The Bane That Is Social Media

[andydp]

Dec 17, 2022 14:22:31 GMT indy said:

I guess many of the 'permanently' suspended journalist accounts are unsuspended.

Doesn't make Musk look like an impulsive, non-trustworthy toddler who deplores free speech at all.

Maybe the threat of sanctions by the European Union helped to change his mind.

[goldenvalley]

Dec 17, 2022 16:52:01 GMT andydp said:

Dec 17, 2022 14:22:31 GMT indy said:

I guess many of the 'permanently' suspended journalist accounts are unsuspended.

Doesn't make Musk look like an impulsive, non-trustworthy toddler who deplores free speech at all.

Maybe the threat of sanctions by the European Union helped to change his mind.

Yup...he's an exposed nerve reacting to stimuli. 

[LFC]

Ouch. Just ... ouch.

[indy]

Dec 17, 2022 16:52:01 GMT andydp said:

Dec 17, 2022 14:22:31 GMT indy said:

I guess many of the 'permanently' suspended journalist accounts are unsuspended.

Doesn't make Musk look like an impulsive, non-trustworthy toddler who deplores free speech at all.

Maybe the threat of sanctions by the European Union helped to change his mind.

Oh, this wouldn't even be close to getting him out of trouble with the EU. He/Twitter is heading for a boatload of problems there.

[LFC]

Elon Asks Twitter If He Should Resign. Survey Says: 'Yes'

[goldenvalley]

Dec 19, 2022 19:38:55 GMT LFC said:

Elon Asks Twitter If He Should Resign. Survey Says: 'Yes'

  Musk got bored with Twitter because it's been more difficult than he expected so he goes to stand in a box at the World Cup with Jared Kushner.  Wonder if they actually know each other?

[andydp]

I suppose this could go in any of several places but for now its for Musk:

Oliver Cromwell: 'In the name of God, go!' speech dismissing Rump Parliament - 1653

20 April 1653, London, England

It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place,

which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice.

Ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government.

<SNIP>

Go, get you out! Make haste! Ye venal slaves be gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors.

In the name of God, go!


speakola.com/political/oliver-cromwell-speech-dismissing-rump-parliament-1653#:~:text=Oliver%20Cromwell%3A%20%27In%20the%20name%20of%20God%2C%20go%21%27,factious%20crew%2C%20and%20enemies%20to%20all%20good%20government.

[LFC]

Musk is going full metal Trump and just not paying the bills. It's likely that he's cut Twitter's revenues so badly he can't.

A lawsuit says Twitter failed to pay a $1,092,000 invoice in a software contract that doesn't expire until late 2024, and that the Elon Musk-led company apparently intends to stiff the vendor on another $7 million worth of payments.

Imply Data, Inc. sued Twitter in California Superior Court in San Francisco County, alleging breach of contract. The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday (see complaint) and reported by Bloomberg today.

"For over four years, Imply has licensed its proprietary software to Twitter, and Twitter has paid Imply over $10 million," the lawsuit said. "Twitter has always been very pleased with Imply's product and its related maintenance and support services, so, in mid-2021, the parties extended the term of their software license and service agreement for an additional three years from October 1, 2021, through September 30, 2024."

In May, a few weeks after Musk struck a deal to buy Twitter, the company notified Imply Data that it would not renew the contract again but "acknowledged the License agreement would 'continue in full force and effect' until the end of its term on September 30, 2024," the lawsuit said.

Payments stopped after Musk took over

Twitter continued making quarterly payments on the contract until Musk completed the purchase in late October. "However, shortly after Musk's purchase of Twitter closed, Twitter refused to pay the outstanding quarterly invoice, which was due on November 30, 2022, and Twitter disclaimed any obligation to pay any future invoices from Imply, despite the unambiguous language in the software license and service agreement requiring Twitter to do so," the lawsuit said.

[LFC]

Musk admitted that Twitter is bleeding hemorrhaging money. First he told a pretty blatant lie.

Elon Musk has defended his financial stewardship of Twitter, arguing that the social media platform would have faced a “negative cash flow situation of $3 billion a year” were it not for his controversial cost-cutting efforts.

He goes on about how Twitter's cash flow is a shit show but there's no indication that he said anything about the overwhelming majority of that being his own fault.  Instead it sounds like he wants to be seen as a savior.

“We have an emergency fire drill on our hands. ... This company is like you’re in a plane that is headed towards the ground and high speed with the engines on fire and the controls don’t work,” he said. “That’s the reason for my actions that may seem sometimes spurious.”

