Why Self-Destruct on Twitter is Not What They Are Building: A Cultural Anthropologist’s Book on Gambling Machine Design (with an Emphasis on Paul Pelosi)
Take Musk’s last 24 hours on the platform for example: The billionaire gave credence to a fringe conspiracy theory about the brutal attack on Paul Pelosi. Then, when media outlets reported on his irresponsible behavior, Musk assailed them. He trolled the New York Times and derided The Guardian as a far left wing propaganda machine.
It is a function of its people thatTwitter is included. And the people who have always been drawn to Twitter are kind of strange in the best way possible. You don’t know it until you work at the company. And those people are all the ones who are going to leave. Those are not the people who are going to stay. So all of that is gone.
According to a cultural anthropologist at New York University who wrote a book on gambling machine design, it is not uncommon for engineers to sit around and say that they are creating a Skinner box. But that, she said, is essentially what they’ve built. It’s one reason people who should know better regularly self-destruct on the site — they can’t stay away.
Tweets from Musk: What Have You Learned About Twitter? An Introductory Report on Musk’s Twitter Deal with a Sale-friendly Purchase
Musk then offered to buy Twitter outright at a significant premium, threatened a hostile takeover and signed a “seller-friendly” deal to buy the company that involved waiving due diligence.
The acquisition will give Musk a greater say in the matter. The billionaire already owns, oversees or has significant stakes in companies developing cars, rockets, robots and satellite internet, as well as more experimental ventures such as brain implants. Now he controls a social media platform that shapes how hundreds of millions of people communicate and get their news.
The fake accounts with large followings on the platform, as well as the ones that tend to be active in replies to Musk’s tweets, were also pledged to “defeat the bots or die trying.”
Musk was accused of using the bot argument to get out of a deal for which he developed buyer’s remorse, in order to follow through with the agreement. In the weeks after the deal was announced, much of the stock market, including social media companies, declined amid concerns about rising inflation and a looming recession. The downturn also hit Tesla and, in turn, Musk’s personal net worth.
Before we go, we should say we did reach out to Twitter and ask them to respond to what you just heard from employees about what’s been going on inside the company. They didn’t write back. The company has also said nothing publicly since the deal closed.
Twitter Blue: Where are the Blue Checks? What do we need to know? How will we know if you’ve gotten lucky with the Twitter Blue service?
Delaware Chancery Court chancellor Kathaleen St. Judge McCormick gave the parties until 5 p.m. on Oct. 28 to close the deal or face a rescheduled trial.
Such a move could also have ripple effects across the social media landscape. Although smaller than other social media firms, it has acted as a model for how the industry handles problematic content, including when it was first to ban President Trump after the January 6 Capitol riot.
“The long-term potential for Twitter, in my view, is an order of magnitude greater than its current value,” he said on Tesla’s earnings conference call last week.
Last weekend, as Musk’s reign began, news broke that he was implementing a plan to scrap the company’s current verification process, where a blue check mark signifies that someone is who they say they are. Under this new scheme, people will have to pay a monthly fee for verification as part of the company’s Twitter Blue service. Current verified accounts have 90 days to pony up or lose their status if it is not done by then.
Now, apparently, Elon did say something, like they’re going to have maybe some sort of separate legacy verification program for — I don’t know — government entities that aren’t going to pay the $8 a month. So there’s still a lot of details to be worked out here.
There is more than one reason why blue checks spread around platforms. They tell the world who sits in the VIP section. (Another reason why they were copied by other networks. They all wanted the same thing. It looks like Musk sees them as similar to a fancy timepiece or sneaker. Why not pay for it? Viewed as a premium accessory, this would-be clout tax looks logical enough.
Blue Check Mobs vs. Blue Check Mobsters in Elon World and Right-wing Media Landscape: Is There a Business Case for Charging?
A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. The daily digest will chronicle the evolving media landscape here.
