Tag: Twitter

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Twitter thinks users would willingly pay almost double for undo send

Over the last few days, Twitter has emailed customers of its ‘Blue‘ subscription warning of an impending price hike — in Canada, the price is nearly doubling from $3.49/mo to $6.49/mo.

New subscribers will pay the higher price from the start, while existing users won’t see the increase until October. Several countries will see the increase, including the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, although prices differ between them.

Users were quick to criticize Twitter over the price increase, largely over the lack of value for the money. As a quick rundown, here are some of the features you get with Twitter Blue:

  • An ‘undo send’ feature (a.k.a. a band-aid solution for the much-maligned lack of an edit button)
  • Custom icons and navigation bar
  • The ability to set a JPEG you paid way too much for NFT as your profile picture
  • Ad-free articles (within the Twitter Blue Publisher network)
  • A ‘Reader Mode’ for long tweet threads
  • Folders for bookmarked tweets (imagine saving tweets, let alone so many you need to organize them?)
  • Labs for early access to new features (like the aforementioned NFT profile pic)

Not sure about you, but $3.49 seemed like a stretch for most of these features. The only semi-useful feature is ‘undo send,’ and even that’s a tough sell — it’s just a streamlined version of the current solution for fixing tweets, which is tapping the delete button and typing it again.

“At launch, we felt strongly about keeping the cost of the subscription as low as possible while we tested, learned, and gathered feedback. We’ve since refined the vision for this product, conducted significant research, introduced new enhancements with more in development, and as such we are updating pricing,” a Twitter spokesperson told TechCrunch in a statement.

Maybe these “in development” enhancements will make the $6.49 price worthwhile, but as is, Blue is a collection of features that arguably should be part of the default Twitter experience. Well, except the NFT profile pics — those alone should cost money because it’s incredibly funny that people would pay for the digital equivalent of having a ‘kick me’ sign taped to their back.

Source: TechCrunch

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Mobile Syrup

Twitter v. Musk trial will start October 17th

Pack your bags for Delaware, folks! The Twitter v. Elon Musk trial is set for October 17th and will wrap by the 21st in Delaware’s Court of Chancery.

Judge Kathaleen McCormick issued the official schedule (via The Verge) following back-and-forth from the Musk and Twitter legal teams, featuring tons of legalese complaining about trial dates and other stuff. Most recently, that included a letter from Musk’s lawyers complaining that Twitter was being difficult during the pre-trial process.

Twitter initially wanted an earlier start date in September, while Team Musk wanted the trial to start in 2023. McCormick chose October, so then Twitter requested that the trial start on October 10th, and Team Musk fought for October 17th, arguing the extra week would be crucial to preparation. Twitter, on the other hand, wanted the earlier start date because it blames Musk for the company’s lower-than-expected Q2 revenue. It’s also worth noting the merger agreement has a ‘drop-dead’ deadline of October 24th, which may also be a factor in Twitter pushing for an earlier trial.

And so, here we are with a settled date. The decision should appease Musk’s lawyers’ complaints about Twitter’s lack of cooperation since there are now official deadlines for filing counterclaims, documents, discovery, witnesses and more — those interested can view the whole schedule here.

As a quick refresher, this whole debacle is about Musk’s offer to buy Twitter. Musk wants out of the deal based on claims that Twitter has more spam bot activity than it said it does. Twitter sued Musk, alleging his spam bot complaint was manufactured to get out of the deal.

Moreover, Twitter’s lawsuit points out that Musk removed a diligence condition from the agreement that would have given him access to non-public information about Twitter, and the company says it gave Musk more information about bots than the company owed him based on the agreement.

Some wonder why Twitter is fighting to make the deal go through when Musk no longer wants the company, and management under Musk would likely be terrible (employee morale plummeted after the Musk deal was announced, Twitter says in the lawsuit that employee attrition increased after it signed the merger agreement, and Musk publicly said he planned to lay off Twitter employees). The short answer is that Musk’s $44 billion USD (about $56.4 billion CAD) offer is too good to pass up, and shareholders stand to make a premium off the sale — especially given the recent stock price drop.

Anyway, we’ll likely see plenty more filings and legal complaining from Twitter and Musk over the next few months leading up to the October 17th trial start. It’s going to be a long few months.

