Tag: Musk x Twitter

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Former Twitter employees sitting on abandoned company laptops: report

Several former Twitter employees are sitting on valuable hardware, like company laptops, that Twitter has seemingly abandoned.

As detailed by Wired, while Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk scrambles to make the company profitable to pay back some $13 billion USD (roughly $17.35 billion CAD) owed to lenders for financing his takeover, some more obvious ways to make a quick buck appear abandoned. Namely, after Musk rapidly laid off significant chunks of Twitter staff, the company has put little effort into collecting company hardware.

One software engineer fired in November told Wired that he hadn’t heard anything about returning a company-issued Apple MacBook Pro with an M1 Pro chip. The laptop was sitting in the engineer’s closet, digitally locked by Twitter after the engineer was fired. Wired notes that refurbished versions of the laptop can fetch around $1,000 (about $1,334.49 CAD). While the M1 Pro variant is no longer listed on Apple’s website, the base-level MacBook Pro with M2 Pro chip retails for $2,599 in Canada.

While some of the ex-Twitter employees are content to let their useless hardware sit in a closet, others are worried it could cause problems down the line. For example, some former employees who spoke with Wired were still owed severance and were worried having the laptops could lead to delays in their compensation or even legal problems. In chat groups of former employees, some discussed trying to crack their laptop’s lock code or wiping and resetting the device.

Meanwhile, some former employees were able to send their devices back, while others got generic emails from the company asking them to fill out a ‘Twitter Device Collection Survey.’ Wired says most of the employees it spoke with hadn’t received the email.

Wired obtained a copy of the survey, which mentions authentication tokens, corporate credit cards, company-issued smartphones and laptop chargers as items that can be returned. The form also noted that monitors, keyboards, mice, display cables and stands don’t need to be collected. It doesn’t clarify what former employees should do with laptops.

The survey also asks for an address to send a shipping box for ex-Twitter people to load up with returnable equipment, noting the box would arrive within 30 days of filling it out. There’s an option for dropping equipment off at some of Twitter’s offices.

However, Wired says that, generally, ex-employees aren’t rushing to return the equipment, with one telling the publication that “Elon can wait.”

Image credit: Shutterstock

Source: Wired

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Mobile Syrup

Musk to resign once he finds someone ‘foolish enough’ to be Twitter CEO

Surprising absolutely no one, Elon Musk said he would still be in charge of parts of Twitter after finding someone “foolish enough” to take the job.

Over the weekend, Musk ran a Twitter poll asking if he should step down as head of Twitter after he oversaw a series of suspensions targeting journalists and rival social media platforms. He lost, with nearly 58 percent of the 17.5 million votes favouring Musk stepping down. Further, in an absolute sore loser move, Musk said he’d change the rules on Twitter to restrict voting in polls so only Twitter Blue subscribers can do so.

Following the poll, there was some debate over whether Musk would actually step down from the CEO role. I had doubts, but reports suggested Musk had started the hunt for a new Twitter CEO long before posting the poll. Well, looks like I was at least partially right.

Musk tweeted a response to the poll on December 20th, writing that he will resign “as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job.” Musk went on to say he would “just run the software & servers teams” after handing over the CEO role.

As The Verge points out, software and servers are the vast majority of Twitter at this point, especially after Musk laid off huge swaths of the company. However you slice it, it seems clear Musk has no intention of giving up control regardless if he holds the official CEO title.

You can follow along with Musk’s chaotic reign over Twitter here.

Source: @elonmusk Via: The Verge

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Musk security team reportedly struck the car of alleged stalker

The South Pasadena Police Department is looking to question a member of Elon Musk’s security team after the team member allegedly hit the car of another person — that person was the same one Musk later claimed was a threat to his family.

According to a press release shared by the police (via The Verge), the incident occurred at around 9:51pm on the 700 block of Mission Street in Pasadena, California. The press release notes that the victim, identified only as a 29-year-old from Connecticut, was the only one at the scene when police arrived.

The Connecticut man said he exited the 110 freeway and stopped to use his phone when another car “pulled directly in front of him, blocking his path.” According to the police report, the driver of that car got out and accused the Connecticut man of following him on the freeway. Both men apparently recorded each other on their phones. The driver then got back in his vehicle and, as he was leaving, struck the Connecticut man’s vehicle. When police arrived, the driver had already left the scene.

“At no time during the incident did the victim identify the suspect or indicate the altercation was anything more than coincidental,” the report reads.

The report goes on to note that two days after the incident, Pasadena police determined the driver was a member of Musk’s security team but that Musk was not present during the confrontation. The report notes that efforts are underway to contact Musk and his security team for statements.

