Tag: Musk x Twitter

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Musk refuses to pay Twitter executives’ backlogged travel expenses

A new report from the New York Times suggests Elon Musk is now refusing to pay “hundreds of thousands” of dollars in travel bills racked up by Twitter executives before he took over the platform.

Musk’s staff commented that the travel expenses were authorized by the former Twitter management, and not by him, and hence, the company has ghosted travel vendors, and is avoiding their calls.

The total amount of money owed to travel vendors is currently unknown.

The company has been on a cost-cutting spree since Musk’s takeover. It laid off roughly half of its workforce earlier this month, only to realize that it needs some essential workers to join back. At the time, Musk said that Twitter was losing over $4 million USD (about $5.4 million CAD) per day and that reducing the company’s workforce was the only way to go.

The employees that remained were asked to show technical documentation to justify the work they do at Twitter and to prove their value to the company.

Subsequently, despite prior job cuts, Bloomberg announced on Monday, November 21st, that Musk is considering laying off employees in the sales and partnerships teams.

All of this is a result of the company losing money consistently. In a recent staff meeting at Twitter, Musk said that Twitter is currently losing so much money that “bankruptcy is not out of the question.” Big time advertisers are also leaving Twitter, calling the platform “high risk.” It’s evident that the platform can’t sustain itself, and Musk’s new $9.99 Twitter Blue with verification might not prove to be enough.

The latest news on Twitter and Musk can be found here.

Image credit: Shutterstock

Source: New York Times

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Mobile Syrup

Musk talks encrypted DMs, voice and video chat in Twitter meeting

Twitter owner Elon Musk discussed plans to encrypt direct messages (DMs) and add new features like video and voice chat. Moreover, Musk may have the creator of the secure messaging platform Signal on board to help.

The Verge reported the details of a meeting between Musk and Twitter employees on Monday, which the publication obtained a recording of. In the meeting, Musk had presentation slides titled “Twitter 2.0,” which was the same term he used in an email to employees demanding they commit to long hours or quit (spoiler: a bunch quit).

“We want to enable users to be able to communicate without being concerned about their privacy, [or] without being concerned about a data breach at Twitter causing all of their DMs to hit the web, or think that maybe someone at Twitter could be spying on their DMs,” Musk said in the meeting (The Verge notes that Twitter DMs have leaked before).

Encrypted DMs are a top priority for Musk and his Twitter 2.0 vision — during the meeting, he praised Signal and said he spoke with creator Moxie Marlinspike, who was “potentially willing to help out” with encrypting Twitter DMs. Interestingly, Marlinspike previously worked at Twitter and wanted to do encrypted DMs years ago but was denied. He left the company and created Signal.

It’s not clear what Marlinspike’s “help” would look like. If I had to guess, I could see Twitter adopting the Signal Protocol for encrypted DMs, similar to Meta’s WhatsApp, rather than Twitter going its own route. Whatever happens with encrypted DMs will ultimately come down to the current whims of Musk.

To follow along with Musk’s Twitter turmoil, check out all our coverage here.

Source: The Verge

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Mobile Syrup

Musk is ‘holding off’ relaunching Twitter Blue until he is confident about stopping impersonation

After the blunder of a lunch that was Twitter Blue with Verification, and its prompt end, Elon Musk decided to relaunch the subscription service on November 29th. 

Now, according to a recent Tweet, it appears as though it’ll be a little longer before Twitter users would be able to get their hands on the subscription service.

“Holding off relaunch of Bue Verified until there is high confidence of stopping impersonation,” he wrote. “Will probably use different color check for organizations than individuals.”

Additionally, we already know that once relaunched, only accounts older than 90 days would be able to purchase the subscription. “Newly created Twitter accounts will not be able to subscribe to Twitter Blue for 90 days,” reads the ‘About Twitter Blue’ page. 

Other than that, it is currently unknown what other measures Musk and team are taking to combat imposters.

The initial rollout of Twitter Blue with Verification was haphazard, and laden with a myriad of fake imposter accounts, so much so that a fake, yet verified Eli Lilly Twitter account’s Tweet that read “We are excited to announce insulin is free now,” causing the company’s market cap to shrink by billions.

Subsequently, this caused a horde of key advertisers to mark the platform as “high risk,” and leave the platform, including IPG, Omnicom and even GroupM. Even Cosette, a media and marketing agency based in Quebec City that manages ads for the federal government, has asked government agencies to pause activity on Twitter.

Elsewhere, even after multiple rounds of layoffs at Twitter, Musk intends to cut down the platform’s sales and partnerships teams.

The latest news on Twitter and Musk can be found here.

Source: @elonmusk

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Musk is ready to hire new Twitter employees after laying off thousands

Elon Musk is ready to hire employees for Twitter after weeks of layoffs that dramatically reduced its workforce.

Musk shared the news with employees in an all-hands meeting on Monday, The Verge reports. Twitter is reportedly focusing recruitment efforts on engineering and sales employees.

“In terms of critical hired, I would say people who are great at writing software are the highest priority,” Musk said.

One of those new “hires” is George Hotz, an iPhone hacker who has accepted a 12-week “internship” at Twitter to fix the platform’s search feature and remove a prompt that blocks web browsing without logging in.

At the meeting, Musk also told employees there are no plans to move Twitter’s headquarters from San Franciso to Texas, The Verge reports. However, being “dual-headquartered” in California and Texas could be possible.