Musk has decided to make news through seemingly off-the-cuff comments, just like Trump. For example, Musk disclosed that “the whole verification process is being revamped” in a random reply message to a photographer. Normally, such an announcement would be rolled out in a highly choreographed manner.
In fact, not only has Musk himself contaminated the information environment he now reigns over, but he is apparently working to dismantle the little infrastructure erected to help users sift through the daily chaos. According to recent news reports, he is going to take the blue verified badges of public figures if they don’t pay.
It could appear as a business story if you charge for verified badges. The move will have significant effects on the information landscape. Most notably, it will make it much more difficult for users to distinguish from authentic and inauthentic accounts.
Well, here’s my theory about it, real quick, is that I think that inside Elon world, and inside, frankly, a lot of right-wing sort of circles, there’s this idea of the blue checks, right? A bunch of people on Fox News and other conservative media outlets talk about blue check mobs of people on social media, mostly journalists who care a lot about their checkmarks.
WalterIsaacson, Musk’s authorized biographer, wrote on his verified account that the best way to save social networks, internet, civil discourse, democracy, email, and reduce hacking would be to authenticating users.
If it seems like we’re taking a long time talking about this, it’s worth mentioning that it’s important to know who is on the service because so many people use it. And so it’s like, if they’re starting to charge for it, if they’re introducing this new confusion into it, then the risk is that within a month or so, there’s just going to be way more misinformation, confusion, hoaxes, and scams on Twitter, because nobody knows who’s who.
At their best, these two Twitter styles are complementary. The inherent seriousness of Newswire Twitter heightens the humor and absurdity of Nonsense Twitter, and the style of Nonsense Twitter bleeds into Newswire Twitter, doing things like turning government consumer protection agencies into memelords. There’s even room for the occasional dose of chaos, like DPRK News: the fake North Korean propaganda feed that’s fooled several news outlets, including The Verge.
What Are the Changes Coming to Twitter and Why? A Power Reporter Vittoria Elliot discusses Elon Musk, Twitter, House of the Dragon and Natalia Lafourcade
It could be an argument for Musk’s new plan. If you’re Beyoncé or McDonald’s or the Associated Press, $240 a year isn’t much to pay for preserving that sense of trust.
This week on Gadget Lab, we talk with WIRED platforms and power reporter Vittoria Elliot about the changes coming to Twitter and how they may affect the future of the social network.
Vittoria covered the news of the takeover deal closing. Users are abandoning their old platforms in order to get access to other ones. Read more about the potential privacy risks that could arise from Elon cleaning house. Read Twitter users’ reactions to the power shift. Read all of our stories tagged with “Elon Musk.”
If your male friends are interested in having children, they could watch House of the Dragon. The new album from Natalia Lafourcade is recommended by Mike. Lauren recommends reevaluating your relationship with Twitter, and social media in general.
How Do You Get What You Want: Tuning In to GadgetLab to Listen To Solar Keys, a Radio Series Inspired By TikTok
Vittoria Elliott can be found on Twitter @telliotter. LaurenGoode is one of the people that I know. He is Michael Calore. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by a man named Boone Ashworth. Solar Keys is the music for our theme.
If you want to get every episode for free, here’s what you have to do: Listen to the show through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe, here’s how.
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The blue check system was not a panacea for fraud and other misinformation, but it helped the platform operate as it should have. There’s a reason why every other major social platform, including Facebook and TikTok, cribbed the blue badges for their own networks. They have been at least moderately helpful.
Life Under Musk Two Twitter Employees Talk Out: What’s Happening at a Major Tech Company, and Why Is It Happening There?
This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Before quoting from this transcript you need to review the audio and email transcripts@nytimes.com with any questions.
So usually, on this podcast, we’re going to try to bring people news from around the tech industry, give a more comprehensive sense of what’s happening in Silicon Valley. Right now, the only story anyone in tech cares about is what’s happening at the micro-Blogging website, 140 characters or less.
We are going to have a normal interview with them. We will not play them their voice, but we will record what they say, so that they don’t get in trouble or fired. And then, we’re going to feed those words back into a text-to-speech AI generator and play you an AI-generated version of their voice.