These details come after Musk’s December 14th Twitter posts, which alleged that a stalker followed a car carrying his son, thinking Musk was in the vehicle. Musk tweeted that the alleged stalker blocked the vehicle from moving and climbed on the hood, but there is no mention of that in the police report. Musk also tweeted a video of a masked man sitting inside a car and asked if anyone recognized the person or the car.

Musk used the incident to justify banning several Twitter accounts

Those tweets kicked off a chaotic few days that saw Twitter ban Jack Sweeney and his @ElonJet account, which shared details about the flights of Musk’s private jet using publicly available information. Musk blamed the alleged stalker incident on Sweeney and Twitter introduced hasty new policies prohibiting the sharing of real-time location information. Moreover, Twitter started banning journalists covering the story and introduced another policy prohibiting accounts from linking to other platforms in a bid to tamp down on people linking to Sweeney’s accounts on other platforms. Musk eventually apologized and began rolling back the changes.

However, The Washington Post previously published a story with an interview with a person named Brandon Collado, who claimed to be in the video shared by Musk. Collado said he was driving for Uber Eats and showed the Post a video of what he claimed was a member of Musk’s security team. That video appeared to match the from shared by Musk but from the other angle. Collado made several odd claims referencing Musk’s ex-girlfriend, Canadian artist Grimes, and believed he received coded messages from Grimes through Instagram.

It will be interesting to see what other details emerge about the altercation, but so far, it seems like the @ElonJet account had little, if anything, to do with it. As noted by the Post, Musk’s jet landed in Los Angeles, California, on Monday, December 12th. Moreover, Musk was in San Francisco the previous night, where he was booed at Dave Chappelle’s comedy show. Police told the Post that there was no evidence to suggest the alleged stalker had used the jet-tracking account.

You can read the latest in the ongoing saga of Musk and Twitter here.

Source: South Pasadena Police Department Via: The Verge

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Mobile Syrup

Sore loser Musk will restrict who can vote after losing Twitter poll

After Twitter CEO Elon Musk lost a poll asking if he should step down as head of the company, he says the rules determining who can vote in Twitter polls in the future will change.

Twitter user ‘Unfiltered☢️Boss’ suggested Musk lock polls so that only Blue subscribers can vote in “policy related polls,” writing that subscribers “actually have skin in the game.” While I don’t think paying a monthly subscription fee to use a social network run (poorly) by the world’s formerly richest man counts as having “skin in the game,” Musk appears to agree with the idea of restricting voting to paying users. In response to Unfiltered☢️Boss, Musk tweeted, “Good point. Twitter will make that change.”

Of course, it’s worth keeping in mind what kicked all this off: Musk having a public tantrum and banning several journalists who had been critical of Musk, as well as rival platforms. As a quick refresher, last week Musk alleged a stalker used information from the ElonJet account run by Jack Sweeney to follow a car carrying Musk’s child. The ElonJet account used publicly available information to share details about the flights of Musk’s private jet.

However, despite the dubious (at best) link between the stalker incident and Sweeney’s account, Twitter introduced a new policy prohibiting the sharing of real-time information, banned ElonJet and Sweeney, then started banning journalists who covered the story and accounts that tweeted links to Sweeney’s ElonJet accounts on other social media platforms. That included Mastodon, the much-hyped possible Twitter replacement. Twitter also introduced a policy prohibiting linking to other social media platforms.

Following outcry, Twitter rolled back the policies, Musk apologized, and he promised there would be a vote for major policy changes in the future. Musk then started a poll asking if he should step down as head of Twitter, with 57.5 percent of the over 17.5 million votes being in favour of Musk stepping down. Although apparently, the vote may not have mattered — reports indicate Musk started hunting for a new CEO before posting the poll.

Twitter relaunched its Blue subscription on December 12th at a higher cost of $10/mo for Canadians who subscribe through the Twitter website and $15/mo for those who subscribe through the App Store on iOS. Currently, the Twitter Blue subscription doesn’t offer much beyond adding a blue checkmark to subscribed accounts and the promise of future features like reduced ads, priority in replies, and more. Further, despite positioning the new Blue subscription as verifying users with their phone number, Twitter’s about page for Blue notes that Twitter won’t review accounts to ensure they’re authentic.

You can follow along with the latest insanity from Musk’s Twitter here.

Source: @elonmusk

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Mobile Syrup

Musk asked Twitter users if he should step down – they said yes

Serial poster and Twitter CEO (although maybe not for much longer) Elon Musk ran a poll on Twitter Sunday night asking if he should step down as head of Twitter. 57.5 percent of the 17,502,391 respondents voted in favour of Musk stepping down.

