Sanctions were applied after the social media platform delayed compliance with a federal search warrant that required Twitter to hand over Donald Trump’s Twitter data without telling the former president about the warrant for 180 days.

  • Geekocracy@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The purpose of a fine is to get compliance, not to punish. The fine was $50,000, doubling every day. So $350,00 dollars means Musk caved after 3 days. Pretty effective tactic by the court.

      • maniclucky@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Doing a data science degree right now. No. No they do not.

        This pointless comment brought to you by poorly optimized flashbacks.

    • hglman@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      How is that not just standardized and know at the time of the ruling ?

    • Mnemnosyne@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Uhh, how does a 50k fine that doubles each day come out to 350k?

      Day 1: 50,000. Day 2: 100,000. Day 3: 200,000. Day 4: 400,000…

      We skipped right over 350…

      • Rev. Layle@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I believe it is cumulative.

        50k first day

        PLUS 100k next day (running total 150k)

        PLUS 200k next day (running total 350k)

      • SamsonSeinfelder@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        The violation is committed every 24h. You do not get a bonus/discount for waiting out. It is added to your already amassed fine. The way you count would mean, that on day 5, they would get a ~50% discount in the fine (paying only 800K instead of the amassed 1.55M)

        Day 1: 50K -> 50K = 50K locked in

        Day 2: 100K -> 100K + 1st day 50K = 150K locked in

        Day 3: 200K -> 200K + 2nd day 100K + 1st day 50K = 350K locked in


        Day 4: 400K -> 400K + 3rd day 200K + 2nd day 100K + 1st day 50K = 750K locked in

        Day 5: 800K -> 800K + 4th day 400K + 3rd day 200K + 2nd day 100K + 1st day 50K = 1.550.000K locked in

        Day 6: 1.6M = 3.15M

        Day 7: 3.2M = 6.35M

        Day 8: 6.4M = 12.75M

        Day 9: 12.8M = 25.55M

        Day 10: 25.6M = 51.15M

        Day 11: 51.2M = 102.35M

        Day 12: 102.4M = 204.75M

        Day 13: 204.8M = 409.55M

        Day 14: 409.6M = 819.15M

        Day 15: 819.2M = 1.638B

    • Cranakis @lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      If he’d held out one more day it would have been 700k. 2 more days, 1.4M. 3 more, 2.8M.

      i.e. Musk caved before it became consequential.

      1.4B if he’d waited 2 weeks more. 23.4T (that’s Trillion) if he wanted to shield Trump for a month. I’d say it was a heavy fine that worked as intended.

      Someone check my math.

          • TheWonderfool@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Corrected math, between day 1 and day 30 (if someone knows how to make a table easily in a lemmy comment please enlighten me ):

            1 $50,00 2 $150,00 3 $350,00 4 $750,00 5 $1.550,00 6 $3.150,00 7 $6.350,00 8 $12.750,00 9 $25.550,00 10 $51.150,00 11 $102.350,00 12 $102.350,00 13 $204.750,00 14 $409.550,00 15 $819.150,00 16 $1.638.350,00 17 $3.276.750,00 18 $6.553.550,00 19 $13.107.150,00 20 $26.214.350,00 21 $52.428.750,00 22 $104.857.550,00 23 $209.715.150,00 24 $419.430.350,00 25 $838.860.750,00 26 $1.677.721.550,00 27 $3.355.443.150,00 28 $6.710.886.350,00 29 $13.421.772.750,00 30 $26.843.545.550,00

            You were giving him a discount! (If this math is correct, but it should be)

            • Netrunner@programming.dev
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              1 year ago

              1 $50,00 2 $150,00 3 $350,00 4 $750,00 5 $1.550,00 6 $3.150,00 7 $6.350,00 8 $12.750,00 9 $25.550,00 10 $51.150,00 11 $102.350,00 12 $102.350,00 13 $204.750,00 14 $409.550,00 15 $819.150,00 16 $1.638.350,00 17 $3.276.750,00 18 $6.553.550,00 19 $13.107.150,00 20 $26.214.350,00 21 $52.428.750,00 22 $104.857.550,00 23 $209.715.150,00 24 $419.430.350,00 25 $838.860.750,00 26 $1.677.721.550,00 27 $3.355.443.150,00 28 $6.710.886.350,00 29 $13.421.772.750,00 30 $26.843.545.550,00

              Day Amount
              1 $50,000
              2 $150,000
              3 $350,000
              4 $750,000
              5 $1.550,000
              6 $3.150,000
              7 $6.350,000
              8 $12.750,000
              9 $25.550,000
              10 $51.150,000
              11 $102.350,000
              12 $102.350,000
              13 $204.750,000
              14 $409.550,000
              15 $819.150,000
              16 $1.638.350,000
              17 $3.276.750,000
              18 $6.553.550,000
              19 $13.107.150,000
              20 $26.214.350,000
              21 $52.428.750,000
              22 $104.857.550,000
              23 $209.715.150,000
              24 $419.430.350,000
              25 $838.860.750,000
              26 $1.677.721.550,000
              27 $3.355.443.150,000
              28 $6.710.886.350,000
              29 $13.421.772.750,000
              30 $26.843.545.550,000

              Lemmy supports markdown, so you can use markdown tables.

