Elon Musk and Twitter: The Aftermath of the Trump-Wilf Trade, and How the World Has Come Into Being Shutted
Elon Musk has completed his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter, a source familiar with the deal told CNN Thursday, putting the world’s richest man in charge of one of the world’s most influential social media platforms.
Musk said at the conference that he would get rid of the ban if he became the company’s owner.
Relations between the pair seem to have soured with the men making public statements over the summer. After Trump called Musk a “bullsh*t artist” at a rally in July, Musk responded by tweet, writing, “I don’t hate the man, but it’s time for Trump to hang up his hat & sail into the sunset.”
But more than professional utility ties me to the site. Slot machines hook people in much the same way that Twitter does, according to experts. Most of the time, it’s repetitive and uninteresting, but occasionally, at random intervals, some compelling nugget will appear. Unpredictable rewards, as the behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner found with his research on rats and pigeons, are particularly good at generating compulsive behavior.
“I don’t know that Twitter engineers ever sat around and said, ‘We are creating a Skinner box,’” said Natasha Dow Schüll, a cultural anthropologist at New York University and author of a book about gambling machine design. But that, she said, is essentially what they’ve built. One reason that people should know better is that they can’t stay away from the site.
There was a lawsuit filed against Musk for faking the bot argument in order to get out of the deal. The stock market declined in the weeks that followed the deal being announced as investors worried about inflation and a recession. The downturn hit Musks personal net worth.
The acquisition will allow Musk to exert more influence. 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. He controls a social media platform that shapes how hundreds of millions of people communicate.
The fake and scam accounts that are usually active in replies to Musk’s comments are promised to be defeated or die trying.
Twitter vs. Tesla: A Case Study of a Deal with Musk and Musk on Twitter in the Early Stages of Wall-Bond Arbitration
The parties were given until 5PM on October 28 to get the deal done or face a new trial.
“For advertisers, even a little easing of moderation is sure to make them nervous since they find the platform to be lacking compared with other social platforms,” Enberg said.
“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.
Since Musk suddenly proclaimed he actually wanted to buy Twitter again earlier this month, Twitter’s most internally visible leader has been Jay Sullivan, the general manager of consumer and revenue product. He has been holding regular listening sessions with employees, but on Thursday, shortly after employees received a calendar invite for a “quick informal check in” call with him at 7:35PM ET, the meeting was cancelled “until further notice” without explanation.
Yoel Roth is the Head of Safety and Integrity at the company. In recent days, he has tweeted about the company’s efforts to address a surge in hateful rhetoric on the platform, and Musk on Twitter encouraged users to follow him for “the most accurate understanding of what’s happening with trust & safety at Twitter.”
The execs got huge payouts for their troubles, with the highest paid of them being Agrawal, who got $38.7 million, Segal, $25.4 million and Personette, who got $11.2 million.
Musk was scheduled to be deposed on October 6th and 7th, after having moved his deposition from late September. He announced he’d honor the contract his lawyers negotiated after all just days before the deposition was to take place. The deposition was going to be uncomfortable and the judge found that Musk probably deleted Signal messages relevant to the case. The deposition was delayed as Musk and Twitter worked toward a deal; Musk even received a court order halting proceedings to allow the deal to close by October 28th.
Twitter faces challenges to its free speech stance in court, as the Supreme Court agreed to take up two cases that will determine its liability for illegal content.
The CEO’s first big move: takes control of twitter and immediately-ousts top executives, and how he feels about it
The major personnel moves had been anticipated and will likely be the first of a number of changes the CEO will make.
Musk privately clashed with Agrawal in April, immediately before deciding to make a bid for the company, according to text messages later revealed in court filings.
About the same time, he used Twitter to criticize Gadde, the company’s top lawyer. There’s a wave of harassment of Gadde from other accounts. Racist and misogynistic attacks, and calls for Musk to fire her, are just some of the things that harassment has included for 11-year employee, Gadde, who also heads public policy and safety. The harassment went up again after she was fired.
In his first big move earlier on Thursday, Musk tried to soothe leery Twitter advertisers saying that he is buying the platform to help humanity and doesn’t want it to become a “free-for-all hellscape.”
He continued: “There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far right wing and far left wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society.”
The note is a shift from Musk’s position that Twitter is unfairly infringing on free speech rights by blocking misinformation or graphic content, said Pinar Yildirim, associate professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.
It’s also a realization that the risk of losing advertisers and subscribers is greater if you have no content moderation.