He said that the platform had been on course to spend about $5 billion in 2023. Overall costs at Twitter in 2021, the last annual period that the company reported before being taken private, were $5.6 billion, during which time it made a net loss of $221 million.

Musk predicted that Twitter’s net cash outflow, “if you didn’t make any changes,” would be about $6 billion to $6.5 billion next year. This is partly because the company has been loaded with $12.5 billion of debt to help to fund his acquisition, which required about $1.5 billion a year in annual debt servicing payments amid rising interest rates, he said.

“Not good since Twitter has $1 billion in cash,” he said. “So that’s why I spent the last five weeks cutting costs like crazy.”

So how bad is the Musk Tax?

His remarks suggested the company was on track to make about $3 billion in annual revenues next year. That would suggest Twitter was on course for revenues as much as $2 billion lower in 2023 than the $5 billion it achieved in 2021—which mainly came from advertising. Many marketers have pulled out of the platform since Musk’s takeover because of moderation concerns.

[LFC]

Just did a quick look at Tesla's stock price. It's running $112.34 when I peeked. The closing price on April 8, 2022, when Musk announced his plans to buy Twitter, was $341.83. That's a drop of just over 67%. Bank loans were taken to buy Twitter. Makes you wonder if Tesla is going to end up with a new owner.

[LFC]

Perfect timing! This was posted on TPM's chat board.

[LFC]

Genius Musk can't pay his bills. Or maybe he's taking a page from Trump's book and just refusing to pay them.

The Elon Musk-owned Twitter is facing another lawsuit alleging that it failed to pay its bills.

The plaintiff in the latest case is Columbia REIT-650 California, LLC, the landlord of the 650 California Street office tower in San Francisco. Exhibit A in the lawsuit is a lease between Columbia REIT and CrossInstall, a mobile ad company purchased by Twitter in May 2020. All of CrossInstall's 70 employees joined Twitter at the time.

The lease was made in September 2017 for a period of seven years and covered 15,500 square feet, the entire 30th floor of the building. The annual rent started at $1.29 million, and the lease had automatic increases throughout the seven-year term.

The breach-of-contract lawsuit says Columbia REIT served a notice of default to Twitter on December 16, 2022, "stating the amount of Rent due in the estimated sum of $136,260.00 and notifying Tenant that it was in default of the Lease if it failed to pay that sum within five (5) business days after service of the Default Notice."

The lawsuit says Twitter failed to comply by the required date and asks the court for damages of at least $136,260. The lawsuit was filed in California Superior Court in San Francisco County on December 29, 2022. We contacted Twitter about the lawsuit today and will update this article if we get a response, but the company reportedly eliminated its communications department after Musk took over.

[LFC]

Scrambling for dollars is destined to help turn Twitter back into a cesspool of lies.

Online advertising on social platforms is changing. Google and Meta no longer hold majority control over advertising dollars, according to The Wall Street Journal, with Amazon and TikTok cutting in to sway advertisers to other platforms. Twitter is also hungry to redirect ad dollars to its platform, as it announced yesterday that it would be “relaxing” its political ads policy and allowing more “cause-based” ads. The company is also planning to expand to allow other forms of political advertising “in the coming weeks.”

Promising to share more details soon, the @twittersafety account tweeted Tuesday that from now on, Twitter’s goal is to align its advertising policy “with that of TV and other media outlets.” It’s unclear what exactly that means on a platform like Twitter, but the Federal Communications Commission specifies that it works to restrict censorship and ensure equal opportunity for political advertisers. This aligns somewhat with Twitter CEO Elon Musk’s stated "free speech absolutist" position. Twitter could also be looking to emulate the FCC to diminish the company's responsibility to review or ensure the accuracy of all political ad content.

[indy]

[LFC]

Musk continues his fascist goose stepping and fight against freedom of speech. This isn't a mistake by an algorithm.

And he's replatforming this foe of free speech / voting and democracy in general.

[LFC]

Elon Musk isn't paying Twitter's bills and company employees in their Singapore office were just shown the door by the stiffed landlord. That opened his wallet.

Twitter CEO Elon Musk’s brilliant ideas have resulted in embarrassment yet again. This time, the impact fell on employees in the company’s Singapore offices, who were reportedly unceremoniously escorted out of the building by landlords because the company didn’t pay the rent on time.