              P.S. I didn’t check your numbers, but I was curious about the markdown :)

          • sloppy_diffuser@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            $23.4T / ($350k / day) = 66857142.85 days

            That’s about 183,170 years, not a month.

            I’m assuming you were suggesting it was $350k / day? Maybe you were meaning exponential and I misread?

            edit: ah, $50k doubling. Missed that in the article.

    • lasagna@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      Until fines become wealth based, it will always be a poor people tax.

      If cash flow is the issue, then start taking stocks.

      • Rufio@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Or make them recurring fines that grow exponentially each time they are issued until the situation is fixed.

        Edit: nvm it sounds like this is exactly what they are doing.

      • MajinBlayze@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Not just a “poor person tax” but it means that the law just doesn’t apply in any meaningful way to the wealthy

    • FlexibleToast@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Inconsequential for Musk sure, but not Twitter. Twitter is a company that didn’t make money, lost half of its ad revenue, can’t afford to pay its rent, can’t afford to pay its cloud providers, and was saddled with huge debts that have $1b in interest annually. The clock is ticking for Twitter.

    • Prethoryn Overmind@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I think the issue is it can become failure of compliance and obstruction of justice at some point or can be tried as that. Elon could really get himself fucked if am investigation found members of the company discussion rejection to oblige.

    • hglman@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      350k is a slap. Criminal charges should be made agaist leaders who ordered the delays.

      • zcd@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Sure would be nice if some rich criminals went to jail instead of a life without repercussions of any kind

      • Ryumast3r@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        It was doubling every day. They were scared of day 15 where it would’ve been 780mil for the day and over 1.562billion total.

        Every day doubling is a really good consequence, the fact that it only took twitter 3 days to comply once the penalty started actually hitting should confirm that

        • hglman@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          It took 6 months, and they got fined because they broke the law. If the company knewkon day one it would face criminal charges for non compliance after a period for appeal we would have seen results months ago.

        • DarkGamer@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Seems fair. If corporations are legally people, they ought to be able to be incarcerated like people or executed like people.

          • LemmyLefty@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I fully agree with this, I’m just not sure what form this would take.

            For execution, a dissolution of all properties, patents, inventory, and all assets seized and sold, followed by barring at least the C-suite from working in the same field ever again?

            • DarkGamer@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              In my mind, incarceration would be a freeze on all their assets and business operations for a fixed period of time. Execution would mean full liquidation as though they were bankrupt, all their IPs become public domain, like you mention. Perhaps with such equality, owners of corporations would no longer wish them to be considered people.

              I imagine a C-suite that caused either of these outcomes wouldn’t be popular with the investment class since it would cost them meaningful amounts of money. A ban might not even be nessicary.

        • hansl@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          “Who is this Twitter you speak of? My name is X. I don’t know any Twitter.“ - Musk with a fake moustache and glasses.

        • demlet@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Ha, corporations are legally people but can’t be punished as people. I can’t see any way that could be abused.

      • mushroom@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Bro, Elon gutted Twitter. I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t have the right people to get this information. I wonder if it sat in a mailbox for a day before they even had someone look at it.

        Twitter isn’t a well run company anymore. This could be pure incompetence.

    • Radicalized@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      Elon is bleeding millions a day at this point - he won’t even know that this 350k ever existed or what it was for.

      • ickis@midwest.social
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        1 year ago

        100% this. This fine should be increased hundred fold at the very least. In the real world someone would be held in contempt of court and jailed. Laws for the common man and piddly fines for the wealthy parasites of the world.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    At first, Twitter resisted producing Trump’s data and argued that the government’s nondisclosure order violated the First Amendment and the Stored Communications Act.

    However, US circuit judge Florence Pan wrote that the court was largely unpersuaded by Twitter’s arguments, mostly because the government’s interest in Trump’s data as part of its ongoing January 6 investigation was “unquestionably compelling.”

    The government then took the extra step to apply for a nondisclosure order, which was granted because “the district court found that there were ‘reasonable grounds to believe’ that disclosing the warrant to former President Trump ‘would seriously jeopardize the ongoing investigation’ by giving him ‘an opportunity to destroy evidence, change patterns of behavior, [or] notify confederates.’”

    The court checked with Twitter and confirmed that it was capable of meeting a rapid deadline and turning over the data by 5:00 pm that evening.

