Tag: Elon Musk

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Musk considering more layoffs at Twitter

Despite multiple rounds of layoffs at Twitter, remaining employees aren’t safe from the threat of job cuts.

Bloomberg reports Twitter owner Elon Musk is considering laying off employees in the sales and partnerships teams.

The latest round of job cuts came after Musk sent out an email outlining his vision for Twitter 2.0, which forced employees to sign on to a rigorous work life or find work elsewhere. Hundreds of employees opted to leave the company. It’s unclear how many people will be impacted by Musk’s most recent consideration.

Twitter’s workforce first started to dwindle when Musk issued mass layoffs soon after buying the social media platform, dismissing nearly 50 percent of its employees. Contract staff were then cut, and  Musks’ emailed ultimatum came soon after. Musk also fired several individual employees who were critical of him. 

It’s unclear how many employees remain in the workforce, which once stood at 7,500.

Image credit: Shutterstock 

Source: Bloomberg

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Mobile Syrup

New Twitter accounts must wait 90 days before subscribing to Blue

While Twitter’s future certainly seems uncertain, Musk still has plans to relaunch the platform’s Blue subscription with paid verification on November 29th. Now, new details on the ‘About Twitter Blue‘ page (spotted by The Verge) say that new accounts will need to wait 90 days before they can sign up for the service:

“Availability: Twitter Blue is currently available on iOS only in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK, with plans to expand. Not all features available on all platforms. Newly created Twitter accounts will not be able to subscribe to Twitter Blue for 90 days. We may also impose waiting periods for new accounts in the future in our discretion without notice.” (emphasis ours)

The new delay comes after Blue opened the floodgates for impersonation on the platform by handing anyone who paid for the subscription a blue checkmark that looks identical to the old verification badge used to mark high-profile accounts as authentic. Nearly everyone could tell adding paid verification was a bad idea, and Twitter even warned Musk, but that didn’t stop him from implementing the change. Twitter suspended the Blue launch within days after rampant impersonation.

During the brief initial run of Blue, Twitter did block accounts made on or after November 9th from signing up for the service, but that didn’t do much to stop existing accounts from buying checkmarks to trick users. The new 90-day delay could help prevent people from making new accounts and buying checkmarks to scam users, but as The Verge notes, there’s nothing stopping scammers from stockpiling free accounts for a few months and then buying checkmarks for them later.

Twitter also has plans for other mitigation efforts, but I don’t see any of them being effective. For example, Musk previously said that Twitter users who change their verified username will temporarily lose their checkmark until Twitter confirms the new name doesn’t violate the terms of service. However, with Twitter’s staff cuts, contract worker purge and mass resignations, it’s not clear who will check changed usernames. Moreover, it still isn’t clear if Twitter will check usernames when people sign up for Blue.

Ultimately, Musk seems committed to the idea of paid blue checkmarks regardless of the potential harm to both Twitter and its user base. As I’ve said before, the issue is less about paying for a blue checkmark and more about what the checkmark means. If there was still a system in place to verify high-profile accounts and designate them as authentic, and if it was separate from the badge users get for paying, it’d be a different story. It’s worth noting Twitter tried to do that with a new grey ‘Official’ badge, but the implementation was clunky, and Musk killed the project before it suddenly returned amid the flood of impersonations.

You can view the ongoing Twitter coverage here.

Source: Twitter Via: The Verge

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Mobile Syrup

Musk plans to relaunch paid verification on November 29th

Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk still plans to forge ahead with paid verification on the platform, apparently learning little from the recent fiasco.

In a recent tweet, Musk announced that Twitter Blue would launch again on November 29th “to make sure that it is rock solid.”

As a quick refresher, Twitter launched then quickly un-launched a revamped version of its Blue subscription service on November 9th. Customers who signed on for the $9.99 subscription got a blue checkmark next to their name. However, that checkmark was previously used as Twitter’s verification badge to denote authentic accounts, primarily a tool intended to prevent people from impersonating high-profile accounts like those of government officials, companies, celebrities, or journalists.

Basically, everyone with a modicum of foresight knew paid verification was a bad idea, including Twitter’s own trust and safety team, which detailed potential problems and solutions in a seven-page document served up to Musk and his cohort ahead of the November 9th launch. Naturally, Musk ignored most of the suggestions and, as predicted, paid verification resulted in a flood of impersonations on the platform. Accounts sporting the new paid badge impersonated brands, government officials, and more, leading some to lose significant amounts of money. One account even parodied Ontario Premier Doug Ford. Admittedly, it was fun to watch the chaos unfold.