Via: The Verge

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Mobile Syrup

Twitter is testing a weird pre-created status feature

Twitter is testing a new status feature that allows users to assign several pre-written labels to their tweets.

If this sounds strange and somewhat useless, you’re not alone. A spokesperson for Twitter recently confirmed to TechCrunch that the social network is testing the functionality in the United States and Australia.

“For a limited time, we are testing a feature that allows you to add a status topic from a predetermined list to your Tweets to provide more context for your followers. So whether you are about to drop a hot Tweet thread, share your shower thoughts, or have a bad case of the Mondays, your Tweets can better convey what you are up to,” said the Twitter representative.

These canned statuses also have an accompanying emoji and include thought-provoking updates like “Hot Take,” “Vacation Mode,” “Unpopular Opinion,” (which would be very useful for me), and of course, “Case of the Mondays.” This feature likely aims to allow Twitter users to save characters in their tweets, but unfortunately, you can’t create custom statuses. This means you won’t be able to add My Chemical Romance lyrics to your darkest tweets like you’re using MSN in 2003.

Back in April, developer Jane Manchun Wong first uncovered Twitter’s status feature, stating that its internal codename at the social media giant is “Vibe.”

It’s unclear if this new status feature will receive a wider rollout or if the social media platform aims to also test it in Canada. Other recent in-development Twitter features include ‘Unmentioning” contacts from conversations, mixed-media tweets and downvotes.

Twitter and frequent Twitter shitposter Elon Musk are currently embroiled in a legal battle surrounding the latter’s failed attempt at acquiring the social media giant.

Source: TechCrunch, @coolranchzaku Via: The Verge

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Mobile Syrup

Elon Musk’s lawyers claim Twitter is being difficult in the pre-trial process

In the latest bout of Twitter v. Elon Musk, Musk’s lawyers claim Twitter is making the pre-trial process difficult and want the Delaware Chancery Court to make it play nice.

In a letter to Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick, who will decide the case, Musk’s lawyers outlined three main issues and calls on the court to resolve them.

First is the issue of the trial date. Team Musk claims the lack of a trial date is giving Team Twitter room to “delay all other scheduling discussions” and prevent the case from being trial-ready by October. Musk’s lawyers want the trial to start on October 17th, while Twitter wants to start on the 10th.

Here’s the thing — Team Twitter wants an earlier start date. The social media company pushed for the earliest possible start on the grounds that Musk’s ongoing shenanigans are hurting the company. Team Musk, on the other hand, wanted the trial to start early next year. McCormick chose October.

Next up: Team Musk is once again complaining that Twitter isn’t producing documents and data. This loops together the second and third issues cited in Musk’s lawyers’ letter to McCormick. Once again, Musk is after Twitter data — presumably, given that Musk keeps banging on about it, Twitter’s firehouse data, which was the central part of Musk’s complaints about Twitter having more spam bots than it said.

In the letter, Team Musk says it needs all that information by August 1st and requested McCormick compel Twitter to produce said data.

It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out. The Verge suspects there will be a lot more legal complaining in the coming weeks in back-and-forth filing from both sides. Team Twitter will likely respond to the Team Musk letter with its own filing about how Musk is being just as difficult.

How McCormick responds to all this may give us a clue to how the whole thing will play out — will she put up with the shenanigans or put a stop to it?

Source: The Verge

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Mobile Syrup

Twitter data breach exposed contact details of 5.4 million accounts

An attacker allegedly gained access to the contact details of 5.4 million Twitter accounts through a vulnerability Twitter has known about for months.

The data exposed in the attack ties Twitter handles to phone numbers and email addresses, even for users who have restricted the ability to be found on Twitter this way. The attacker offered a sample of the data on a hacking forum and is selling the full database for “nothing lower than 30k” (presumably USD, or roughly $38,505 CAD).

Restore Privacy detailed the breach, noting that the attacker claims the dataset ranges from “Celebrities, to Companies, randoms, OGs, etc.” Moreover, the publication reports that the owner of Breach Forums verified the authenticity of the leaked data and said it was extracted via a vulnerability reported in January.