In the tweet, Musk said he would “abide by the results,” but he has a history of not following through on the things he tweets (examples A, B, and C). After sharing the poll, Musk tweeted, “be careful what you wish, as you might get it,” which seems to be a potentially ominous warning related to the poll. Of course, it’s also worth noting that Twitter’s former head of trust and safety warned that polls could easily be swayed by bots.

Elon Musk's Twitter poll asking if he should step down.

This follows a turbulent week for Musk, who launched a banning spree on Twitter targetting journalists and alternate social media platforms, notably Mastodon, an oft-cited potential alternative to Twitter. It started with Musk banning Jack Sweeney and Sweeney’s ElonJet Twitter account that shared details about the flights of Musk’s private jet using publicly available information. Musk previously used Sweeney as an example of his “commitment to free speech,” saying he wouldn’t ban the ElonJet account despite it being a “direct personal safety risk.”

On December 14th, Musk alleged that a stalker used information from the ElonJet account to follow a car carrying his child (although so far, there doesn’t appear to be a link between ElonJet and the stalker incident). That led to a hastily-introduced Twitter policy banning the sharing of people’s real-time location, which was used to ban Sweeney, ElonJet, and several journalists covering the story. Around the same time, Twitter banned Mastodon’s Twitter account and started placing warnings on links to Mastodon.

Over the weekend, Twitter rolled out another new policy banning users from linking to their accounts on other social networks, including Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, and others. However, that policy didn’t last long and was removed after Musk apologized and promised major policy changes would be put to a vote first (although, as mentioned above, Musk tends to not follow through on things he tweets).

It remains to be seen what, if anything, comes from Musk’s latest Twitter poll. If he follows through, there’s a chance we could see Twitter’s current trajectory improve. But I won’t hold my breath.

You can follow the ongoing sage of Musk and Twitter here.

Source: @elonmusk

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Elon Musk shows off free speech commitment by banning journalists

Under self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” and CEO Elon Musk, Twitter has banned the accounts of several people, including journalists that were critical of Musk, completely shut down the popular Spaces feature after Musk was confronted by journalists in a Space, and also suspended the account of rival social media network Mastodon. Moreover, Twitter now marks links to Mastodon as “potentially harmful.”

These very obviously pro-free speech moves come after Twitter suspended the ‘@ElonJet’ account run by ‘@jxckSweeney,’ whose account was also suspended. As a quick refresher, Musk has had an issue with Sweeney and the ElonJet account for a while since the account shared publicly available information about which airports Musk’s private jet flew to. Since then, Twitter has banned other accounts that track flight locations, including some that track other billionaires like Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates. Sweeney operated many of the accounts.

On December 14th, Musk claimed a stalker used information from the ElonJet account to follow a car carrying Musk’s son, X Æ A-Xii, thinking Musk was in the car, although the LA Times reported that no crime reports about the incident had been filed with the LAPD.

Shortly after, Twitter hastily introduced a new policy banning people from sharing other people’s private information, such as “real-time and/or same-day” location information (sometimes called ‘doxxing’). The policy also covers links to third-party URL(s), which is likely at least part of the reason why Twitter is blocking links to Mastodon — Twitter suspended Mastodon’s Twitter account after it shared a link to ElonJet’s Mastodon account. Moreover, several of the journalists who received suspensions shared links to ElonJet on other platforms like Mastodon.

Banned journalists join a Twitter Space, Musk kills Spaces

The Verge reports that several of the banned journalists were able to join a Twitter Space on December 15th where they discussed what was going on. Musk also joined the Space and answered some questions. During the conversation, Musk accused journalists who posted links to ElonJet on other platforms were evading the ban, which is why they also got banned.

The Washington Post’s Drew Harwell asked Musk how his decision to ban ElonJet and accounts sharing links to ElonJet differed from Twitter’s treatment of the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020, something Musk previously called “incredibly inappropriate.” As a reminder, Twitter blocked links to the New York Post’s story about the alleged Hunter Biden laptop — that event became a cornerstone of Musk’s first ‘Twitter Files’ release, which included internal Twitter documents about the moderation decision.

Musk responded to Harwell by saying, “You dox, you get suspended. End of story, that’s it.” He then left the Twitter Space. Since then, Twitter shut down the Spaces feature — Muks claimed in a tweet that Spaces was shut down to fix a “legacy bug” and that the feature should return on December 17th. Presumably that legacy bug was the ability for banned accounts to join a Space.