A very, very stressful time, and frankly, an unprecedented time. I’ve never heard about anything like this happening at a major tech company. We will interview the two current employees who are there at work, and we will talk to them after the break.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/04/podcasts/life-under-musk-two-twitter-employees-speak-out.html
Life Under Musk Two Twitter Employees Speak Out: Why Is This a Bad Thing? An Example From a Software Engineer’s Perspective
I like that when we started this show, we said we would never put on AI voices unless we had a really good reason and a really limited capacity. And now, twice in five episodes —
Well, you were wrong about Elon buying Twitter, and you were wrong about this not being a podcast filled with robot podcasters. There are two strikes for CASEY.
Yes. This is one of the times when you as a reporter get a tip that sounds so silly that you think it cannot possibly be true. When I received a tip that people were told to print out their code for 30 to 60 days, I was pretty sure that it was not true.
And in fact, two of my sources are like, uh, Casey, that doesn’t sound right to me. OK? But then, I start texting around, start getting on the phone with some folks, and then the two people that told me that I was wrong came back to me and said, oh my god, he’s actually asking people to print out their code!
So why is this funny? Why is this so interesting? This is a strange way to evaluate a software engineer. People are not judged by how many code they have written, right?
If you show up with a printout of 100 pages of code, that’s not necessarily a good thing. Maybe you could have done better for the company by eliminating some code. And then, sort of streamlining it. So.
Also, who prints code? Like, it’s not like — like, I was surprised that the coding programs actually have a Print button in them. Because that’s, like, not what you’re bringing to your daily review of your code.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/04/podcasts/life-under-musk-two-twitter-employees-speak-out.html
What the heck is the code printing fiasco at a big tech company? How Tesla engineers are worried about Twitter and how they are going to lose their Twitter accounts
Right. They had just been in a situation where their former chief security officer complained about their security practices, which resulted in a complaint being made by the whistle blower. The engineers are printing out and leaving the code base around the headquarters.
They get the notification two hours later. It’s like, change of plans. Elon and his folks, they still want to see your code. But why don’t you just bring it in on your laptop, and if you have printed out any code, we’re going to need you to shred it.
There is a boss in charge who doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing and everyone is just kind of laughing at him. But it’s not — it’s not the kind of thing that usually happens at a big tech company.
It’s not. Now, one thing that we should say is that the Elon folks are obsessed with figuring out who is a good engineer at the company, right? At the altar of the engineer, he worships very much. He thinks he’s an engineer.
And so I’ve talked to folks who are getting calls late at night from random Tesla engineers, saying things like, who’s really good on your team? What are the top performers? The low performers are who?
The code printed exercise was a part of an evaluation system in which they were trying to figure out who at this company they needed to keep the service running.
Who can we let go of? That is sort of a hidden piece of this. OK, so we have this code printing fiasco. Then, on Sunday, you reported that Twitter was considering tying verifications to Twitter Blue subscriptions, and explain what that means.
We don’t know how many people subscribe to the service. There has never been a metric released. What we know is that 89 percent of this company’s revenues comes from digital advertising, and the bulk of the rest comes from of selling access to their API.
Yeah. People, including Stephen King, the horror author — he tweeted, ”$20 a month to keep my blue check? If that gets instituted, I’m gone like Enron.”
Wait, let me just say, Stephen King has written about some of the most terrifying horrors imaginable, and nothing scared him more than the idea of paying $20 a month for his verification badge.
I got verified, like, a decade ago, because someone at the news company that I worked at put my name on a list, and all of a sudden, I had a checkmark by my name.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/04/podcasts/life-under-musk-two-twitter-employees-speak-out.html
How do you look at Twitter? A little checkmark that tells you who is you, and how you need to pay for it? What do you think?
This person is important and it isn’t about. The reason it was created was because people like Oprah had joined the social networking site many, many years ago, and there were already a lot of people pretending that they were Oprah. It was necessary to have a way to tell whether the person they were talking to was actually who they said they were.
