(Live Update): Twitter [& Democracy] under Elon Reeve Musk FRS
(Live Update): Twitter [& Democracy] under Elon Reeve Musk FRS
As a Former Project Engineer, I’m very sad and feel sorry to another Engineer: Twitter under Elon Reeve Musk
Whispering myself: Maybe, just maybe, *he* doesn't want this platform to succeed and that was, in fact, the whole point. Very bold to denounce the "lords & peasants system" on Twitter and then charge people rent on their digital identities.
(*This live update since 5 days ago, changed or get updated or more longer every 20-25 minutes, more 150+ different companies, 150+ different people's (11 ex Twitter employees) keep open his/her hand, lend an ear—-please scrolling down, more horrible issues in Twitter or Elon Musk Reeve. Please refresh if readers wants to get update this page - substack, also get more vacancies, and people who really open his / her hand help you, lend an ear to you. The last 14 hours, since 8 am ET Nov 3rd really crazy, sober, sad about Twitter). You’re never too senior to not get the chop, but you’re never too busy to help someone.
I’m tired of searching for my friend Kang Hyo-ung. He never asks me first when he helps me. So I searched for him after Itaewon, and set a tireless live update on the news after the tragedy.
But, as (former) Project Engineer, learn from zero about computer (*note: my father may be one of the first 1,000 Microsoft Windows users in Southeast Asia + Australia & NZ, unlucky: he died too young and I never had to learn computers with him), I feel very sad, empathy towards the current feeling amid Twitter Engineers.
fake AOC 1,4 million views; original AOC 15,7 million views
(I cant sleep. She’s autism, Inclusion Team in Twitter, get fired)
(joe@suki.ai)
"When billionaires justify their motives by using freedom, what they actually seek is freedom from accountability. We are swimming in a sea of content, but it’s being rejected by a segment of the population because it just doesn’t fit into their reality. In a post-truth world, everything, including fact, becomes subject to opinion."
Candidates who push the Big Lie on social media are seeing their posts do much better than average. And tech platforms aren't labeling them as misinformation. Kari Lake, Mark Finchem and Sarah Palin are among a number of candidates campaigning for next week’s election by denying the results of the last one.
Content like big lies, or anti-semitic conspiracism appeals to a certain kind of person who views any opposition to their perspective (no matter how deranged) as a validation of that perspective, which makes them hard to reach because if you're disagreeing, they're obviously onto something. They're doing it for the clout. Using social media to spread election denialism is about sowing doubt in democratic processes and normalizing contestation. One reason I think Elon Reeve Musk's leadership of Twitter will be bad for global democracy is that he keeps personally responding to election deniers when they complain that twitter is limiting their anti-democratic actions. One example, Jenna Ellis did not just spread false election fraud claims; she tried to persuade state politicians not to certify election results and drafted a memo urging Mike Pence to overturn the election. She now works for an election denier. Why is Elon Musk treating her like a credible source?
Another example, Mark Finchem is a straight-up election denier. As Secretary of State, he will be able to do what he could not do as a state legislator: create the basis to refuse to certify a free and fair election. Elon Reeves Musk has made his views crystal clear. He believes that twitter should be even-handed between people who lie and tell the truth, between people who support and oppose American democracy. And he is personally at the beck and call of the latter group. If you have been reserving judgment on what Elon Reeve Musk FRS would be like leading twitter, opening Halloween weekend has been a small horror story.
Elon Reeve Musk FRS treats the world conveyed through Twitter as a consumer experience, where you can opt into whichever version you like. But some things are true and some things are not, and amplifying the lies really does damage democracy. The problem: the current model in social media is what makes the divisive tweets go viral. If the lies aren’t amplified then they’re not as harmful.