According to Bloomberg, Twitter employees were told to leave the company’s 22,000-square-foot office at the CapitaGreen building in Singapore, which had served as its Asia-Pacific headquarters since 2015, on Wednesday before 5 p.m. The Platformer newsletter reported that Twitter workers were walked out by the building’s landlords because the company had not paid rent, a practice Musk has been also been employing in leased offices in San Francisco and Seattle. Insider reported that Musk paid the overdue rent late Wednesday Pacific Time and that employees were told to return to the office.

[LFC]

Since Twitter is privately owned it's tougher to get a good idea how badly Musk has screwed up its valuation but we do have some indications. Fidelity's Contrafund made a (poor) investment in Musk's buyout so they own a small slice of the company. They recently revalued their holding by dropping them by 56%. Ouch.

Fidelity slashed its carrying value of Twitter by 56% during the first month of Elon Musk's ownership, according to a new disclosure.

Driving the news: Fidelity was among the group of outside investors that helped Musk finance his $44 billion takeover of the social media site, by purchasing equity.

• It holds the Twitter shares in several of its mutual funds, under the name "X Holdings I Inc."

By the numbers: Fidelity's Contrafund valued its Twitter shares at $53.47 million on Oct. 31, which was just days after Musk's deal closed. It then revalued the shares at around $23.46 million as of Nov. 30, representing a 56% decline.

• Fidelity reports the same Twitter valuation cut in other mutual fund disclosures, including for its Blue Chip Growth Fund.

What to know: Fidelity is a Twitter shareholder, but doesn't necessarily have proprietary knowledge about its business performance. Instead, the revaluation may be based, at least in part, on broader tech equity declines.

[LFC]

Thanks, Elon.

The Taliban have started using Twitter's paid-for verification feature, meaning some now have blue ticks on their accounts.

Previously, the blue tick indicated "active, notable, and authentic accounts of public interest" verified by Twitter, and could not be purchased.

But now, users can buy them through the new Twitter Blue service.

At least two Taliban officials and four prominent supporters in Afghanistan are currently using the checkmarks.

Hedayatullah Hedayat, the head of the Taliban's department for "access to information", now has the tick.

His account has 187,000 followers and he regularly posts information related to the Taliban administration. He had his paid-for blue tick removed last month, according to local media, but it has now returned.

Abdul Haq Hammad, head of the media watchdog at the Afghan Ministry of Information and Culture, also has a blue tick on his account that has 170,000 followers.

Prominent Taliban supporters have acquired the blue tick too.

Muhammad Jalal, who previously identified as a Taliban official, praised the new owner of Twitter on Monday, declaring that Elon Musk was "making Twitter great again".

[goldenvalley]

The purple team of the 1/6 Select Committee turned up all sorts of interesting things about the use of social media by insurrectionists.  Not a lot of it is included in the actual report.  There is room to argue that was bad but I think there is room for someone else to write about what was found.

Congressional investigators found evidence that tech platforms — especially Twitter — failed to heed their own employees’ warnings about violent rhetoric on their platforms and bent their rules to avoid penalizing conservatives, particularly then-president Trump, out of fear of reprisals. The draft report details how most platforms did not take “dramatic” steps to rein in extremist content until after the attack on the Capitol, despite clear red flags across the internet.

“The sum of this is that alt-tech, fringe, and mainstream platforms were exploited in tandem by right-wing activists to bring American democracy to the brink of ruin,” the staffers wrote in their memo. “These platforms enabled the mobilization of extremists on smaller sites and whipped up conservative grievance on larger, more mainstream ones.”

In the days before Jan. 6, 2021, media reports documented Trump’s call on Twitter for people to rally in Washington — it’ll be wild, he tweeted — and there was growing talk of guns and potential violence on sites such as Telegram, Parler and TheDonald.win.

The Purple Team’s memo detailed how the actions of roughly 15 social networks played a significant role in the attack. It described how major platforms like Facebook and Twitter, prominent video streaming sites like YouTube and Twitch and smaller fringe networks like Parler, Gab and 4chan served as megaphones for those seeking to stoke division or organize the insurrection. It detailed how some platforms bent their rules to avoid penalizing conservatives out of fear of reprisals, while others were reluctant to curb the “Stop the Steal” movement after the attack.

I'm not sure that including this would change much.  Social media was a tool the planners of the 1/6 attack used. The fundamental concern of the committee was who planned and executed.  I can see why the Select Committee didn't include much about it.  

[LFC]

Trump, the leader of the Jan 6 Republican Insurrection, wants back on Facebook.

Former US President Donald Trump yesterday petitioned Facebook owner Meta to restore his account, two years after he was banned for egging on his supporters as they attacked the US Capitol. "We believe that the ban on President Trump's account on Facebook has dramatically distorted and inhibited the public discourse," Trump's campaign wrote in a letter to Meta Tuesday, according to NBC News.