I think that this is a necessary feature of the platform. Every platform that is social in some way has a feature like this — Facebook, Instagram, Snap, TikTok, right? The real Oprah is different from this one, you need a way to say that.
Right. And I think it’s fair to say that over the years, like, people have come to see these checkmarks next to your Twitter name as sort of a status symbol, right? Like, it means that you’re someone, it means that it —
Right, exactly. And so I think the idea initially coming out of the Elon war room was that people who were verified cared so much about being verified and staying verified, that they would pay for the privilege. And so that’s where we get this idea of $20 a month for verification.
Immediately afterwards, an entire timelines full of users refusing to pay $20 a month, results, as you said. That is more than I pay for. I pay more for videos on the internet than that.
That seems insane, just to keep my little check mark. Subsequently, Elon responds to Stephen King on Twitter and says, we need to pay the bills somehow. Advertisers don’t need to be completely relied on by Twitter. How about $8? Stephen King has become a pricing consultant.
And so for them, this seems like a way to make money, while at the same time, kind of punishing the blue checkmarks, which is just very, very different from how other social media platforms treat their creators.
It would be good if everyone wanted to verify their identity on most social networks. Like, that would be good for the credibility of the ecosystem overall. There are a lot of questions that have gone unanswered so far.
And it also just seems to me, like — I’m trying to keep an open mind. This could work. Power users of Twitter should be paying something for some of the features that are being talked about here.
It does create a lot of economic value for people like you and me. It matters to us. News organizations use all kinds of software to do various things. Maybe Twitter Blue should be part of that.
Right. So that’s not all that happened at Twitter this week. We had more than one executive leave. Chief Customer Officer Sarah Personette resigned. A number of other senior executives have also said they are leaving.
Life Under Musk Two Twitter Employees Speak Out: Vine vs. YouTube in the Era of Short-Form Video
Well, look, I loved Vine. People are very nostalgic about Vine for a reason. It ushered in the era of short-form video that we are living in today. Many people listening to the show can probably recite some of the lines from the movie.
I would say, like, not an immediate revenue driver. That is something that they are just going to have to put a lot of effort into. You’re essentially launching a new social network within Twitter. That is a very heavy lift. I think it could be fun to have a very popular American short-form video network that wasn’t owned by Facebook or YouTube. We have to see if they can do it.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/04/podcasts/life-under-musk-two-twitter-employees-speak-out.html
Living Under The Musk: Two Tweeters ‘Speak Out’ — Life Under Musk Two Twitter Employees — What Happens When They Stop Working
That’s right. They’re being told, you have days to ship this. If this does not ship by this date, in some cases, a date next week, you will be fired. If it is more than one hour past deadline, you will be fired.
So people are sleeping very little. They are sleeping in their offices, and frankly, some of them are terrified. Some of them are on work visas. If they lose their job, they have 60 days to find another one or leave the country. So it could not be more serious for the folks who have these jobs.
Welcome to “Hard Fork,” Mockingjay. So it is about 10:00 AM Pacific on Wednesday right now. How’s your day going so far? Today, anything noteworthy happen?
Every day seems to have the same cycle for last week, as everyone wakes up to more panic messages via various different channels. Most people have been smart enough to move away from chat and into other channels. We have no communications from anyone inside so we are trying to chase rumors.
Stressful. I feel like between trying to maintain this job that I have currently, while clearly looking for a way out, while having zero support and acknowledgment from the people above me, is very stressful. There have been several rumors mill-based scares.
Layoffs were supposed to happen Monday. They did not happen. The rumour says it is going to be Friday. It’s tiring. I know we are all paid really well.