Musk also tweeted his apparent plan for dealing with impersonations, which is just temporarily removing the blue checkmark from accounts when they change their name. Accounts will get the checkmark back once Twitter confirms the new name meets the company’s terms of service. It remains unclear who will be vetting all these name changes, given Musk laid off a significant chunk of Twitter’s staff, fired most of the company’s contract workers, and issued an ultimatum to those who remain to put in long hours or quit. It’s also unclear if Twitter will vet account names when they sign up for Blue.

Musk reiterated plans to remove unpaid legacy checkmarks “in a few months” as well and tweeted about ‘X’ again, calling it the “everything app.”

Aside from the Blue relaunch, Musk tweeted some other details about ongoing Twitter projects. Leaker Jane Manchun Wong tweeted evidence of Twitter working on end-to-end encrypted DMs, to which Musk replied simply, “😉.” Wong also tweeted that the source detail, which shows the app a person tweeted from, was gone in the app prototype she looked at. It’ll be sad to see tweet sources go, considering how much fun tech folks had spotting Android ads tweeted from iPhones.

You can follow along with the latest Twitter turmoil here.

Source: Elon Musk Via: The Verge

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Mobile Syrup

Twitter document warned Musk of Blue problems ahead of launch

Twitter’s revamped Blue subscription sporting paid verification badges predictably backfired last week, leading Twitter to suspend the program within days of the launch. While plenty of people pointed out the problems with paid verification before the feature launched, new reporting shows Twitter knew how it’d play out as well. However, the company’s new overlord Elon Musk wouldn’t listen.

As reported in the Platformer newsletter written by Casey Newton and Zoë Schiffer (it’s also available in full on The Verge), Twitter’s trust and safety team prepared a seven-page document detailing several potential problems with the new Twitter Blue and recommendations to help avoid some of the worst consequences. Platformer obtained the document, which was prepared days ahead of the November 9th launch of the new Twitter Blue. It predicts with “eerie accuracy” the events that followed Blue’s launch.

“Motivated scammers/bad actors could be willing to pay … to leverage increased amplification to achieve their ends where their upside exceeds the cost,” the document says in its first recommendation. The document highlights other problems, including impersonation of high-profile accounts, including “world leaders, advertisers, brand partners, election officials,” and more, and warned that removing the legacy verification badge from accounts could drive users away from Twitter for good.

Additionally, the document highlights problems with removing legacy verification, noting that there’s no automated way to do so.

“Given that we will have a large amount of legacy verified users on the platform (400K Twitter customers), and that we anticipate we’ll need to debadge a large number of legacy verified accounts if they decide not to pay for Blue, this will require high operational lift without investment,” the document says. It’s worth noting the document came before Twitter laid off about 80 percent of its contract workers.

Platformer notes that the trust and safety team did gain support for some recommendations. Notably, the team recommended using the ‘official’ badge to retain verification for high-profile accounts, a solution that Musk killed off after launch but later returned following the flood of impersonations that came with the Blue launch.

Beyond that, Platformer describes the document as a “wish list” of features that would have made Twitter safer and easier to use. Most changes were not approved.

Sources confirmed to Platformer that Musk was briefed on the document, as well as his attorney, Alex Spiro, and director of product management Esther Crawford. Platformer notes Crawford has become one of Musk’s top lieutenants in recent weeks. Moreover, she was sympathetic to concerns raised in the document but declined to implement suggestions that would delay Blue’s launch.

The Platformer newsletter also digs into internal details connected to the contractor layoffs, a major code freeze, and ongoing fallout from advertisers pulling out of Twitter — it’s well worth reading if you’re curious to learn more about Twitter.

For more details on the Twitter turmoil, read all of MobileSyrup’s coverage here.

Source: Platformer

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Mobile Syrup

Elon Musk says Elden Ring is Game of the Year, despite sucking at it

On Monday, The Game Awards 2022 nominees were revealed, and now, Elon Musk has weighed in on which title is his favourite.

In response to a tweet from artist WLOP calling for Elden Ring to win the coveted ‘Game of the Year’ award, Musk said “definitely.”

After Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan asked Musk if he’d finished Elden Ring, the Tesla CEO said “Yes, although it seemed almost impossible at times.”

Musk added in a follow-up tweet that Malenia, one of the open-world action-RPG’s most notoriously difficult late-game bosses, was “next-level intense.”

Of course, this raises a few questions. First, it’s unclear whether Musk has actually beaten the game, given that he didn’t attach any proof. Considering Musk has hilariously been fact-checked by both Twitter employees and the platform itself, who’s to say he’s not lying about this, too.

There’s also the fact that Musk has proven himself to be inept at Elden Ring. Back in May, Elon Musk shared his Elden Ring character build on Twitter, seemingly as one of his many attempts to come off as cool. Naturally, though, it backfired. People quickly pointed out how he was needlessly adding excess weight to his character, thus encumbering his movement and making an already challenging game more difficult. Given such a fundamental misunderstanding of the game’s core mechanics, it’s hard to imagine Musk getting too far in the game, let alone completing it.