“You do not want a place where consumers are bombarded with things they do not like, and the platform takes no responsibility,” Yildirim said.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/27/1132153277/elon-musk-takes-control-of-twitter-and-immediately-ousts-top-executives
The Times of Musk, the Walls, and the Information Landscape: Why Do We Live in a World Without Blue Checks? Or Why Should We Care About “Chief Twitt”?
But Musk has been signaling that the deal is going through. He walked into the San Francisco headquarters on Wednesday carrying a porcelain sink and changed his name to “Chief Twitt” on his social media accounts.
And overnight the New York Stock Exchange notified investors that it will suspend trading in shares of Twitter before the opening bell Friday in anticipation of the company going private under Musk.
Sarah Personette, CFO of the company, said that she had a ” great discussion” with Musk on Wednesday, and appeared to endorse his Thursday message to advertisers.
Musk’s proposal to turn the building into a homeless shelter was in sharp contrast to his enthusiastic visit to the headquarters this week.
The Washington Post reported last week that Musk told potential investors that he would cut at least three quarters of the company’s work force. There are documents and unnamed sources cited by the newspaper.
Insider Intelligence principal analyst Jasmine Enberg said Musk has reason to avoid a massive shake up of the ad business, since it’s taken a beating from the weak economy and months of uncertainty surrounding Musk’s proposed takeover.
Musk gave credence to a fringe conspiracy theory about the brutal attack on Paul Pelosi when he was on the platform. Musk criticized the media outlets that reported on his irresponsible behavior. He trollED The New York Times and criticized The Guardian for being a far left wing propaganda machine.
A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. The evolving media landscape is covered in the daily digest.
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 will strip public figures and institutions of their blue verified badges if they don’t pay.
It may appear as a business story if you charge for verified badges. The move will have an impact on the information landscape. It will make it harder for people to distinguish between authentic and inauthentic accounts.
The right has for years lashed out at “blue checks,” whom in their eyes represent elitist gatekeepers who control the conversation, even though many conservatives also don blue badges. Taking away those free blue checks, and the air of authority they give upon the profile they are appended to, will certainly delight some conservatives.
What Will the Future of Twitter Tell Us? Discussion of Musk’s New Twitter Biographer, David Sack, and the New Twitter Exec
One way to save social networks, the internet, civil discourse, democracy, email, and reduce hacking is by authenticating users, according to Musk’s authorized biographer.
According to reports Musk has brought in a partner from Craft Valley, David Sack, as he looks to manage the company and come up with new products.
Nick Caldwell, general manager of core technology, has changed his Twitter bio to “former Twitter Exec,” and Jay Sullivan, general manager of consumer and revenue products, removed the company and his title from his Twitter bio. The New York Times also reported Tuesday that Chief Marketing Officer Leslie Berland had left the company; on Tuesday night she tweeted a single blue heart.
Calacanis earlier this week bragged that he was in New York on the side of a meeting with the marketing and advertising community. He has also tweeted questions to Twitter users about the platform’s subscription and bookmark features.
The new Twitter owner has said he plans to establish a new content moderation council, comprised of “representatives with widely divergent views” to help determine Twitter’s policies. For now, he has stressed that the platform’s policies have not yet changed.
We talk with WIRED about the changes that will come to Twitter and what it might mean for the future of the social network.
Your male-presenting friends would be better off if you encouraged them to watch House of the Dragon. Mike recommends the new album from Natalia Lafourcade, De Todas las Flores. Lauren suggests that you re-examine your relationship with social media.
Tune in to Solar Keys – Episode 8 : Vittoria Elliott, Lauren Goode, Boone Ashworth, Spotify, Spotify and RSS feed
Vittoria Elliott can be found on Twitter @telliotter. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. The person is Michael Calore. The main hotline should be blinged out. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our music is based on Solar Keys.
You can always listen to this week’s podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here’s how:
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Why Steve Jobs was so successful at what he did, and why he didn’t post any profit for 17 years after taking over Tesla
At the time, Jobs had been developing personal computers for 20 years, his entire adult life. He had founded and led the team that created the flagship product when he was running the company. He left Apple and founded another company with a different approach to the internet and operating systems. Plus, he was Steve Jobs. He would be the one who could quickly turn around the computer giant. It took him a long time to come up with a plan. When he showed the iMac to me in May, it would help Apple return to being in the black but it was the success of the iPod and the iPhone that made it a profit machine. And Apple’s post-PC future wasn’t even on Jobs’ road map in 1998.
Musk need not look farther than his own successful enterprises to realize the absurdity of his haste. When he took over Tesla in 2008, the company was already five years old. 17 years after being incorporated, Musk turned the company around, but it didn’t post an annual profit until 2020. Musk deservedly gets a lot of credit for what Tesla has achieved—and for, among other things, his persistence. The other company that Musk has is private and doesn’t report earnings. It takes years to even launch a rocket ship successfully, and cutting corners can lead to people being killed.