Most of us have some savings to sit on. Some people don’t. It is a nerve-racking situation as we enter a really tough hiring market in tech. We are entering the holidays.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/04/podcasts/life-under-musk-two-twitter-employees-speak-out.html
Life Under Musk Two Twitter Employees Speaker Out: A Study of the Complaints by a New C-Suite Chief Executive
So just to really underline that, you have a new CEO at your company. Most of the C-suite has either been fired or resigned and you have not received a game plan for the next few days.
That is 100% accurate. We have received zero information, other than what gets trickled down to us. Comms is incredibly sparse. There is really nobody answering, even messages in the company-wide channels.
And so what is that like, when, day to day, you wake up, and it’s almost like a scavenger hunt across seven different apps, just to figure out what you’re supposed to be doing?
You have probably heard, and you have been reporting on some of the infamous code reviews. I have seen examples of people saying that code was written entirely by them and not crediting people who collaborated with them, all in hope that they will be on some preferred status list.
Absolutely. What they are asking for is volume, not quality. Everybody is sharing the code they have ever written no matter how insignificant or garbage it is. [SIGHS]
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/04/podcasts/life-under-musk-two-twitter-employees-speak-out.html
I can’t cope — a response to a manager’s message about working at a corporate social media site (The Boundary Times)
I reported on a message from a manager who said that if you don’t know what you are working on, then work on something. Work on anything.
I was sent a post from Blind and I want you to read it. Blind is this app where you sort of log in with your work email, and then you can have these pseudonymous chats about what’s happening at your company.
And multiple people have sent me this post. And I wonder if you’ve seen it. And I’m not going to read the whole thing. The headline is “I can’t cope.”
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/04/podcasts/life-under-musk-two-twitter-employees-speak-out.html
Life Under Musk Two Twitter Employees Say Out: It’s Breaking Time for Elon, but I’m A Breaking Point
And it reads, “I’m on the 24/7 team working to make all of Elon’s ridiculous dreams come true. Management have repeatedly threatened to fire us if we miss delivery, even if it’s totally outside our control. We’re not going to work if we don’t work at weekends. We’re not going if we takePTO or leave.
People are working ridiculous hours. I work at a full pace of 20 hours per day. I wake up at night to attend status calls. When I am not at work, I still worry about it. I can not deal with it. I am an absolute mess. I’m at a breaking point. This has been after just a few days of Elon.
So there are two camps at Twitter right now, the people who are being completely ignored until they get fired and the people who are being pulled into these task forces. I think the better place is to be in the people who are being ignored and will be fired.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/04/podcasts/life-under-musk-two-twitter-employees-speak-out.html
My Heart goes out to this person. Life Under Musk Two Twitter Employees Speak Out: How I Wanna Say Thank You, and How I Can Help Them
My heart goes out to this person. I hope they are able to find gainful employment, and in that four hours while they are trying to sleep and take care of themselves, applying to jobs.
And I sincerely hope that there is care taken for people who are on visas. The people I know who are on visas do not know what will happen to them. And they have not been told anything.
So this is more than just privileged tech people crying because we’re moving from one six-figure salary to another six-figure salary. These are people who are trying to immigrate to this country and have gainful employment and do a good job, who are highly skilled.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/04/podcasts/life-under-musk-two-twitter-employees-speak-out.html
Life Under The Muscle: Two Twitter Employees Speakers Out Of The Misleading Scenario That Twitter Had Be Inadequacies
Twitter has gone through phases in its lifetime. But at least leading up to this whole fiasco, I can’t think of a better place to work. People were respectful. People were honest. And people had legitimate goals.
So I do not think, though, it is because engineers and people are sitting on their hands. The way this company is structured makes it almost impossible to get anything done, whether it is trying to get proper approvals through Byzantine processes or not, not being told how things are changing from day to day. So there is some truth to that statement. This is not the best way to deal with it.
If you have been considering the degree to which that could be at risk, and what fears you have about the future of the service, I think you might be interested in this.
I would love to think that everybody on Twitter is going to leave in protest. But the reality of the situation is a lot of people may stay. But it’s going to be interesting to see who stays.