Of course, I’d be remiss not to point out that Musk’s new anti-doxxing stance apparently doesn’t appear to apply to him or his allies. For example, the first Twitter Files release doxed Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s email address, while Musk himself posted a video of the alleged stalker, which included the person’s licence plate, and asked if anybody recognized the person. And if you need more proof that Musk is a hypocrite, here’s his tweet from November 6th, 2022, saying he was so committed to free speech he wouldn’t ban the account following his plane (plus a screenshot below in case Musk decides to delete the tweet, as he tends to do).

Per The Verge, Musk ran a poll asking if he should unsuspend accounts that “doxxed my exact location in real-time,” but the ‘now’ option won was winning with about 43 percent support. Musk then tweeted there were “too many options” and restarted the poll with the options ‘Now’ and ‘In 7 days.’ At the time of writing, ‘Now’ was winning with 58.6 percent of the vote. Musk certainly likes to base moderation decisions on polls, such as when he broke his promise and reinstated former U.S. president Donald Trump’s Twitter account.

Screenshot of Musk’s redone poll. Via: The Verge

EU sanctions

Finally, the EU is planning to sanction Twitter over the arbitrary bans, with the EU Commission’s vice president of values and transparency, Vera Journova, tweeting that the suspension of journalists “is worrying.”

According to Mashable, tweets from some suspended journalists didn’t violate Twitter’s policy, including the publication’s own Matt Binder. Binder said his account was suspended after sharing a screenshot of a tweet from CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan about the LAPD’s statement regarding Musk’s stalker claims.

So, to sum things up: Twitter banned the ElonJet account after Musk said he wouldn’t ban it, banned journalists who tweeted about ElonJet getting banned, and banned rival social media platform Mastodon that was hosting the ElonJet account, as well as put warning labels on links to Mastodon, and now the EU Commission is looking into what’s going on and might sanction Twitter over the suspensions.

You can keep up with all things Musk and Twitter here.

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Twitter disbanded its Trust and Safety Council

In a move that’s both completely expected and also a perfect metaphor for what’s going on at Twitter, the company abruptly disbanded its Trust and Safety Council on December 11th.

The council was a volunteer group of about 100 people responsible for moderating content, including hate speed, child exploitation, suicide, self-harm, and more, according to an archived version of the Trust and Safety page shared by Gizmodo.

In an email sent to the group, Twitter wrote:

“As Twitter moves into a new phase, we are reevaluating how best to bring external insights into our product and policy development work. As part of this process, we have decided that the Trust and Safety Council is not the best structure to do this.”

Elon Musk, noted comedian and owner of Twitter, previously promised to form his own content moderation council before making major decisions like reinstating accounts. He did not do so. When the broken promise was pointed out to him, Musk blamed activists for him not following through.

Before the council was disbanded, three members resigned, warning that the “safety and wellbeing of Twitter’s users are on the decline.”

Even though the Trust and Safety Council did not have decision-making power and only advised Twitter, Musk responded to the resignation by accusing the council of “refusing to take action on child exploitation for years.” Notably, this came after Musk’s layoffs gutted the Twitter teams responsible for removing child sexual abuse material (CSAM), leaving just one person for the entire Asia Pacific region. Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey also noted that Musk’s claim was false, but Musk doubled down and claimed he made child safety a “top priority.”

Meanwhile, CNN reported that the former head of the trust and safety, Yoel Roth, had to flee his home following threats of violence resulting from Musk’s campaign of criticism against him. Other members of the Safety council said their personal safety was also “impacted by the actions of Twitter staff.” Roth has appeared repeatedly in internal documents shared as part of Musk’s ‘Twitter Files’ series. Moreover, Roth was previously critical of Musk’s use of polls, saying they were “more prone to manipulation than almost anything else [on Twitter].”

This wouldn’t be the first time Musk’s actions have resulted in harassment. Before Musk took over Twitter, he incited a wave of harassment against Twitter’s former head of policy and legal, Vijaya Gadde.

For the latest on Musk’s Twitter turmoil, check out our coverage here.

Source: Gizmodo

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Twitter relaunches Blue, won’t review accounts for authenticity

After various delays, Twitter officially relaunched its Blue subscription on Monday, December 12th. As before, Blue offers up a checkmark that appears next to the name of subscribers, although now there are different colours depending on what type of account you have.

When Twitter’s new owner and dude who got booed at a Chapelle show Elon Musk rolled out the first Twitter Blue revamp earlier this year, it cost $9.99/mo and was only available on iOS. This time around, Musk has changed up the pricing for Blue (likely after realizing Apple was taking a chunk and angrily tweeting about it). The service is now available on the web and iOS with different prices. However, at least for the MobileSyrup team, it doesn’t seem to be available on iOS in Canada.