2 Days ago, Twitter has frozen most Trust & Safety employees' access to internal tools used for content moderation and other policy enforcement, curbing the staff’s ability to clamp down on misinformation ahead of a major US election. A wide swath of Twitter's trust & safety team had access to content moderation/enforcement tools frozen last week. Usually, hundreds of people on the team could remove posts w/misinfo, hate speech etc. Typically hundreds of people have access to the company's tools to alter or penalize accounts that break rules around misleading information, offensive posts and hate speech and last week that was reduced to around (only) 15 people.
This scaled-back access has worried some on Twitter's Trust & Safety team, who believe they could be short-handed for the US midterm elections coming up in a week. Others are worried about data access given to researchers, and abt foreign influence operation. 2 Weeks ago, Justice Garland announced that the Chinese government will try to meddle and sabotage the US Midterm Election.
Employees also tell us Elon Reeve Musk FRS has questioned some internal policies on the Twitter Rules, including its general misinfo policy covering Covid-19 and elections, and Twitter's hateful misconduct policy against deadnaming transgender individuals. People who were on call to enforce Twitter’s policies during Brazil’s election did get access to the internal tools on Sunday, but in a limited capacity, according to our sources.
No one had access during the surge in hate speech on the platform Friday and Saturday last week. November 2nd, Washington Post reported that Twitter disrupted three separate China-based operations that were seeking to influence U.S. politics ahead of the 2022 midterms.
(Also) November 2nd, more than 40 organizations signed a letter to Twitter's major advertisers urging them to commit to pulling ads if Musk follows through with promises to roll back community safeguards and scale back content moderation, tightening again the Trust & Safety (T&S) side of Twitter. Some signers: Free Press, NAACP, PFLAG, Union of Concerned Scientists, Public Citizen, Accountable Tech, Color of Change, United We Dream, NCTE, National Hispanic Media Coalition, GLAAD, Doctors in Politics, AAJC, UltraViolet, Media Matters, etc. You will see an additional cross section of institutions signing onto the letter to advertisers. As major advertisers make this commitment, it constraints and limits just how many wild and destructive things that Musk can do to Twitter. Organizing and advocacy is a challenging and draining endeavor. But, when the moment and the ask and the players align, that participation sure can and does matter. Even if you don't care about Twitter. If it becomes a bigger and hotter cauldron of radicalization, it will affect everyone.
L'Oréal had pulled ad spending on Twitter. I've spoken with various brand managers over the past few days and the consensus is that they're quite quitting. They are no longer buying ads or posting on Twitter as the current climate is so chaotic. IPG has reportedly told clients to temporarily pause advertising on Twitter.
Since IPG isn't well known, they're huge. Clients reportedly include: Coca-Cola, Nintendo, Amex, Spotify, etc. Dentsu, Omnicom, IPG, and GroupM haven’t met with or heard of any meetings with Twitter after Elon Reeves Musk became owner. Those are the biggest advertising agencies in the world. More detail, IPG's MAGNA agency sent an email October 31st that said Twitter "has been silent in any direct comms with marketers and agencies. The current situation is unpredictable and chaotic, and bad actors and unsafe behaviors thrive in such an environment"
Twitter staff have been told to work 84-hour weeks and managers slept at the office over the weekend as they scramble to meet Elon Musk's tight deadlines (November 7th). I really can’t emphasize enough how important it is to unionize your workplace so that your work conditions are not at the whim of your bosses, whether you work in an office, a kitchen, a store, a field, or a factory floor. Silence from new leaders has bewildered Twitter workers, who are turning to private chats, anonymous apps and Elon Musk’s tweets for basic information.
The big difference with Spotify, Bloomberg (especially The Terminal), paywall in other media like NYT or Washington Post, Apple Music, LinkedIn Premium, Amazon Prime, Paramount+, Netflix, Hulu, etc, that at Twitter, users are the product. All of those others you pay to get a specific product such as movies, music or jobs. Familiar adage in economics: "If it's free, you are the product." It's all about farming data and selling it.