Now that community is being shifted and changed. The platform has heavy speakers on it. And it’s not just people leaving the platform. The content that is popular on the platform is changing towards more niche communities. It was an unfortunate direction that Twitter was already headed in anyway.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/04/podcasts/life-under-musk-two-twitter-employees-speak-out.html
Life Under Musk Two Twitter Employees Speak Out. A Brief Recap on the Explanation of the Scenario for ‘Integrability Injuries’
Scared and relieved. It will be frightening to not have an income. But at the same time, I hope that all of us who get fired will just get to chill out for a day or so, and then wake up on a couple of days later and say, all right, got to get that resume out there. Got to be energized about these other jobs, because right now it’s sucking the life out of us.
Uncertainty. There are people that aren’t sure if they should keep doing their work. The pile of unknowns and everything that has been reported on causes a constant stress because we only have so much information.
Privacy concerns or the misuse of new features would be raised in the lowest parts of engineering. They write random code that no one will ever see for their only job, like the piping behind the scenes. The company had a good culture of letting people speak to these things. It caught our attention before it even made it to the public.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/04/podcasts/life-under-musk-two-twitter-employees-speak-out.html
Life Under Musk Two Twitter Employees-Speak Out: What Did he Tell Us Before You Came Into the Company? What Did He Tell Us?
No one really knew about it. I guess there was a group of people that thought this guy was not a nice person. There were a lot of people who thought he should have been banned decades ago for his behavior. Everything came from there.
I mean, he’s certainly been more aggressively attaching himself to various political viewpoints and their talking points. If it serves him, he will lean into it.
I will say, having been there for a number of years, the company has grown in a lot of ways, and some not so good. I agree with people when they say there’s too many managers. Maybe it takes a little too long to deliver. Management has never been the company’s strong point.
So that aside, you don’t go through any change like this without some massive structural change. What is the point if he just came in and did the same thing?
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/04/podcasts/life-under-musk-two-twitter-employees-speak-out.html
Life Under Musk Two Twitter Employers-Speak Out: An Idea that We Should Move Faster Than We Have Been Prior to Now
Okay. There is an idea that suggests that we should move faster than we have been. We’ve been hearing from someone that, if you don’t ship this thing by Monday, you will be fired. As an engineer, when you hear that you have a three – or four-day deadline, what does that do to you?
I have lost my mind. It is normal for us to need to have this done by Friday because our priorities have shifted. That’s a little stressful. Maybe put in a few more hours. It’s necessary to get it done. Makes sense.
But I think the major differentiator here is just the sheer scale. I wouldn’t get asked at work to completely revamp Twitter Blue by Friday. That is completely absurd.
And the sheer number of systems that need to be touched on, the number of engineers that have to be dragged in, that’s like raising the Titanic from the bottom of the ocean.
It isn’t as though there is just a certain set of code that needs to be written. You also have to coordinate with a lot of other people, right?
Yeah. Well, I mean, if you look at some of the feature sets that have been reported on that he wants to add in, like ranking blue check users higher than others, where that ranking occurs in the stack. They have to completely reshift how that entire process works. There are whole services in the company that we have to go figure out.
Yeah. Like if somebody had come to you and said, we want to redo Twitter Blue, what would be the time frame that you would be given that would make you say, yeah, that seems like a reasonable amount of time to do that?
It’s up to you. It would take quite a long time due to the slow pace of the Twitter platform. We’re more concerned with reliability than we are moving fast.
But feature-wise, I guess if I had to give a round-about time frame, there would probably be something that could possibly be deployed within a quarter to two quarters.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/04/podcasts/life-under-musk-two-twitter-employees-speak-out.html
Life Under Musk Two Twitter Employees-Speak Out: An Engineering Problem, A Social Problem and a Human-Human Cross-Correlation
And not only is this an engineering problem, it’s a social problem. We need to do testing. We need to figure out how this can be abused. What are people going to do with it? What are the Bitcoin bros going to do to try to steal more of people’s money abusing this feature?
