{"id":1505711,"date":"2022-06-06T16:34:34","date_gmt":"2022-06-06T20:34:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1505711"},"modified":"2022-06-06T16:34:43","modified_gmt":"2022-06-06T20:34:43","slug":"texas-ag-launches-investigation-into-twitter-over-fake-users","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/texas-ag-launches-investigation-into-twitter-over-fake-users\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas AG Launches Investigation Into Twitter Over Fake Users"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ftexas-ag-launches-investigation-into-twitter-over-fake-users%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1505711&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<section data-v-f313b7e6=\"\">\n<p>Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has launched an investigation against &#8220;Twitter for potentially deceiving Texas consumers&#8221; as well as Texas businesses, over fake bot accounts on the platform.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section data-v-f313b7e6=\"\">\n<p>This comes after Elon Musk&#8217;s attorney <a href=\"https:\/\/thepostmillennial.com\/breaking-elon-musks-lawyers-send-letter-to-twitter-threatening-to-terminate-deal-over-inflated-user-data\">filed a letter<\/a> saying that the $44 billion acquirement deal could be on the rocks if Twitter doesn&#8217;t reveal the number of fake accounts on the platform.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section data-v-f313b7e6=\"\"><\/section>\n<section data-v-f313b7e6=\"\">\n<figure class=\"kg-card kg-embed-card\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">BREAKING: Texas AG Paxton Launches Investigation Into Twitter; Alleges Company Lied About Number Of Bots<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jack Posobiec ?? (@JackPosobiec) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JackPosobiec\/status\/1533898227577233408?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 6, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<\/section>\n<section data-v-f313b7e6=\"\">\n<p>Paxton released the information about the investigation that Twitter is in violation of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, saying &#8220;Twitter has received intense scrutiny in recent weeks over claiming in its financial regulatory filings that fewer than 5% of all users are bots, when they may in fact comprise as much as 20% or more. The difference could dramatically affect the cost to Texas consumers and businesses who transact with Twitter.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section data-v-f313b7e6=\"\">\n<p>&#8220;To address this concern, Attorney General Paxton issued a Civil Investigative Demand (CID) to investigate whether Twitter\u2019s reporting on real versus fake users is &#8216;false, misleading, or deceptive&#8217; under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. The CID requires Twitter to turn over documents related to how it calculates and manages its user data and how these numbers relate to Twitter\u2019s advertising businesses. Twitter has until June 27 to respond to Attorney General Paxton\u2019s Demand.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section data-v-f313b7e6=\"\">\n<p>In a further statement, Paxton said that &#8220;Texans rely on Twitter&#8217;s public statements that nearly all its users are real people. It matters not only for regular Twitter users, but also Texas businesses and advertisers who use Twitter for their livelihoods. If Twitter is misrepresenting how many accounts are fake to drive up their revenue, I have a duty to protect Texans.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section data-v-f313b7e6=\"\">\n<p>In the letter to Twitter Chief Legal Officer <a href=\"https:\/\/thepostmillennial.com\/twitter-executive-cries-during-staff-meeting-over-elon-musk-takeover\">Vijaya Gadde<\/a>, Skadden attorney Mike Ringler for Musk said that &#8220;Mr. Musk reserves all rights resulting therefrom, including his right not to consummate the transaction and his right to terminate the merger agreement,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2022\/06\/06\/musk-says-twitter-is-refusing-to-share-data-on-spam-accounts.html\">according<\/a> to CNBC.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section data-v-f313b7e6=\"\">\n<p>He said further that Twitter must provide the information that is being requested, and that the merger agreement requires it. Ringler disputed Twitter&#8217;s claim that they are not responsible to give that data in order to close the deal.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section data-v-f313b7e6=\"\">\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sec.gov\/Archives\/edgar\/data\/0001418091\/000110465922068347\/tm2217761d1_ex99-o.htm\">letter<\/a>, submitted to the SEC, posited that &#8220;If Twitter is confident in its publicized spam estimates, Mr. Musk does not understand the company&#8217;s reluctance to allow Mr. Musk to independently evaluate those estimates. As noted in our previous correspondence, Mr. Musk will of course comply with the restrictions provided under Section 6.4, including by ensuring that anyone reviewing the data is bound by a non-disclosure agreement, and Mr. Musk will not retain or otherwise use any competitively sensitive information if the transaction is not consummated.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section data-v-f313b7e6=\"\">\n<p>Twitter shares were down 5 percent on Monday morning trading.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has launched an investigation against &#8220;Twitter for potentially deceiving Texas consumers&#8221; as well as Texas businesses, over fake bot accounts on the platform.This<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":498,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1505711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1505711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/498"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1505711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1505711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1505711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1505711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1505711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}