The Covid Plandemic: It is Banned in 2021 Against The Influence of the JAMJJ on U.S. President Donald Trump
“The Covid PLANdemic was created by Big Pharma to silence me. She said that everyone tries to silence her. “Ma’am, please speak at a lower volume. I’m sorry, am I too loud for your precious intensive care unit? You aren’t even sick!”
“Hi. Your profile is hilarious. Schumer was dressed as a robot and said that she loved funny guys. It’s crazy that they said I was a bot. I love laughing with funny guys like you. In fact, you should check out this website where me and some other girls hang out.”
But the most notable person to speak in front of the council: former president Donald Trump, played by James Austin Johnson. Trump’s account was banned in 2021.
We love Truth Social and have moved to it. The person speaking said it was very great. It is terrible in many ways. It’s very bad. Very, very bad. It’s a little buggy in terms of making the phone screen crack, and the automatically draining of the Venmo.”
Kathy Griffin’s Twitter account was suspended after she switched her screen name to Musk and Valerie Bertinelli’s on a Mastodon platform
“Any accounts that impersonate without clearly specifying “parody” will be permanently suspended,” Musk wrote. Since it is rolling out “widespread verification,” there will be no warning.
Kathy Griffin’s account was suspended on Sunday after she switched her screen name to Musk. She told the reporter that she used his profile photo as well.
I think not all the content moderators were let go. She was making fun of herself on Mastodon, an alternative social media platform where she opened an account last week.
Actor Valerie Bertinelli had similarly appropriated Musk’s screen name — posting a series of tweets in support of Democratic candidates on Saturday before switching back to her true name. Okey, dokey. I’ve had fun I think I made my point.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/11/07/1134689246/musk-threatens-to-boot-twitter-account-impersonators
Twitter Safety and Integrity: What Elon Musk’s Bounds About Corporate Takeover Have Done Before launching the Blue Verification Checkmark
The original purpose of the blue verification checkmark was noted before the stunt. It was free of charge to the people whose identity had been confirmed by staff of the micro- networking site. It was simply saying your identity had been verified. Scammers would have a harder time impersonating you,” Bertinelli noted.
It said the service would first be available in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the U.K. However, it was not available Sunday and there was no indication when it would go live. A Twitter employ, Esther Crawford, told The Associated Press it is coming “soon but it hasn’t launched yet.”
Like Griffin, some Twitter users have already begun migrating from the platform — Counter Social is another popular alternative — following layoffs that began Friday that reportedly affected about half of Twitter’s 7,500-employee workforce. They fear a breakdown of moderation and verification could create a disinformation free-for-all on what has been the internet’s main conduit for reliable communications from public agencies and other institutions.
The head of Twitter’s safety and integrity, Yoel Roth, tried to make sense of the situation in a Friday message. He said the company’s front-line content moderation staff was the group least affected by the job cuts.
The matter at hand is not simply the job losses that have decimated his former coworkers, nor the ability for people to say what they want on the internet. It’s about upholding and protecting democracy. It isn’t clear to me whether or not Musk understands the magnitude of social responsibility that rests on his shoulders and the hurt that can come from social media platforms.
Perez, who is a board member at the OSET Institute, which is dedicated to election security and integrity, says that he is concerned that the drama around corporate takeover is sucking up all the oxygen in the room. The focus on the Musk psycho drama may result in inadequate attention to election-related issues.
Before becoming Twitter’s CEO, owner, and “Chief Twit,” Elon Musk had often lobbed criticism at the platform for its approach to content moderation, even going so far as to target the company’s former policy chief Vijaya Gadde. Many activists, journalists, and advocates outside the US, where the majority of users reside, are worried about how the company is being run with no board or shareholders.
David Kaye is a professor of law at the University of California, Irvine and was a UN special rapporteur on the right to freedom of opinion and expression.
Piele states that countries with large online populations like Turkey, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Pakistan are attractive markets for the company as it looks to grow its revenue and increase its users. All of the countries have had battles with social media companies. Following the deletion of a post from the president of Nigeria’s account, the Nigerian government ordered the blocking of all internet service providers. The ban was lifted after Twitter agreed to pay taxes in the country.
Access Now’s policy director is worried that the lawsuit may not go on under Musk. In his countersuit, Musk stated that the lawsuit in India was a chance for the company to leave the third largest market. It would be a victory for the Indian government, that they had actions that were unconstitutional. “It also sends a signal to the global tech industry, saying ‘Back off, don’t try to do more.’”