Twitter's SEC filing: "In making this [mDAU] determination, we applied significant judgment, so our estimation of false or spam accounts may not accurately represent the actual number of such accounts, and the actual number of false or spam accounts could be higher than we have estimated."
Neither side said bots, but bots _should_ be a subset of "false or spam" accounts. They basically used "our judgement" and give themselves complete discretion. And 5% is a nice round number plucked from nowhere which sounds awesome! Providing proof of that to a Banker or Backer (or Elon or a future Jury) isn't therefore possible or intended. It's marketing spin in an SEC filing.
> but bots _should_ be a subset of "false or spam" accounts
Do you mean "they should report all bots as part of their false or spam accounts number", or that you believe logically bots are in fact a subset of the number twitter reports, and so twitter's number is bogus if 50% of all accounts are bots?
If it's the latter, you're missing the point of their mDAU marketing metric. It already has all the obvious bots and non active accounts removed. They're saying, what % of advertising revenue turns out to be from bots.
Neither side said bots, but bots _should_ be a subset of "false or spam" accounts. They basically used "our judgement" and give themselves complete discretion. And 5% is a nice round number plucked from nowhere which sounds awesome! Providing proof of that to a Banker or Backer (or Elon or a future Jury) isn't therefore possible or intended. It's marketing spin in an SEC filing.