The Trump team's letter also reportedly said that a continuation of the ban would constitute a "deliberate effort by a private company to silence Mr. Trump's political voice... every day that President Trump's political voice remains silenced furthers an inappropriate interference in the American political and election process." The letter was sent to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Meta VP of Global Affairs Nick Clegg, and Facebook VP of Public Policy Joel Kaplan.

Twitter already reversed its ban on Trump shortly after Elon Musk bought the company. Trump hasn't tweeted yet. He formed his own social network, Truth Social, after being banned from Facebook and Twitter.

In its petition to Meta, "Trump's campaign didn't threaten a lawsuit, as some sources close to Trump thought he would," NBC News wrote. "It instead talked about the importance of free speech and petitioned Meta for a 'meeting to discuss President Trump's prompt reinstatement to the platform.'"

[LFC]

The monetary realities of buying Twitter for too much money are here.

The bill for Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter is coming due, with the billionaire facing unpalatable options on the company’s enormous debt pile, ranging from bankruptcy proceedings to another costly sale of Tesla shares.

Three people close to the entrepreneur’s buyout of Twitter said the first installment of interest payments related to $13 billion of debt he used to fund the takeover could be due as soon as the end of January. That debt means the company must pay about $1.5 billion in annual interest payments.

The Tesla and SpaceX chief financed his $44 billion deal to take Twitter private in October by securing the huge debt from a syndicate of banks led by Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Barclays, and Mitsubishi. The $13 billion debt is held by Twitter at a corporate level, with no personal guarantee by Musk.

Since the takeover, Musk has raced to cut costs, such as firing half the company’s staff, while seeking new revenue streams, such as launching its Twitter Blue subscription service.

The company’s dire finances—it made a loss of $221 million in 2021 before the acquisition and Musk has said revenues have declined since—have led the new owner to regularly raise the prospect that the company could crash into bankruptcy.

How Musk deals with the looming interest payment is a crucial test of his leadership of Twitter, which has so far been marked by chaotic management that has alienated its corporate advertisers.

“This company is like you’re in a plane that is headed towards the ground at high speed with the engines on fire and the controls don’t work,” Musk said last month.

Not quite, Elon. The engines were fine and the controls absolutely worked as the former executives at Twitter proved. The problem isn't with the engine or the controls, it's with the pilot.

[LFC]

The fact that the people Musk fired may end up screwed, especially if Twitter files for bankruptcy, pisses me off to no end.

The weekend delivered some disappointing news for laid-off Twitter employees who launched a class-action lawsuit in November against the social media platform immediately after CEO Elon Musk kicked off the first round of layoffs at the company. On Friday, a US district judge ruled that five plaintiffs who proposed the class action would instead have to enter individual arbitration to pursue their claims that Twitter violated employment laws.

This doesn’t mean the class-action lawsuit has completely fallen apart, though. US District Judge James Donato wrote in his order that while these five employees waived their right to sue by signing optional arbitration agreements under Twitter’s prior owner, three other plaintiffs later added to the lawsuit said they opted out. Those employees still have the right to pursue the proposed class action, which alleges sex and disability discrimination during layoffs and argues that Twitter still owes proper severance payments and lost wages.

“After Twitter filed its motion, plaintiffs amended their complaint to add three named plaintiffs who say that they opted out of Twitter’s arbitration agreement,” Donato wrote.

The five ex-employees dropped from the class-action suit had tried to argue that Twitter’s arbitration agreements were unreasonable, or in legal terms, “unconscionable.” But Donato wrote that the former employees failed to prove this claim, as “Twitter provided signed copies of the agreements, and they are all clear and straightforward.” The agreements specified that the question of their “enforceability and validity” could only be resolved by an arbitrator.

[pnwguy]

Jan 18, 2023 18:12:40 GMT LFC said:

The monetary realities of buying Twitter for too much money are here.

“This company is like you’re in a plane that is headed towards the ground at high speed with the engines on fire and the controls don’t work,” Musk said last month.

Not quite, Elon. The engines were fine and the controls absolutely worked as the former executives at Twitter proved. The problem isn't with the engine or the controls, it's with the pilot.

Sounds like Musk is channeling Dumpster.  The Emperor is flawless. It's just the disloyal servants who have disappointed him.

[LFC]

Daaaamn. Musk really IS just like Trump!

Twitter was sued yesterday by a consulting firm that says it was never paid for work it did on the lawsuit that forced Elon Musk to complete his purchase of the company.

