[HN Gopher] Twitter's legal letter to Meta: a guided tour of a w...
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Twitter's legal letter to Meta: a guided tour of a weak litigation
letter
Author : AndrewDucker
Score : 46 points
Date : 2023-07-07 19:29 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (davidallengreen.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (davidallengreen.com)
| kevincox wrote:
| What is the point of sending such a letter? Just to let them know
| that you are scared?
| tqi wrote:
| Probably to generate press coverage. Also to placate certain
| execs.
| Zigurd wrote:
| The only "exec" to placate is Linda Yaccarino, who's probably
| three sheets to the wind at Smuggler's by now.
| appleflaxen wrote:
| SEO, so that Twitter comes up when you search for threads
| mthoms wrote:
| The site appears to be down. Read it here.
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20230707193011/https://davidalle...
| dogmayor wrote:
| (American lawyer here) Yeah, this letter is as weak as they come.
| An empty threat that Meta won't sweat and was most likely
| anticipating from the time they began dev. This reading of the
| letter is spot on.
| ksaj wrote:
| It does appear Twitter's legal experts were also fired / laid off
| when Elon took the reins.
|
| When I first read it, I thought some of it sounded really
| amateur. I've read lots of lawyerese (I used to provide expert
| testimony in certain types of technical cases), and this did not
| come across like it was written by a legal expert of any level.
|
| Now reading this analysis, there are a lot more bells going off.
| I personally would disregard it - and if forced to respond, I
| would require a rewritten letter with an appropriate level of
| authority in its wording.
| maxclark wrote:
| People seem to forget this is ordinary course of business for big
| tech.
|
| Internal Tech Emails is a goldmine of letters, threats, and
| lawsuits back and forth.
| mthoms wrote:
| This was actually sent by Elon's personal lawyer. Make of that
| what you will but I get the feeling this letter was composed
| entirely for Elon's fanboys.
|
| How long before Musk claims that he can't pursue the issue
| because [insert purported flaw in US legal system here]?
| gtirloni wrote:
| From politicians to CEOs, we're living in the memeconomy.
| Nobody cares anymore.
| _jal wrote:
| Does Twitter have any other lawyers left? Wouldn't be surprised
| if Spiro is effectively GC by default.
|
| Although I do suspect the audience for this was certain of his
| other investors, not his glee club.
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| I imagine Twitter is finding it hard to hire lawyers since they
| are notoriously not paying their bills.
| anyoneamous wrote:
| I wonder if Elongated Muskrat stood over the lawyer and dictated
| this letter while they typed (with them correcting his nonsense
| into legalese as they go). Seems like his style, particularly if
| he were to then read the letter afterwards, smile, nod, and leave
| with yet more confidence in how smart he is.
| adamrezich wrote:
| [flagged]
| rsynnott wrote:
| So, there's a practical reason for this, though it's not
| particularly relevant here. If you say Elon Musk's name _on
| Twitter_, that tends to summon his insufferable fans (via
| kibozing:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Parry#Growing_fame) (this
| isn't a post-acquisition thing; it's been like this for
| years), so the wise tweeter uses a nickname.
|
| Now, obviously it's not particularly relevant here, and in
| any case "Elongated Muskrat" is well-known enough that people
| presumably grep for that _too_.
| adamrezich wrote:
| none of this makes this sort of behavior _here_ any less
| exhaustingly unbecoming. do we really need forty comments
| describing exactly why "Engorged Moosetooth" is a poopie
| poopie butthole on _every_ Twitter-related story? are we
| incapable of elevating above this?
| Freedom2 wrote:
| [flagged]
| outworlder wrote:
| [flagged]
| [deleted]
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Elon also didn't manage to get out of the Twitter deal.
|
| Elon is basically a big bully, or rather a big child who screams
| when he doesn't get what he wants.
|
| Makes cool stuff though and has a pretty good sense of humor.
|
| And we'll, it's multi-billions at stake, so why not try :)
| akomtu wrote:
| Your tower of wisdom must be really high if you judge Musk like
| this. The rise and fall of nations must lool like a
| kindergarten play to you.