    The court rejected Twitter’s “good faith” arguments, mainly because the company blew past the original deadline and repeatedly failed to raise concerns at earlier opportunities.

    While Twitter appealed the decision, the company “paid the $350,000 sanction into an escrow account maintained by the district court clerk’s office.”


    I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • thefartographer@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Meanwhile, Twitter was late in its attempts to oppose the sanctions formula. The court opinion said that Twitter’s counsel “belatedly” pointed out that “roughly one month of noncompliance” would have “required Twitter to pay a sanction greater than ‘the entire world’s gross domestic product.’”

    PalpatineDewIt.jpg

    • chaogomu@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      The fine was $50K per day, and by the time they complied it had gotten to $350K. They then went to court to fight the fine, and have not definitively lost.

      • Ilovemyirishtemper@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Just for clarification purposes, its 50k per day, doubling every day of noncompliance. So day 1 is 50k, day 2 is an additional 100k, and day 3 is an additional 200k. 3 days = 350k. I agree that it’s not enough, but if they dug their heels in, it would grow really high, really fast, so it was a pretty effective fine.

        • Pipoca@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          In particular, by day 5 it’s over a million dollars per day, and by day 15 it’s over a billion dollars per day.

          If they sat on it for a month, it’d be a ~50 trillion fine that day.

          There’s a reason it only took them 3 days to comply.

  • CileTheSane@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    The government immediately tried to serve Twitter with the search warrant—which required Trump’s data to be shared within 10 days—but the website where Twitter gathers legal requests was “inoperative.”

    Did they auto-reply to the request with a poop emoji?

  • Captain Howdy@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    But with Musk’s wealth compared to the average white collar workers wealth, isn’t that like 35 bucks?

    • MooseBoys@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The average net worth in the US is $121k. Elon Musk’s net worth is $231B, or about 1.9M times the average. A $350K fine for Musk would equate to about 18 cents for the average American.

    • Jessvj93@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      People on Twitter are saying they noticed his likes are gone. People have screenshots of everything he did on that site so wonder if Elon is gonna get in a fuckton of trouble.

      • AlternatePersonMan@lemmy.world
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        Billionaires never seem to get in trouble, so I won’t hold my breath.

        There’s a bunch of information that’s essentially public, which can be pieced back together. My concerned would be the potentially damning private messages and drafts that cannot be recovered.

    • elscallr@lemmy.world
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      It was 3 days. They were probably waiting for someone to get around to collating it. You act like that should be easy.

      • samus12345@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The warrant was first served in January. They could have gotten it done in time but dragged their feet until the last second.

      • snooggums@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        A company that specializes in sorting data should have an easy time with a request like this.

        • elscallr@lemmy.world
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          Yeah that tells me you don’t know shit about what you’re talking about. “A company that specializes in sorting data” is the most nonsense “I want to look like I know what I’m talking about” bullshit ever lol

      • deejay4am@lemmy.world
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        It takes less than 30 minutes to write that sql query, no shot someone needs to spend 3 days “collating”.

  • WarmSoda@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    I feel like it should be noted that Twitter didn’t have any objections at all to handing over all of Trump’s data. Thier only issue was with not telling him about it.

    • legion@lemmy.world
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      Thier only issue was with not telling him about it.

      That was a legal tactic. It doesn’t mean that was their actual concern. It means it was the best counterargument they could come up with.

    • hoodatninja@kbin.social
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      If you read the article that was one of several things they threw out there to excuse their consistently delaying/not complying. The courts told them repeatedly that their opinions on the matter were wrong and they kept delaying over and over again.

      I mean come on:

      “Twitter contends that it ‘substantially complied with the [w]arrant’ because ‘there was nothing [it] could have done to comply faster’ after the court issued the February 7 order,” the court document said.
      The court rejected Twitter’s “good faith” arguments, mainly because the company blew past the original deadline and repeatedly failed to raise concerns at earlier opportunities.

      Twitter continued challenging the nondisclosure order and the sanctions, but the court rejected most of its arguments and ultimately affirmed the contempt sanctions, issuing its opinion on July 18.

      This nonsense went on for months.

  • LemmyLefty@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    …per day, or is this another “shucks Mr. Billionaire, I guess I gotta fine you something” punishment?

    • chaogomu@kbin.social
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      It was $50K per day. Then they complied, but still owed $350K. Then Twitter appealed the fine, and have now spent more money fighting the fine, than just paying it, and still have to pay it because they lost on appeal.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        No, it was $50k doubling every day. So day 2 it was $100k and day 3 it was $200k bringing it up to $350k. In a month, it would have been trillions.

    • CileTheSane@kbin.social
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      The judge laid out a formula for “sanctions that would accrue at a geometric rate: $50,000 per day, to double every day that Twitter did not comply.” At that time, Twitter did not object to the sanctions formula