In any event, Musk should have even less free time for games than he did months ago. Earlier this week, he claimed that he will sleep at Twitter headquarters “until the org is fixed.” That’s a tall order, though, given how much damage he’s already done to the platform in such a short time. Whether it’s driving hate speech to increase, laying off many people (including content moderators and those who dare to criticize him), driving advertisers en masse off the platform, completely destroying the verification process or tweeting fake news about an attempted political assassination, Musk’s early days as Twitter chief have been quite messy.

But hey, “free speech,” right?

Image credit: Bandai Namco

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Mobile Syrup

Organizations will soon be able to ‘identify’ other Twitter accounts associated with them

Soon after Twitter’s new $9.99/month Blue subscription with a Blue checkmark caused a myriad of fake imposter accounts on the platform, so much so, that the subscription has been indefinitely suspended.

Roughly two days after suspending the subscription, Elon Musk announced via a Tweet that Twitter will soon allow organizations to “identify” other Twitter accounts associated with them. This likely means that accounts like MobileSyrup’s Twitter account would be able to verify that I work for the website, which might subsequently result in my account displaying a “verified by @MobileSyrup,” or a similar tag.

While the Twitter Blue verification is indefinitely suspended until Twitter finds a way to combat impersonators, the new ‘organization identification’ feature might be a good step for the platform to push some kind of verification/identification marking for organizations and their employees.  When asked whether users would just be able to “create an organization” of their own, Musk said that Twitter will be the “final arbiter” regarding what constitutes an organization.

Organizations would also reportedly be able to “manage affiliations” with employees, giving them the ability to removed said ‘organization identification’ when an employee changes their job.

Finally, while Blue Verification is suspended, Twitter is making a second 360 on the recently released ‘Official’ badge. The badge, which was released first on November 9th and removed on the same day, is now being re-added, according to the Twitter Support page.

Source: @elonmusk

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Mobile Syrup

Musk’s SpaceX buys ads from Musk’s Twitter amid bankruptcy fears

Amid Twitter’s ongoing struggles to drum up profit as advertisers bail, SpaceX has ordered one of the social media platform’s larger advertising packages.

While a company buying advertising from another company wouldn’t typically be a big deal, it’s worth noting that Elon Musk is CEO for both SpaceX and Twitter. Moreover, Twitter has faced increasing pressure to make money after Musk’s acquisition saddled the company with significant debt. Musk previously said Twitter saw a “massive drop in revenue” and that the company faced bankruptcy, and under Musk, Twitter laid off a significant portion of its workforce to save money.

CNBC reported on the SpaceX ad buy, citing internal records viewed by the publication as well as information shared by a Twitter employee who asked not to be identified. SpaceX reportedly purchased what’s called a Twitter ‘takeover’ to promote Starlink, the company’s satellite internet service. The campaign will target Australia and Spain and was reportedly purchased last week.

According to CNBC, when a company buys a takeover, it typically costs $250,000 USD (about $332,036 CAD) per day and will put the brand at the top of the main Twitter timeline for a full day. Users reportedly will see Starlink brand messaging for the first three times they open Twitter on the day (or days) of the takeover campaign. SpaceX’s campaign is slated to run in the coming days.

Moreover, CNBC notes that SpaceX doesn’t typically purchase large advertising campaigns from Twitter.

This all makes for a relatively suspicious transaction, given Musk’s very public discussions of Twitter’s financial problems and dropping ad revenue. It also comes after Musk headed the failed rollout of a revamped Twitter Blue subscription service. Musk pushed Twitter to launch a new, more expensive version of Blue that provided paying subscribers with a blue verified checkmark, which was previously reserved for authenticating high-profile accounts. Within hours of the subscription going live, a variety of fake accounts with paid verification badges flooded Twitter with posts, some of which had significant impacts on companies — namely, a fake tweet about insulin that caused Eli Lilly to lose billions after the company’s stock took a dive.

The chaos prompted Twitter to pause the new Blue subscription within days of it going live, and Musk seems to be reconsidering the idea, saying in a tweet that Twitter would allow organizations to identify which other accounts are actually associated with them.

For the latest on the turmoil at Twitter, check out all of MobileSyrup’s coverage here.

Source: CNBC

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Mobile Syrup

Twitter’s new Blue subscription vanishes

Twitter’s revamped Blue subscription, which gives subscribers a blue checkmark and little else for $9.99/mo CAD, has mysteriously vanished just over a day after launch.

