/twitter-whistleblower-zatko-security-spam-safety\">revelations from a Twitter whistleblower<\/a> will shape Musk\u2019s case, at least in terms of guiding Musk\u2019s discovery. <\/p>\n<p id=\"11Iz6g\">Twitter\u2019s former security head Peiter \u201cMudge\u201d Zatko \u2014 among other allegations \u2014 said Twitter\u2019s method for measuring bots, fake accounts, or spam is wrong. Zatko\u2019s complaint suggested executives were offered bonuses of up to $10 million to boost user counts. And so, that\u2019s what executives did instead of removing bots. <\/p>\n<div class=\"c-float-right\">\n<aside id=\"QRXDkO\"><q>How did mDAUs come to exist in the first place?<\/q><\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"GDIKTe\">It\u2019s also true that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/4\/28\/23046170\/twitter-miscounted-daily-users-three-years-q1-2022-earnings\">Twitter admitted in April that it had overcounted for <em>three years<\/em><\/a>. This was <a href=\"https:\/\/mashable.com\/article\/twitter-overstated-users-monthly-active-trump-bump\">not even the first time<\/a> it had happened! The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/8\/24\/23319885\/elon-musk-twitter-bot-sec-review-mdau-whistleblower-mudge\">SEC is now asking questions<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p id=\"Bydxrq\">How did mDAUs come to exist in the first place? Well, lots of us look at tweets in places that aren\u2019t Twitter. One instance is on this here website, where Twitter can\u2019t display ads because <em>they\u2019re our ads, baby.<\/em><\/p>\n<p id=\"GJOzQ2\">It gets worse! I don\u2019t use Twitter\u2019s website on my computer as my primary mode of viewing Twitter. I use Tweetbot, which is not made by Twitter and which does not display ads. On mobile, Twitter\u2019s app <em>does<\/em> show me ads, but I mostly don\u2019t use Twitter on my phone, and honestly, I\u2019m considering switching to Tweetbot there, too. So I am <em>certainly<\/em> a daily active user, but I\u2019m seeing a lot fewer ads than someone who\u2019s using Twitter\u2019s website. How do you account for me?<\/p>\n<p id=\"mNHbRy\">That question is at the center of the arguments. The <a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.vox-cdn.com\/uploads\/chorus_asset\/file\/23967857\/CORRESP.pdf\">way mDAU gets captured<\/a> is by taking 9,000 Twitter accounts at random and reviewing them manually. They are then flagged as spam or bots or used to estimate how users see ads. Both private and public data are used to make these calls. But because some data isn\u2019t retained, it\u2019s hard to check Twitter\u2019s work. Twitter\u2019s lawyer said that a \u201cbrute force\u201d manual review might be possible, and it would take about a week. Musk wants more data than that.<\/p>\n<p id=\"hTLdd4\">Musk\u2019s lawyer argued that mDAU was made up in order to juice Twitter\u2019s growth numbers \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/venturebeat.com\/business\/twitter-is-slowly-perfecting-the-art-of-inventing-nonsensical-performance-metrics\/\">not a novel critique of mDAU<\/a>, by the way. He also suggested that tying compensation to mDAU growth was a bad incentive. Twitter says that mDAU is the preferred measurement; Musk says that using it is essentially fraud.<\/p>\n<p id=\"b7FPgE\">There was one chink in Musk\u2019s lawyers\u2019 arguments, and it was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/7\/15\/23216684\/twitter-elon-musk-lawsuit-tweets\">an Elon Musk tweet<\/a>. \u201cIf Twitter simply provides their method of sampling 100 accounts and how they\u2019re confirmed to be real, the deal should proceed on original terms,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1555823555161604099\">he wrote<\/a>. Twitter\u2019s lawyers suggested that Twitter has, indeed, provided that method, its lawyer said in court.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><code><br \/><\/br><\/code><\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/8\/24\/23320461\/twitter-mdau-mudge-zatko-elon-musk-discovery\">https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/8\/24\/23320461\/twitter-mdau-mudge-zatko-elon-musk-discovery<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: Listening to the lawyers representing Elon Musk and Twitter argue over which documents need to be provided as part of legal discovery today, I began to wonder if it is possible to measure anything at all. The arguments centered on a wonky count of user numbers: mDAUs, or \u201cmonetizable daily active users.\u201d It\u2019s a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13152,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,8],"tags":[16],"class_list":["post-13151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-policy","category-technology","tag-policy"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>There\u2019s a wonky number at the core of Elon Musk\u2019s case against Twitter - Science and Nerds<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2022\/08\/25\/theres-a-wonky-number-at-the-core-of-elon-musks-case-against-twitter\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"There\u2019s a wonky number at the core of Elon Musk\u2019s case against Twitter - Science and Nerds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Source: Listening to the lawyers representing Elon Musk and Twitter argue over which documents need to be provided as part of legal discovery today, I began to wonder if it is possible to measure anything at all. The arguments centered on a wonky count of user numbers: mDAUs, or \u201cmonetizable daily active users.\u201d It\u2019s a [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2022\/08\/25\/theres-a-wonky-number-at-the-core-of-elon-musks-case-against-twitter\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Science and Nerds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-08-25T14:57:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-08-25T14:57:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/theres-a-wonky-number-at-the-core-of-elon-musks-case-against-twitter_63078dd0bf02f.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2022\/08\/25\/theres-a-wonky-number-at-the-core-of-elon-musks-case-against-twitter\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2022\/08\/25\/theres-a-wonky-number-at-the-core-of-elon-musks-case-against-twitter\/\",\"name\":\"There\u2019s a wonky number at the core of Elon Musk\u2019s case against Twitter - 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