#Twitter claims reporters they're permitting to rummage around internal messages don't have access to user DMs -- but says nothing about Musk or others' access to them.
@lauren Have you seen http://nitter.net/ellagirwin/status/1601084794288640000? I don't know if there are any inferences that can be drawn from it though~~
@lauren Frankly, I've admitted defeat on understanding Twitter's reasons for doing things, given that Musk does not seem to feel constrained not to mislead people. Thus, I really have no model of the process that generates Twitter's public statements now. Do you think there are some constraints on the relationship between their statements and reality that can be relied upon?
@robryk Not until the courts get involved.
@lauren Roughly what kinds of constraints do you see that would incentivize Twitter and/or Musk to constrain what they're saying publicly? I don't see why lying in public would be legally bad for them (I don't see whom this could be defrauding, and don't know of any legal constraints on lying other than[1] fraud or defamation).
[1] Well, and false advertising, which I wouldn't expect to apply here.
@robryk The most immediate risk to them is the FTC consent decree they're operating under. I expect that a lot of very good external lawyers are looking at this in great detail right now. The other risk to them is actions by the EU. That's a very big fist.
@lauren I thought both of them care ~only about what the company's doing, and not about what it's claiming. Am I wrong?
@robryk It's complicated.
I get that claiming to be doing something that does go against the expectation of what Twitter is going to be doing might be relevant. Do you think that claiming to be doing something that (a) is _not_ against requirements (b) is actually false might be important?
@robryk Parsing error. You want to try reword that? Thanks.
Trying for more verbosity:
I get why it might be bad for Twitter to claim that it's doing something that's e.g. counter to its consent decree.
Would it be bad for Twitter to falsely claim that it's doing something that's not counter to the FTC consent decree and other requirements?
@robryk I am not a lawyer. But I would assume that any purposeful lies that related in *any* way to a consent decree would not be looked on favorably by the FTC or courts. Just my opinion.
@robryk #Twitter could easily release a statement saying that user DMs are safe from snooping by Musk or anyone else without specific legal process. Twitter has so far chosen not to issue such an assurance. Why?