After a false start over the weekend, Twitter actually launched the revamped Blue service on Wednesday for iPhone users in select countries, including Canada. However, now when users tap the ‘Twitter Blue’ option in the Twitter app’s menu, they get an error saying it’s not available:

“Thank you for your interest! Twitter Blue will be available in your country in the future. Please check back later.”

The Verge reported that several users don’t even see the Blue option in the menu anymore, while those that do still see it can’t sign up. I checked Twitter on an iPhone, and while I still had the Blue menu option, I got the error saying it wasn’t available. There are also tons of tweets from users experiencing similar issues.

At the moment, it’s not clear why Twitter Blue is no longer available. It’s possible Twitter intentionally paused the service amid an influx of fake imposter accounts, or it could be related to the company’s decision to limit Blue sign-ups for new accounts (although that doesn’t explain why accounts that have been around for a while, like mine, don’t have access to Blue).

The Verge suggests that this could all be related to Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk firing half the company’s employees earlier this week. Several reports, including from current employees, warned that Twitter was in danger of breaking as issues, errors, and bugs pile up. The company’s remaining staff are also being pushed to the limit, with many working long hours and even sleeping in the office. Plus, Musk recently emailed employees demanding a return to in-office work amid warnings that Twitter could go bankrupt.

The Twitter Blue rollout itself was tumultuous. Aside from the false start, it launched after Twitter added a new grey ‘Official’ badge to some verified accounts. Within hours, Musk killed the grey badge, tweeting that the blue badge would be the “great leveler [sic].” Following the launch of Blue, Twitter was flooded with fake accounts using the paid blue badge to appear more legitimate, something that many predicted would happen. Musk also should have seen it coming, given how upset he was by all the accounts impersonating him, but instead, Musk seems convinced the paid blue badge will actually fix these problems.

And now the grey ‘Official’ badge is making a return, at least according to the Twitter Support page. Humorously, the two most recent Twitter Support tweets directly contradict each other, with a November 9th tweet saying the company isn’t adding an ‘Official’ label and a November 11th tweet saying it has now added a label. Neat.

Follow along with the latest Musk-induced Twitter turmoil here.

Via: The Verge

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Elon Musk says ‘bankruptcy is not out of the question’ for Twitter

The saga continues.

If you thought Elon Musk adding a grey checkmark and then killing it just as quickly, before creating an even more confusing verification system, was the most outlandish Twitter news you’d read this week, think again.

Roughly two weeks after taking over Twitter, Musk has finally addressed staff with a rather bleak message. During a recent all-hands meeting, Musk said that Twitter is currently losing so much money that “bankruptcy is not out of the question,” according to The Information and Platformer.

Twitter hasn’t turned a profit since 2009, and advertisers are rapidly pulling out of the platform following Musk’s takeover. During the meeting, Musk emphasized that Twitter Blue subscriptions are integral to the platform’s future.

“The reason we’re going hardcore on subscribers is to keep Twitter alive,” said Musk during the meeting. In other Twitter-related news, Musk recently reversed the company’s “work from anywhere” policy and said that “if you can physically make it to an office and you don’t show up, resignation accepted.”

Amid the ongoing chaos, several top executives have left Twitter, including the company’s chief information security officer, the chief compliance officer and the chief privacy officer.

For the latest on Musk’s shenanigans at Twitter, follow MobileSyrup’s coverage here.

Source: The Information, Platformer

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Elon Musk’s actions putting Twitter at risk for FTC fines, internal letter reveals

Apparently, Elon Musk “is not afraid of the FTC.”

That’s according to words allegedly spoken by Alex Spiro, who, according to an internal letter, is Twitter’s current head of legal. He’s also Musk’s close confidant.

The message, partially posted by The Verge, was shared on the company’s Slack by an attorney on the privacy team.

The message references Twitter’s settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on privacy issues, which raises concerns given Musk’s priority to monetize the platform’s users. Failing to comply will lead to billions in penalties for the company. “The FTC takes order enforcement seriously and will use every lawful means to hold recidivists responsible for further violations,” the regulatory body states in its report on the matter.

But that’s not an issue for Musk, according to Spiro’s alleged statement.

“I have heard Alex Spiro (current head of Legal) say that Elon is willing to take on a huge amount of risk in relation to this company and its users, because ‘Elon puts rockets into space, he’s not afraid of the FTC,’” the message states.

The letter states that engineers could be responsible for ensuring compliance with the FTC requirement, amounting to “personal, professional and legal risk onto engineers.”

The message comes after chief privacy officer Damien Kieran, chief information security officer Lea Kissner, and chief compliance officer Marianne Fogarty left the company.

The message is the latest issue after Musk acquired Twitter two weeks ago.

You can read more about all the drama here.

Image credit: Shutterstock

Source: The Verge