“If we want to move the headquarters to Texas, I think it would play into the idea that Twitter has gone from being left-wing to right-wing, which is not the case,” Musk said. “This is not a right-wing takeover of Twitter. It is a moderate-wing takeover of Twitter.”

Musk went on to talk about Twitter having “people with a wide array of views,” an ironic statement, given he fired employees for being critical of his words. 

Musk held the meeting on the same day cuts were made in the sales department. The Verge reports that only 2,700 people remain at the company that once stood 7,400 strong.

All of MobileSyrup’s Elon Musk x Twitter coverage can be found here.

Image credit: Shutterstock 

Source: The Verge

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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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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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Twitter employees quit in droves following Elon Musk’s demand for ‘hardcore’ policy

Twitter’s days could be numbered.

Following an ultimatum from new Twitter CEO Elon Musk demanding remaining staff adopt a “hardcore” policy of “long hours at high intensity” or leave the company with three months of severance, hundreds of employees have reportedly opted to depart their roles at the social media giant.

In an email sent to Twitter employees on Wednesday, Musk said that “going forward, to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore.” The awful Elden Ring player asked employees to click “yes” by 5pm ET/2pm PT if they wanted to continue working for the beleaguered social media giant. Those who didn’t respond would be considered to have quit and no longer working for “Twitter 2.0.”

The New York Times reports that hundreds of employees opted to leave Twitter rather than continue to work under Musk’s new regime. According to The Verge, employees posted farewell messages and salute emojis in Twitter’s internal Slack, stating that they did not respond to Musk’s request.

However, Musk appears to have walked back some of his earlier comments regarding a blanket ban on working from home, according to an internal memo, though he emphasized managers will still be fired if remote team members underperform.

Further, Twitter closed all of its office buildings and suspended badge access, with the social media giant’s offices set to reopen on November 21st. Platformer‘s Zoe Schiffer says that Musk and his leadership remain unsure of what employees clicked “yes” on the Google form in his email.

Musk laid off roughly half of Twitter’s 7,500 employees earlier this month. It’s believed that following these latest departures from the social media platform could make it unable to continue to run adequately — but don’t worry because, according to Musk, “the best people are staying,” and he’s “not super worried.”

Earlier this week, Musk fired several employees who criticized him in tweets and internal messages.

All of MobileSyrup‘s Elon Musk x Twitter coverage can be found here.

Source: The Verge, Engadget, The New York Times, @ZoeSchiffer

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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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Musk to fire employees unwilling to sign contract to work ‘long hours at high intensity’

Two weeks after Elon Musk issued mass layoffs at Twitter, it seems like the company’s workforce will continue to shrink as Musk looks to build “Twitter 2.0.”

In a midnight email, Musk told employees to indicate their willingness to “work long hours at high intensity.” Employees who don’t sign on by 5pm on Thursday will be fired and receive three months’ severance.

“Going forward, to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore,” the email, published by The Verge, states.

“This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.”

The email comes after the chaotic launch and un-launch of Twitter Blue. The $10/month subscription gave people access to the blue verified checkmark, which quickly created an avenue for impersonated accounts. One of these accounts impersonated Ontario Premier Doug Ford. 

However, this is something Twitter’s trust and safety team warned Musk about, to no success. 

What Twitter 2.0 entirely consistents of isn’t clear at this point, but if Musk’s past actions are any indication, expect a chaotic experience.

More news on Musk x Twitter is available here.

Image credit: Shutterstock 

Via: The Verge 

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Advertisers are marking Twitter as a ‘high risk’ platform to spend money on

Several advertisers, including industry giants like IPG and Omnicom have already recommended their clients to pause advertising activity on Twitter, and now, the world’s biggest ad company, and Twitter’s biggest spender, GroupM, part of WPP, is following suit.

As first reported by Digiday, the advertiser, which manages ads for clients like Google, L’Oréal, Bayer, Nestle, Unilever, Coke, and Mars, is telling clients that buying ads on Twitter is “high risk,” following several controversies at the platform.

“Based on the news yesterday [Nov. 10th] of additional senior management resignations from key posts, high profile examples of blue check abuse on corporate accounts, and the potential inability for Twitter to comply with their federal consent decree, GroupM’s Twitter Risk Assessment is increased to a High-Risk rating for all tactics,” wrote the company in a document shared with clients, seen by Digiday.

GroupM also says that it hasn’t completely ticked Twitter off its list. The social media platform can get back into GroupM’s good books if it can:

  • Return to baseline NSFW levels
  • Re-populate IT security, privacy, trust & safety senior staff
  • Establish internal checks & balances
  • Offers full transparency on future development plans of community guidelines/content moderation/ anything affecting user security or brand safety
  • Demonstrates commitment to effective content moderation, and enforces current Twitter Rules, e.g., account impersonation, violative content removal timing, intolerance of hate speech & misinformation, etc.

It’s obvious that advertisers don’t want big brand clients to appear on Twitter. Large-scale layoffs at the company have increased concerns about the platform’s ability to moderate content and achieve brand safety. Hate speech on the platform, including racist and derogatory slurs, soared in the initial days of the Musk acquisition, while a myriad of fake imposter accounts on the platform has caused Twitter to indefinitely suspended the Twitter Blue subscription.

Elsewhere, Cosette, a media and marketing agency that works with the federal government to plan and buy ads, has advised federal departments to “pause activity on Twitter.”

Source: Digiday Via: The Verge