Besides cutting half the workforce Friday and end the “work from anywhere” policy (*initiated by Jack Dorsey, Twitter founder), Musk plans to start charging for verification on Monday (November 7th). The verified account automatically follows every account with a blue checkmark.
Twitter’s new owner and CEO (and Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator, as a his bio in Twitter), Elon Reeves Musk FRS, appeared to confirm reports that the platform is considering charging people $20 to maintain the coveted blue check mark of verification on their account in an exchange with the horror author Stephen King (On November 1st) and also Congresswomen Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and Senior Journo from CNN Frida Ghitis on November 3rd. King and AOC of course Democrat. CNN, Frida’s employer, refuses to pay for employees' Twitter badge, stating per BI that it is “highly unlikely that CNN would cover verification costs on behalf of all employees.” Turkiye President Erdogan says he could discuss charges for Twitter Blue Check with Elon Reeve Musk.
You know your grand idea is going great when you find yourself haggling with iconic authors, senior CNN journo, and Congresswomen over $8 in order to stick around. I’m IR but was work to be Project Engineer, of course (also) I’m not business studies graduate, but I think I might have sorted this kind of thing out *before* I spent the US$ 44 billion. That means there are about 423,000 accounts that will soon lose their check if they don’t convert to the upcoming subscription.
If every single verified account paid US$20/month, that would be roughly ~$100m in new annual sales. If you already have a blue checkmark verified, Twitter is currently planning to remove it from your profile after 90 days if you don’t subscribe to the more expensive Blue subscription after it launches. Something I do not know about this plan: How or if Twitter plans to stop people from paying to impersonate others. Matching profile names to credit cards? Elon Reeves Musk's plan to charge US$240 does not make much business sense - it won't raise a lot of money, and will alienate content creators - but it does make sense as a tax on credibility, making it harder to discern legitimate sources from misinformation.
I assume the number willing to pay would be much much smaller though.
Employees have been bracing for this for weeks. These numbers and this timing have changed over time. But it sounds like things are starting to solidify.
This is list of Exec now no longer in Twitter:
CEO Parag Agrawal
CFO Ned Segal
Policy boss Vijaya Gadde
GC Sean Edgett
CMO Leslie Berland
GM Product Jay Sullivan
GM Engineer Nick Caldwell
Chief Customer Officer Sarah Personette
All of them are engineers.
There are confirmed equity holders of Twitter, valuation as of closing:
$977M Jack Dorsey
$1B Qatar
$1.89B Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
The banks that lent Elon Reeve Musk money to take over Twitter are admitting that they're in for a "huge" haircut. Banks lent US$ 12.7 billion to Elon Reeve Musk to acquire Twitter.
Senator Chris Murphy since October 31st requested the Committee on Foreign Investment — which reviews acquisitions of U.S. businesses by foreign buyers — to conduct an investigation into the national security implications of Saudi Arabia's purchase of Twitter. U.S. officials are exploring whether they have legal authority to review foreign investments in Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter. The foreign investors would have access to the company’s confidential information under the terms of the deal.
Twitter ad boycott could be pretty significant. When the FB ad boycott happened Sheryl Sandberg and other senior leaders spent days making calls to soothe big advertisers. everyone who would do that at Twitter just quit or was fired. The verification discourse is so out of control. I always thought we were just frivolously mocking the privileged. But nope, you see these Self-Loathing Blue Checks Verification (like you know who, and also you know who, and also that other guy) get seriously invested in arguing about it. Big tech companies are no longer interested in media companies. However, media companies are becoming tech companies. When Elon Reeves Musk entered Twitter HQ 8 days ago, he dreamed Twitter to be “super-apps whatever can do” like WeChat. And maybe, to be a (literally) media like NYT or Washington Post: his rival, Jeff Bezos, owned The Washington Post.
Can’t imagine currently how feeling a lot Twitter staff when laugh too loud with Elon when currently Elon’ plan cut 50% entire workforce of Twitter. When in days is US midterm election, 2 years from now is my country Indonesia.