That vulnerability, detailed in a HackerOne post from user ‘zhirinovskiy,’ exploits a bug with Twitter’s Android app and the Twitter authorization process and can obtain the Twitter ID of any user by submitting a phone number or email. zhirinovskiy describes Twitter IDs as “almost equal to” the username of an account.

Five days after the report, Twitter staff acknowledge it as a “valid security issue” and after investigating, awarded zhirinovskiy with a $5,040 USD bounty (about $6,469 CAD).

9to5Mac notes that the attacker likely obtained existing databases of phone numbers and emails from other breaches, then used those with the Twitter breach to connect them with existing Twitter IDs. So far, there isn’t a way to check if your account is included in the breach. The best thing Twitter users can do is be aware of phishing scams and avoid clicking links in emails or texts, especially if they come from an unknown or untrusted source.

News of the breach comes as Twitter takes aim at Elon Musk, blaming the Tesla CEO for lower-than-expected quarterly earnings.

Source: Restore Privacy Via: 9to5Mac

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Mobile Syrup

Twitter points fingers at Elon Musk as the cause of lower-than-expected revenue

Twitter recently reported its Q2 2022 earnings. Throughout the recent months, the company’s total revenue dipped from $1.19 billion USD (roughly $2.4 billion CAD) year-over-year down to $1.18 billion USD (roughly $2.3 billion CAD). Twitter blames Elon Musk as a factor as well as ad industry issues.

In Twitter’s latest earnings report, the company reveals that it brought in a total of $1.18 billion USD  (roughly $1.5 billion CAD), coming up short of its target. In the report, Twitter cites uncertainty related to the pending acquisition of Twitter by an affiliate of Elon Musk” as a factor of this lowered
revenue.

On April 25th, Twitter announced that it entered an agreement with Tesla CEO Elon Musk to be acquired for $44 billion USD (roughly $60 billion CAD). Once and if the deal is complete, Musk is to take sole ownership of the social media platform for $54.20 USD (roughly $69.60 CAD) per share in cash. Following the acquisition, Twitter is to become a privately held company.

However, since the announcement of the deal, Musk has been finding ways to try and back out. Tesla’s CEO is said to have been attempting to prove how much of Twitter’s user base is comprised of fake and spam accounts. Earlier this month, Musk filed a letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), claiming Twitter is “in material breach” of its contract.

Twitter’s revenue woes aren’t exclusive to Musk, as Industry-wide ad problems persist and are causing hiccups. Twitter’s ad sales are indeed up 2 percent year over year. That said, this wasn’t enough to counterbalance the loss in revenue. Twitter reported a net loss of $270 million USD (roughly $35 million CAD). Additionally, the company saw a profit decrease of $66 million USD (roughly $84 million CAD) during the same quarter in 2021. Twitter hopes to see ad sales growth in order to reach revenue milestones.

While revenue is down, usage and user base are up this quarter. Twitter reports that the social media platform has reached over 237 million daily users. This figure is up from 229 million during its last quarter.

Via: The Verge

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Mobile Syrup

Judge says Musk, Twitter trial will take place in October

The Delaware Court of Chancery says Elon Musk’s Twitter deal will go to court in October.

Twitter filed a lawsuit against Musk last week to force him to make good on his deal to buy Twitter. In a suit, the company’s lawyers said Musk is walking away from the deal because it “no longer serves his personal interests.”

Twitter’s lawyers asked the court to expedite the trial to September, while Musk’s representatives wanted to push the date to 2023.

“The reality is that delay threatens the risk of irreparable harm. We should go to trial in October of this year,” Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick said in her decision, dismissing any chance the trial would be delayed to 2023.

The world’s richest man announced he was going to buy the social media company earlier this year before making attempts to walk away, citing the company has been “in material breach” of commitments it made.

“For nearly two months, Mr. Musk has sought the data and information necessary to ‘make an independent assessment of the prevalence of fake or spam accounts on Twitter’s platform,’” a letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from Musk’s legal team says.

Source: Delaware Court of Chancery Via The Independent 

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Mobile Syrup

Twitter outage preventing tweets from loading, logins

Twitter is down and appears to be experiencing a major outage Thursday morning. Canadians can breathe a sigh of relief — Rogers is not down again.