| tssva wrote:
| > Elon is basically a big bully, or rather a big child who
| screams when he doesn't get what he wants.
|
| > Makes cool stuff though and has a pretty good sense of humor.
|
| His sense of humor like his other behavior is similar to that
| of a 5 year old child.
| phatskat wrote:
| Yeah, parroting memes poorly and saying "I'm rich, biotch" oh
| stage with Dave Chapelle isn't exactly funny. He's worth more
| than most of humanity combined and that line falls flat -
| heck he even got booed for it.
| caycep wrote:
| He has an interest in cool stuff, and that desire sometimes
| translates to results....assuming he, out of sheer good
| fortune, hires the right people to actually make the stuff
| (Gwynne Shotwell/Tom Mueller types, etc)
|
| Humor, well, let's say each to their own tastes...
| fundad wrote:
| He's Private Equity
| ekam wrote:
| his "sense of humor" is literally just repeating 420 and 69
| walrus01 wrote:
| Elon Musk is the soul of an edgelord 14 year old boy trapped
| in the psyche of the ghost of an 1880s era robber baron.
| phatskat wrote:
| > Makes cool stuff though and has a pretty good sense of humor.
|
| I'm gonna need citations on both of these. What has he actually
| made? He's been know to take credit for a lot of things, and he
| could from the point of view of spending the money and maybe
| hiring some people, but ultimately he doesn't make or come up
| with much of anything that I'm aware of.
|
| Also his sense of humor is...awful. It does appeal to one
| particular group largely, and they all have blue check marks
| because that is a meaningless badge these days.
| bdcravens wrote:
| > He's been know to take credit for a lot of things, and he
| could from the point of view of spending the money and maybe
| hiring some people, but ultimately he doesn't make or come up
| with much of anything that I'm aware of.
|
| The same could be said of Steve Jobs. It would be an unfair
| statement, for the same reasons I feel it's unfair with Musk:
| their vision strongly influenced the products their companies
| made.
| krapp wrote:
| "vision" only goes so far and in the case of authoritarian
| narcissists like Jobs and Musk (perhaps more so Musk) can
| just as often sabotage progress as lead it. Elon Musk seems
| like the kind of leader you have to know when and how to
| lead out of the room just to keep things running sanely
|
| At the end of the day, he isn't designing the rockets. He
| isn't building the rockets. He isn't even flying the
| rockets. He pays the people who hire the people who do
| those things. That has value, but not the kind of
| "billionaire genius entrepreneur who built a technological
| empire with his bare hands" value that society gives him.
| People have called Elon Musk the most brilliant man who
| ever lived, the man on whom the very arc of human evolution
| and progress depends, Tony Stark, Edison, Einstein and
| Davinci in one.
|
| I don't think the parents' statement is unfair. I think
| it's unfair that the world will know Elon Musk's name a
| century from now and that no matter what he does (barring,
| maybe, mass murder) his carefully crafted narrative will
| live on, but the names and stories of the people who
| actually turned his vision into reality have already
| vanished under the sands of time because they are merely
| assets, no more important to the hierarchies of capitalism
| or the great man narratives of history than office
| furniture.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| I was just thinking the other day, how long till we get the
| equivalent of folklore.org full of stories about Elon being
| a dick to coworkers:
|
| https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&sto
| r...
|
| > "A what?"
|
| > "A reality distortion field. In his presence, reality is
| malleable. He can convince anyone of practically anything.
| It wears off when he's not around, but it makes it hard to
| have realistic schedules. And there's a couple of other
| things you should know about working with Steve."
|
| > "What else?"
|
| > "Well, just because he tells you that something is awful
| or great, it doesn't necessarily mean he'll feel that way
| tomorrow. You have to low-pass filter his input. And then,
| he's really funny about ideas. If you tell him a new idea,
| he'll usually tell you that he thinks it's stupid. But
| then, if he actually likes it, exactly one week later,
| he'll come back to you and propose your idea to you, as if
| he thought of it
| meepmorp wrote:
| I hope the response was a single poop emoji
| aio2 wrote:
| lol
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(page generated 2023-07-07 23:02 UTC)