[farmerstan]

I disagree. I think it’s the opposite, Twitter should be providing this data and it’s pretty straightforward. Not providing it or pretending to provide it seems like a way to get out of the sale but leaving open a way to sue him for breach of the sale.

[muglug]

It's not "pretty straightforward" — you can't provide the raw data behind all your accounts because that data includes a ton of PII.

Any data you do provide will be based on some sort of analysis and/or sampling.

[jklinger410]

> you can't provide the raw data behind all your accounts because that data includes a ton of PII

Yes they can? Why can't they? Citation needed. Not sure where you get this idea from.

[farmerstan]

You don’t have to send the databases over to comply. You can give on-premises access to your data to Musk representatives and let me make their own queries to satisfy themselves. It’s not hard.

[jcranmer]

I can't even. The potential privacy violations are the same whether you're giving the database to the other party or letting the other party come to your premises to have sufficient access to the database. No wait, I take that back: they might see (very slightly more) stuff by walking on-site.

It's the data being requested that's a privacy violation, not the place where that data is viewed.

[jklinger410]

Twitter owns the data, stop acting like it is HIPPA data. Completely unsure where you are getting this PII concern from. They could change their TOS and release everything in a plain text file if they so pleased.

It is 100% legal and ok for them to look at every piece of information they have about every account and analyze it for bot activity, or allow Elon's team to look at the same data.

[jcranmer]

First off, it's "HIPAA", not "HIPPA."

Secondly, I'm specifically responding to GP's assertion that letting people access the databases on-prem would make any privacy concerns go away. I'm expressing no opinions on the matter of the first place of if those privacy concerns are warranted.

Thirdly, at this point, I would personally be highly skeptical that an NDA would actually provide any meaningful protection when Musk is the one signing it. His recent actions indicate to me a very high disregard for any contractual obligations he enters on, in the apparent belief that he will face zero material repercussions for anything he violates.

[jklinger410]

Thanks for correcting my spelling. But fundamentally there is no problem with anyone looking at the data with Twitter's blessing.

The comment you were referring to says "because that data includes a ton of PII."

But PII isn't a concern here. Unless we're talking about sharing usernames and passwords, there aren't really any protections in Twitter's TOS for the information you willingly provide to them.

[davidbarker]

I don’t know about the situation in the US, but the EU and other countries bound by GDPR — where Twitter operates — take PII very seriously.

[yzmtf2008]

Assuming it is not hard (it is). Why? It’s not like Twitter is asking to be bought here. Musk voluntarily waived his rights to due diligence. Presumably his representatives have reviewed this agreement?

[ben_w]

Straightforward? Against an adaptive opponent that’s constantly looking for weakness in their approach?

I don’t think automatic analysis with a 5% false positive rate and materially significant false negative rate is that easy even when the subject doesn’t have an incentive to be subversive — last time I downloaded my Twitter data, turned out they incorrectly thought I understood Indonesian(!), and incorrectly thought my interests included beer, blues, college basketball, cricket, DJs, dance, guitar, hip hop and rap, horror, ice hockey, Japan, luxury, men’s pants, men’s shoes, metal, motorcycles, NFL football, offroad vehicles, olympics, pop, “power and motorcycles” (apparently that’s a single category), rock, skateboarding, South America, sporting goods, talk radio, and wine.

[otterley]

Do you work for Twitter or any large company that handles massive amounts of user data? You seem to know a lot about how this works.