My favorite part is when the government suggests to Twitter that they should Ctl-F to find 'associated accounts'
> To the extent that Twitter does not, it should be a simple process. You have cookies associated with an account; you have the email for the subscriber information; perhaps you have the phone number; you definitely have the IP addresses. Control F that through your system to see what other accounts have come from those IP addresses, are linked to that email address, are linked to the phone number, are linked to the same cookies. I don't profess to be a technological wizard, but it does not seem to be a complex issue.
Reminds me of freelancing nightmares where the client would being with: "This should only take a few hours but I need a website with a simple store front and shopping cart...". The best response I came up with to these clients was: if you know exactly how long it will take then you must know exactly the steps involved and how long each takes so you can do the work yourself and you don't need me :P
And from reading the transcript, it would seem that Twitter's objection is about analyzing the data, as opposed to simply providing it.
Bureaucracy is what slows down larger companies, but that's because incentives aren't aligned. When incentives are aligned and priority is understood, often that bureaucracy fades away to a large extent, even if for short periods.
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cadc.39...
Page 8:
> Nonetheless, the district court gave Twitter an opportunity to purge its contempt by producing the account information. When the court asked Twitter's counsel whether the company could produce the required materials by 5:00 p.m. that evening, counsel answered: "I believe we are prepared to do that. Yes, Your Honor."
I don’t think Twitter really would want the government to take physical custody of Twitter’s assets and do the search themselves, but, sure, they could have tried that response.
The court specifically asked for other accounts used by trump on the same device. This SHOULD be as simple as control-F. Twitter almost certainly stores some sort of device identifier that can accomplish this.
They definitely do, and use this as part of when they ban a user permanently - all other accounts (i.e. "backup" accounts) that have ever used the device in question get banned as well. Happened way too often in my circles.
https://help.twitter.com/en/about-personalization-across-you...
> By better understanding how different browsers and devices are related, we can use information from one browser or device to help personalize the Twitter experience on another. For example, if you commonly use Twitter for Android around the same time and from the same network where you browse sports websites with embedded Tweets on a computer, we may infer that your Android device and laptop are related and later suggest sports-related Tweets and serve sports-related advertising on your Android device.
Edit, more accurately: do not anthropomorphize lawyers.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/15/special-counsel-obt...
That conversation refers to:
> Among the data the search warrant commanded Twitter to produce: Accounts associated with @realdonaldtrump that the former president might have used in the same device.
They know that doesn't mean "anyone who @mentioned him publicly".
"Communications between Twitter and any person regarding the account including contacts with support services and records of actions taken"
That item means they have to hand over things like support tickets or emails sent to the @realDonaldTrump account or Trump's social media team.