Right. And that’s what goes on with all major releases at a big social network, is trying to figure out, we change this feature, what are the 10 other things that happen? You’re essentially saying that these deadlines are so short that this stuff will be released without any of the testing or scrutiny needed to figure out what could go wrong. They are going to be free.
Yeah. There’s one section about user privacy and privacy data. We don’t do anything with user data so we don’t worry about that And then now it’s just a blue check on a profile.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/04/podcasts/life-under-musk-two-twitter-employees-speak-out.html
Elon Musk at Twitter HQ: Making Sense of the Changes in the Social Media Landscape and the Opportunities to Serve ads to people that weren’t logged in
There are a couple of things. And it depends on where you are in the leadership stack, as far as Musk and his people. Generally the one overarching message that did get communicated was, find something cool that you like. And hopefully Musk likes it functionally.
Think about it. If you present him an idea and he thinks it’s cool, he wants it done within a week. You have sacrificed every team in the way you have.
Elon Musk has been busy over at Twitter HQ. Aside from tweeting and deleting a conspiracy theory, he’s talked about implementing some big changes at his $44 billion acquisition. Here’s what’s happened so far:
I mean, one of the first decisions he made was to redirect the logged-out view to the Explore page. And I don’t know this for certain, but my basic understanding of the goal here was that we might even be able to serve ads to people that aren’t logged in.
And so just real quick, so what that means is, before Musk, when you were not logged into Twitter, you’d just basically see a box asking you to log in.
Vine: Is it really a vine? What can we learn from it? How to make ethereal horror movies out of nothing
The idea of a vine is not a bad one. I mean, the cynical part of me says, too little, too late. You know? TikTok is TikTok, and that’s a mighty hill to climb.
But also sure. We have the original content from Vine. The nostalgia factor gives us a foothold in marketing and we can even launch something.
But we at least have the media, and trying to build a product like that, we’ve been working on that for a while. I’m pretty sure every tech company has tried. Is this something that we can do? There have been mock-ups.
It would be the most boring. You could probably make a really interesting ethereal horror movie out of just constantly walking around with nothing.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/04/podcasts/life-under-musk-two-twitter-employees-speak-out.html
Life Under Musk Two Tweetees Speak Out: How the Company Becomes More Important than It Has Been Learned
There is no communication. So the only people talking are people in a corner. But it’s not like, oh, the whole company went to an all-hands and learned what’s happening. Everybody is asking if we are ever going to see him. Should I keep doing my work? Do they even serve lunch anymore?
We don’t know what could happen to your job. Do you want to work atTwitter in three months? Or do you feel like you’re ready to be somewhere else?
It is true about culture. I mean, culture seeps through the product. The company behaved badly because people cared so much. And that can be infuriating in its own ways.
People have seen this. So now we’re moving into the phase equivalent to “move fast and break things,” with no care for the people who are using it, which just sort of defeats the point.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/04/podcasts/life-under-musk-two-twitter-employees-speak-out.html
Life Under Musk Two Twitter Employees Speak Out: A Podcast About the Work Hours, Labor Law Litigation and Black Hole Crimes
He is reading the news about the work hours. And he’s been wildly speculating about what kind of labor law lawsuits are going to come out.
The closest we can get to understanding their point of view is Musk, who has used his social media account to convey his opinion about what it means to have a blue checkmark. He changed his bio to include the location of a complaint hotline.
And if people want to send you any huge scoops about what’s happening at Twitter, you can send those right over to Casey. His email address is Kevin. Roose —
Davis Land produced the song “Hard Fork”. Paula Szuchman is the editor. This episode was fact checked by Caitlin Love. The show was engineered today by Cory Schreppel.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/04/podcasts/life-under-musk-two-twitter-employees-speak-out.html
What is going on in the stock market? An update on the Fed chairman’s remarks on inflation and its impact on investors’ perceptions of the Fed
Original music by Dan Powell, Elisheba Ittoop, and Marion Lozano. With special thanks to Hanna Ingber, Nell Gallogly, Kate LoPresti, Shannon Busta, Mahima Chablani, and Jeffrey Miranda.
