Deceit Twitter

[Baba Flores]

Ive spent a lot of time on BMY's CVR (BMY-R or BMYRT) over the past few years. On top of endlessly disclosing that CVRs are insanely risky and nothing on this blog or anything else I do is ever investing advice (a disclosure I will reiterate here, as well as noting nothing on here is legal advice!), I've written the CVR up, I've done not one but two podcasts on it, and I've spent countless hours thinking about it / talking on the phone about it and parsing through every tiny change in management commentary or body language or whatever to look for clues on CVR approval.

The time spent on the CVR has been an interesting endeavor. At times, it's been fun, and I've certainly met a lot of new people through it. But, with the end game upon us, it's largely been a stressful and fruitless endeavor; Liso-cel must be approved by December 31 in order for the CVR to payout, and the clock is running out.

What I did want to highlight was something curious that happened with the CVR yesterday. A twitter account (Breyanzi_USHCP) popped up as "the official U.S. account for Breyanzi" (liso-cel's marketing name). I've included a screenshot of the account below (as I'll discuss, the account has since been deleted, so a screen shot is necessary!).

Now, you could spin the account getting deleted a couple of ways. You could say that someone at BMY jumped the gun and created the account a day or three early, and then deleted it when people noticed it. Or you could say that people noticed the account and started asking BMY about it, BMY said the account wasn't theirs, and whoever created the account deleted it as people started looking at it a little further. There are all sorts of different explanations that branch off of that (i.e. if Bristol said the account wasn't theirs, were they being honest or were they trying to cover up a mistake)?

I tend to believe the second story (BMY didn't create the account, denied the account when asked about it, and whoever created it deleted the account when questions strated pouring in), but I'm not taking a strong view. I'm sure the real story will come out in time.

Did they do anything wrong? Ethically I'd say yeah, absolutely. But legally? I have no idea. All they did was create a twitter account. They didn't promote it in anyway or give anyone any investing advice.

Again, I don't know. It feels wrong to me. But if they just created the page and never told anyone, and then other people discovered it, are they really on the hook? They didn't recommend anything or even point people to that page; people simply discovered the page on their own and made their own conclusions.

I have no idea. I'm really interested. I don't want to live in a world where people just start creating random twitter accounts and webpages hoping sleuths find them and send share prices screaming higher for a quick pop, but I also am not sure I want to live in a world where you could open a twitter account or webpage and get a fine / criminal prosecution for doing so without promoting it in anyway (even if you were trading around it). And who has the standing to sue here: is it the people who traded around finding the fake twitter account? Or is the company themselves? Both?

Would the legality answer change if Trader X had bought shares, made the twitter account, called up a friend and said, "hey, take a look at this page, what do you think?", and then sold everything once their friend drew their own conclusions and started telling people to look at that page. It certainly gets more unethical at that point, and I would think Trader X just destroyed a friendship, but again.... not sure!

I know it's no where close to the same given the possibility that someone was trading shares around this, but for some reason the "Dumb Starbucks" prank and how it was protected by parody law keeps running through my head when thinking about this. If it turns out bored Elon has been trading Tesla stock in their spare time, I don't particularly care, but I'm sure someone at some point made a trade on Tesla mistaking bored Elon for the real one. How far is the line between the current CVR situation and that? Heck, how far is the line from the BMY situation and people trading on actual Elon's Twitter?

What I did want to highlight was something curious that happened with the CVR yesterday. A twitter account (Breyanzi_USHCP) popped up as \\\"the official U.S. account for Breyanzi\\\" (liso-cel's marketing name). I've included a screenshot of the account below (as I'll discuss, the account has since been deleted, so a screen shot is necessary!).

Would the legality answer change if Trader X had bought shares, made the twitter account, called up a friend and said, \\\"hey, take a look at this page, what do you think?\\\", and then sold everything once their friend drew their own conclusions and started telling people to look at that page. It certainly gets more unethical at that point, and I would think Trader X just destroyed a friendship, but again.... not sure!

I know it's no where close to the same given the possibility that someone was trading shares around this, but for some reason the \\\"Dumb Starbucks\\\" prank and how it was protected by parody law keeps running through my head when thinking about this. If it turns out bored Elon has been trading Tesla stock in their spare time, I don't particularly care, but I'm sure someone at some point made a trade on Tesla mistaking bored Elon for the real one. How far is the line between the current CVR situation and that? Heck, how far is the line from the BMY situation and people trading on actual Elon's Twitter?

I had to do some troll-blocking this week and a few trolls are upset and feel singled out. In order to spare future hurt feelings I'd like to offer some guidelines that will hopefully help avert more heartbreak.

Even though this software apparently no longer works, the principles still apply. Therefore, this means that if you are an anonymous reactionary troll and you don't want me to block you, you will want to avoid clicking "like" on grandstanding tweets which serve no purpose other than to put me down or announce my inferiority.

4) Sometimes I spare a few people from a culling. Typically these are handles of people who use their real identities, those who have showed potential in the past, or for whom I have a soft spot for some reason. But if you associate yourself with an especially cruel or offensive tweet, do not count on remaining unblocked. I am a benevolent micro-influencer, but I am not a doormat.

6) A general suggestion for those interested in engaging in troll-like behavior: consider coordinating and timing your trolling rates. During your next strategy meeting (assuming you have them), discuss imposing a limit of 2-3 responses per troll per post. I think a reasonable cap is a maximum of 5 trolls to a post. And please mix up the talking points! Repetition creates annoyance, and if you annoy me, you are more likely to find yourself blocked.

8) This one is a challenge and is hotly contested in discussions about trolling best practices. But try to keep name-calling, personal insults, and/or saying cruel things about my loved ones to a minimum. Some prominent trolls think this idea defeats the purpose of trolling, and I can see why. But I assure you, if you act like a human being interacting with another human being, you will likely have more staying power as one of my trolls than if you repeatedly call me stupid and evil.

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