Twitter Blue subscription in Canada

Twitter’s ‘About Blue‘ page says it will cost $8/mo on the web and $11/mo on iOS in the U.S. For me, Twitter Blue is listed at $10/mo CAD on the web, and it doesn’t appear at all in the iOS app. Checking the Android app reveals a message that Blue is only available on the web and iOS “for now.” If Blue on iOS follows the same pricing pattern as Blue on the web, it should cost around $13/mo in Canada once it becomes available.

Beyond the pricing and availability changes, Blue notes that subscribers with a verified phone number will get a checkmark “once approved.” There’s a 90-day delay on new accounts subscribing to Blue, but beyond that, there doesn’t seem to be any other measures in place to prevent abuse of the blue checkmark like what happened the first time the feature rolled out. Twitter’ Blue FAQ page even notes that “accounts that receive the blue checkmark as part of a Twitter Blue subscription will not undergo review to confirm that they meet the active, notable and authentic criteria that was used in the previous [verification] process” (emphasis ours).

Musk also reiterated plans to remove the legacy checkmarks from Twitter accounts, calling the old process to get them “corrupt and nonsensical.” While there were certainly problems with the old system, at least it took the time to establish a baseline of authenticity for verified accounts. I also find the corruption argument funny, given Musk’s plan to prioritize tweets from those who pay for Blue, effectively forcing pay-to-play rules on the whole platform.

Moreover, a Twitter support page spotted by TechCrunch details the new checkmark colours. Blue checkmarks will be for those subscribed to Blue (or legacy verified accounts until Musk gets around to removing those). The support page also notes that Twitter won’t review accounts with the Blue checkmark to make sure they’re authentic.

The new gold checkmark showing up for some people indicates that the account is “an official business account through Twitter Blue for Business.” The page also references grey labels applied to state-affiliated media and government accounts.

However, there isn’t actually a Blue for Business feature available on Twitter yet. As noted by TechCrunch, the gold checkmark is showing up on business accounts that previously had relationships with Twitter and the platform plans to open Blue for Business up to more companies in the future.

Anyway, it’ll be exciting to see how this rollout of Blue blows up in Musk’s face. The last one went over so smoothly. You can read all about the latest Twitter turmoil here.

Source: Twitter, (2) Via: TechCrunch

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Elon Musk gets booed at Dave Chappelle show, denies it on Twitter

Surprisingly, Dave Chappelle fans don’t seem to like Elon Musk very much.

You’d think that the two controversial men would have at least a bit of crossover, but when the eccentric billionaire came out on stage at Chappelle’s recent San Francisco, California comedy show, he was booed so much that he stopped talking (if only he would do the same thing on Twitter).

Musk later went back to his home court of Twitter to say “technically, it was 90% cheers & 10% boos (except during quiet periods), but, still, that’s a lot of boos.”

Videos spread across internet telling a very different story, with most people at the show being unanimously unhappy with Musk appearing on stage. Eventually, Chapelle intervened with a lame joke about Elon buying him a jetpack for Christmas.

“but, still, that’s a lot of boos.”

In the back half of his tweet, Musk mentioned that he likely offended San Francisco leftists, which is an interesting and very public coping mechanism. It’s also worth noting that the video was initially posted by Twitter user @CleoPat48937885 and that account seems to be gone now, though others have reposted the content.

Both Musk and Chapelle have come under fire for transphobic remarks, it seems like Musk’s extraordinarily messy and public takeover of Twitter has spurred at least some peoples’ hatred for the richest man on earth.

Source: @CleoPat48937885 Via: The Verge

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Elon Musk confirms Twitter character limit will increase to 4,000

Over the weekend, Twitter CEO and guy who absolutely doesn’t understand how pronouns work Elon Musk confirmed rumours that Twitter would increase the character limit from 280 to 4,000.

A Twitter user directly asked Musk if the rumour was true, and Musk simply said, “Yes.”

Naturally, Musk didn’t provide any additional information about the change or when people could expect it to come into place. It also remains unclear how a larger character limit could impact the platform. One on hand, it could be helpful in reducing the number of lengthy tweet threads by allowing users to post more detail about a topic at once.

I could also see longer tweets giving people more room to type out detailed responses, enabling more discussion and less angry replies over a few words. That said, I’m not sure if Twitter’s main audience is really interested in reading 4,000 characters of reasonable writing.

And to give you an idea how long 4,000 characters is, this article clocks in at about 1,285 characters, so imagine something about three times longer than this.

Twitter is also expected to relaunch its Blue subscription service sometime Monday with several changes, including phone number verification and possibly an option to sign up online to avoid App Store fees.

Source: Elon Musk Via: MacRumors