Charles River Associates (CRA) says it was hired by Twitter in August 2022, shortly after Twitter sued Musk over his refusal to complete their $44 billion merger agreement. Musk finally completed the purchase in late October after it became clear that he was likely to lose in court.

From August 15 to October 27, "CRA provided all requested expert consulting work and services to Twitter and its legal counsel in connection with the Musk Litigation and pursuant to the terms and conditions of the Contract," according to the lawsuit filed yesterday in Suffolk County Superior Court in Boston, Massachusetts. The lawsuit said that "Twitter has breached the Contract by failing to pay all of the CRA Invoices," which added up to $2.19 million.

CRA is seeking the full amount owed on the invoices and double or treble damages due to Twitter's "deceptive, intentional breach of the consulting agreement, plus interest, costs, and legal fees." CRA's lawsuit is one of several alleging that the Musk-owned Twitter has refused to pay bills for services provided before he bought the company.

[LFC]

The hits just keep coming for Twitter. Here's a list of headlines that don't look good.

Twitter experiencing international outages; most users can’t tweet or DM

Late Wednesday afternoon, Twitter began experiencing international outages, with many users unable to perform basic functions like tweeting, sending direct messages, and following accounts. When Ars reporters attempted to tweet, an error message was generated saying that a daily limit of tweets had been reached, even from accounts that had not tweeted that day. According to Twitter, users typically have to tweet 2,400 times to reach the platform’s daily limit.

Independent Internet monitor NetBlocks tweeted that the outages impacted Twitter's website, mobile app, and features like posting and retweeting and were “not related to country-level Internet disruptions or filtering.”

Twitter has no communications department to follow up to confirm if the apparent outage is due to a bug or recent product update, both possible causes as reported by CNBC.

Twitter hit with EU yellow card for lack of transparency on disinformation

The European Commission, which is tasked with tackling disinformation online, this week expressed disappointment that Twitter has failed to provide required data that all other major platforms submitted. Now Twitter has been hit with a "yellow card," Reuters reported, and could be subjected to fines if the platform doesn’t fully comply with European Union commitments by this June.

“We must have more transparency and cannot rely on the online platforms alone for the quality of information,” the commission’s vice president of values and transparency, Věra Jourová, said in a press release. “They need to be independently verifiable. I am disappointed to see that Twitter['s] report lags behind others, and I expect a more serious commitment to their obligations.”

Want to delete your Twitter DMs? Good luck with that

Twitter’s direct messages have always been a security liability. The DMs you send to friends and Internet strangers aren’t end-to-end encrypted, making your conversations potentially accessible if Twitter suffers a data breach, or to company staffers with the right permissions to access them. Both scenarios are arguably more likely in Elon Musk’s version of Twitter, where key security and data protection staff have departed.

Since Musk acquired Twitter and started laying off thousands of employees at the start of November, remodeling the firm in his vision, multiple waves of tweeters have abandoned the platform. When they do, they often try to download their Twitter archive and delete DMs. In the chaos, the process has often been glitchy.

However, in Europe, people have turned to the continent’s GDPR data laws, which give people rights over how their information is collected, stored, and used. This includes the right to have data deleted. However, Twitter’s response to these requests, which have been seen by Wired, appears to show the platform ignoring detailed asks to delete DMs and just point people to generic guidance that doesn’t explain whether Twitter deletes your DMs from its servers. And now Europe’s data regulators are getting involved.

“On Twitter, the delete button does not do what users think it does,” says Michael Veale, an associate professor focusing on digital rights and regulation in the Faculty of Laws at University College London. “If you delete your direct messages within the app or on the website, it does not remove them from Twitter’s server,” Veale says.

Twitter ditches free access to data, potentially hindering research (or how to make yourself useless to a segment of your customer base)

Twitter-owner Elon Musk has recently decided to close down free access to Twitter's application programming interface (API), which gives users access to tweet data. There are many different uses for the data provided by the social media platform. Third-party programs like Tweetbot—which helps users customize their feeds—have used Twitter's APIs, for example.

Experts in the field say the move could harm academic research by hindering access to data used in papers that analyze behavior on social media. When USC professor of computer science Kristina Lerman first heard about the move, she said her team started “scrambling to connect to collect the data we need for some of the projects we have going on this semester,” though the urgency subsided when more details were released, she told Ars.

Twitter will begin offering basic access to its API for $100 per month. There are few if any details released yet, but Twitter’s website shows that there are tiers of access with different tweet access limits, along with other limits on features like filtering. The higher tiers cost more.