A version of this story first appeared in CNN Business’ Before the Bell newsletter. Not a subscriber? You can sign up right here. You can listen to an audio version of the newsletter by clicking the same link.
There is a question about what will happen at the Federal Reserve meeting in December. Fed officials say they are going to use economic data to make their next decision and analysts can guess all they want.
That means key housing, labor, and inflation reports will have outsized effects on the market when investors think about the future of interest rates.
What’s happening: The Federal Reserve Chair had just a few words on Wednesday, and he crushed investors hopes of an interest rate pivot and caused stocks to plunge. Powell said that the Fed has a way to go in fighting inflation. “It’s very premature, in my view, to think about or be talking about pausing.”
The central bank also doesn’t think inflation will start to fall back until next year. policymakers warned that more interest rate hikes were needed in the coming months.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/04/investing/premarket-stocks-trading/index.html
Premarket Stocks Trading: Implications of the Labor Ratio and Core CPI Measures for the Economy and the Consumer Price Index
The government report will show that the economy added another 200,000 jobs in October, but still a very solid number as demand for employment continues to overwhelm supply of labor.
That means that inflation will go up. Businesses have to pay higher wages to attract employees and are able to charge more for their goods and services. The wage report will be looked at closely by the Fed. In September, wages rose by 5% from a year ago.
There is a possible upside: Another jobs report in December is expected ahead of the Fed meeting. If both reports show a decline in employment, it could be enough for the Fed to take comfort in a historically low unemployment rate.
Core CPI prices, which exclude oil and food, rose 0.6% in September month-over-month, matching August’s pace and coming in well above expectations of a 0.4% increase, not a great sign for the Fed. In October, the analysts expect to see another big increase.
PCE reflects changes in the prices of goods and services purchased by consumers in the United States. The Fed thinks the measure is less accurate than theCPI, because it takes into account a broader range of purchases.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/04/investing/premarket-stocks-trading/index.html
The Bank of England and the Fed: Premarket Stocks Trading in the Presence of a Two-Year Inflationary Recession
One of the first areas of the economy to begin to show signs of cooling is the housing market, which has been greatly impacted by the Fed.
The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.95% last week, up from 3.09% just a year ago, and elevated borrowing costs are leading to a decline in demand.
“The housing market was very overheated for the couple of years after the pandemic as demand increased and rates were low,” said Powell on Wednesday. That is where the biggest effect of our policies is.
The Bank of England raised interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point on Thursday, the biggest increase in 33 years, in order to fight soaring inflation.
A two-year recession would be longer than the one that followed the 2008 global financial crisis, though the Bank of England said that any declines in GDP heading into 2024 would likely be relatively small.
Several Twitter employees have already filed a class action lawsuit claiming that the layoffs violate the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act.
The email added that “to help ensure the safety” of employees and Twitter’s systems, the company’s offices “will be temporarily closed and all badge access will be suspended.”
Under the WARN Act, any company with more than 100 employees that plans to cut 50 jobs or more must give 60 days’ written notice.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/04/investing/premarket-stocks-trading/index.html
Trump is not the sole director of Twitter, or why Twitter is a blue checkmark for the people? An open letter from Musk on Twitter last week against the adversarial nature of Twitter
The company filing states that all previous members of Twitter’s board, including recently ousted CEO Parag Agrawal and chairman Bret Taylor, are no longer directors “in accordance with the terms of the merger agreement.” That makes Musk, according to the filing, “the sole director of Twitter.”
In a tweet, the world’s richest man used an expletive to describe his assessment of “Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark.” He added: “Power to the people! Blue for $8/month.”
In the hours before cementing his acquisition, Musk wrote an open letter to advertisers explaining that he did not want the platform to become a free-for-all hellscape. But that attempt at reassuring the advertising industry, which makes up the vast majority of Twitter’s business, doesn’t appear to be working.