According to Ookla’s Downdetector website, outage reports for Twitter spiked shortly after 8am ET. However, as noted by The Verge, Twitter’s status site shows that everything is working just fine. While users can still navigate to the Twitter website, tweets don’t load nor can people tweet. The Verge also reported that you can’t log into the website right now.

At the moment, it’s not clear what caused the issue.

Downdetector map showing areas impacted by Twitter’s July 14th outage.

The Verge reports that this is the first major Twitter outage since the service went down twice in February. Some people weren’t able to access Twitter in some parts of the U.S. due to a “technical bug” that stopped timelines from loading and tweets from posting.

Developing…

Source: Twitter, Downdetector Via: The Verge

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Mobile Syrup

People have tweeted about gaming 1.5 billion times so far in 2022: Twitter

We’re just over halfway into 2022, and Twitter users around the world have already tweeted about gaming 1.5 billion times.

Twitter says this is a record for half a year, and a 36 percent increase year-over-year from 2021. It notes that events like the Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase, PlayStation State of Play and Summer Game Fest, as well as big releases like Elden Ring, helped drive the conversation. It will be interesting to see how much tweets may increase this time next year, given that the once-major E3 gaming event is set to make a full, overhauled return alongside Summer Game Fest.

Additionally, Twitter revealed Canada’s 10 most mentioned games on the platform between January 1st and June 30th:

  1. Genshin Impact
  2. Wordle
  3. Elden Ring
  4. Final Fantasy
  5. Fortnite
  6. Valorant
  7. Final Fantasy XIV
  8. Call of Duty
  9. Super Mario
  10. Minecraft

Here’s the global top 10 for reference:

  1. Genshin Impact
  2. Wordle
  3. Ensemble Stars!
  4. Final Fantasy
  5. Project Sekai
  6. Apex Legends
  7. Elden Ring
  8. Fate/Grand Order
  9. Final Fantasy XIV
  10. Valorant

As usual, though, Canada didn’t crack the list of countries tweeting the most about games:

  1. Japan
  2. United States
  3. South Korea
  4. Thailand
  5. Indonesia
  6. Brazil
  7. Philippines
  8. India
  9. United Kingdom
  10. Mexico

Twitter releases gaming-related data like this every quarter. For more on its Q1 2022 findings, click here.

Image credit: miHoYo

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Mobile Syrup

Twitter sues Elon Musk for trying to back out of $44 billion acquisition

The battle between the world’s richest man and a social media giant continues.

Twitter has sued Elon Musk after the Tesla CEO officially attempted to exit the $44 billion USD (about $57.3 billion CAD) acquisition deal he announced in April.

“Musk refuses to honor his obligations to Twitter and its stockholders because the deal he signed no longer serves his personal interests,” the company writes in a suit filed to the Chancery Court in Delaware. “Musk apparently believes that he — unlike every other party subject to Delaware contract law — is free to change his mind, trash the company, disrupt its operations, destroy stockholder value, and walk away.”

Musk, on the other hand, has claimed that Twitter has been “in material breach” of its own commitments. “For nearly two months, Mr. Musk has sought the data and information necessary to ‘make an independent assessment of the prevalence of fake or spam accounts on Twitter’s platform,’” reads a letter to the U.S.’ Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from Musk’s legal team. “Twitter has failed or refused to provide this information.”

Specifically, Musk has repeatedly said that he doesn’t believe Twitter’s public statements that roughly five percent of its active users are bots. He claims that he’s asked Twitter to provide accurate information, but the company hasn’t done so. Twitter has said it will work with Musk to deliver this data, but it’s unclear what’s actually transpired behind the scenes.

According to a Twitter memo obtained by The New York Times, the social media giant is seeking a four-day trial this September. This would, in theory, allow for a resolution prior to the acquisition deal’s October 24th deadline for completion. However, Musk and Twitter would have an additional six months to close the deal should it still be awaiting regulatory approval by that cutoff date.

It should be noted that in addition to the courts ruling in favour of either Twitter or Musk, both parties could reach some sort of settlement or even see the deal fall through. In the case of the latter scenario, Musk would pay a $1 billion USD (about $1.3 billion CAD) fee and walk away. There are several possible outcomes, ultimately.

Musk has not yet responded to Twitter’s lawsuit.

Source: Delaware Court of Chancery