WOne good flip within the theatre deserves one other. That is precisely what Elon Musk has finished.

The world’s richest individual has spent the previous a number of weeks complaining that Twitter is undercounting the quantity of automated spam bots on its website and that it received’t give him entry to the information he must make an impartial evaluation, which he wants earlier than he’ll end closing on his acquisition of the corporate. In line with Twitter, bots account for lower than 5%. This quantity is in keeping with a few years value of SEC filings. Musk was in a position to entry this determine proper from the start. His sudden obsession with it looks as if an act. It’s a means for him to create a pretext to renegotiate his $44billion provide for Twitter within the midst of a giant drop in inventory market costs.

On Monday, Musk’s lawyer despatched Twitter a tersely worded letter saying it had higher flip over the information. Or else. Or else? Or else Musk and his attorneys will take into account their refusal a breach of the merger settlement and name off the deal, a doubtful argument that most likely wouldn’t maintain up in courtroom—however one they may use to make issues disagreeable for Twitter.

On Wednesday, we realized about Twitter’s personal Musk-type transfer. That is the enterprise It’s reportedly making ready to provide him entry to its so-called “firehose” API, a stream of each tweet despatched. (Each. Tweet.) That is roughly 500 million microblog posts per day. A Twitter spokesperson wouldn’t remark about how precisely it’ll share this trove with Musk, saying solely: “Twitter has and can proceed to cooperatively share info with Mr. Musk to consummate the transaction in accordance with the phrases of the merger settlement. This settlement we consider is greatest for all shareholders. We intend to shut the transaction and implement the merger settlement on the agreed worth and phrases.”

Let’s be very clear: it will have been a mistake for Twitter, to permit Musk a lot entry. It was meant to convey to him that this can be a ridiculous transfer. Do you want information? Right here’s all the information we have now. We’re not hiding a factor. Take pleasure in! “He doesn’t want entry to every little thing. You don’t need entry to every little thing,” says Goran Muric, a pc scientist at USC’s Institute for Info Sciences who has labored with related Twitter APIs. In reality, Musk most likely solely wants the “decahose” API Twitter makes out there to some researchers, which is 10% of all tweets. The distinction between the outcomes gleaned from the decahose and the firehose equates to the distinction between “a ballot and a census,” says Muric. Smaller, extra easily-useable pattern sizes are higher for polls. “And you’ll have a number of polls on a regular basis and just about correct outcomes” dovetailing with what a extra expansive census would produce, Muric says.

Certain, it’s amusing to see Twitter pull a Musk on Musk—to strive, ostensibly, to name his bluff. Nonetheless, the result of the lawsuit between billionaire Musk and his firm might not be a major one. It is not going to be simple for Musk to research Twitter bot exercise. This process would require a gaggle of researchers to create software program that may assessment tweets. Most to the purpose, whereas Musk can use his entry to the firehose API to give you an estimate of bot exercise on Twitter, it appears virtually inevitable that his determine received’t match Twitter’s.

To start out, his definition of what constitutes a bot account may fairly simply differ from Twitter’s. Musk could outline bots nonetheless he likes. There’s no universally accepted definition, even among the many area’s high researchers. “In the event you put two individuals within the room and ask in regards to the definition of something, they might have a unique opinion—and particularly in regards to the definition of what’s a bot on Twitter,” says Muric. “So perhaps if any individual tweets greater than 1,000 tweets in a day, he’s a bot proper? However perhaps any individual else will say, It needs to be in the event that they tweet greater than 50 instances.” One of the best software for figuring out bots, Botometer, which comes from an Indiana College staff, gives solely a tough gauge of bot exercise, giving a chance rating for whether or not an account is a bot, by no means a certainty. Musk has loads of flexibility to make use of the API firehose to attract no matter conclusions he wants to attain his objectives. This, once more, is more likely to persuade Twitter to pay a cheaper price.

Additional, it’s unclear whether or not even a good-faith effort on Musk’s half may totally replicate Twitter’s course of, doubling verify its inner estimate. To be exact, Twitter has stated bots account for lower than 5% of its “monetizable day by day lively customers,” a determine of Twitter’s personal creation. A Twitter app stories month-to-month lively customers in the event that they log in a minimum of as soon as each 30 days. So it’s unsure whether or not even a well-intentioned Musk may use the firehose API to calculate the identical variety of monetizable day by day lively customers.

A second query: What occurs if Musk discovers an issue in Twitter’s firehose API? Fb purchased CrowdTangle from Brandon Silverman. He identified by way of Twitter that CrowdTangle may find yourself worsening the prevailing scenario.

Actually, it wouldn’t matter whether or not any further drawback was actual or pretend. Theater is actually about making-believe.