Trump is a Bullsh*t Artist: Musk’s Twitter Phenomenology on the Left, and the Case for a Re-election Address
That means a Musk-owned Twitter is, at the very least, a distinct possibility. I understand why people on the left feel this way. Musk’s politics are shaped by a fondness for trolling and a hatred of wokeness, and he’s likely to make the site a more congenial place for racist demagogues and conspiracy theorists. Among other things, he’s promised to reinstate Donald Trump, whose account was suspended after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Other far-right figures may not be far behind, along with Russian propagandists, Covid deniers and the like. This could make American public life even more crazy, because of the outsize influence thatTwitter has on politics and the media.
Musk promised at a conference that he would reverse the ban if he became the company’s owner.
The relationship between the pair has soured since, with the men trading barbs over the summer. When Trump referred to Musk as a “bullsh*t artist” at the July rally, Musk responded by saying it was time for Trump to hang up his hat.
Twitter is the Skinner box: Musk’s Twitter Takeover vs. his Plan for a Better World, Enberg Revisited
More than that, professional utility ties me to the site. Twitter hooks people in much the same way slot machines do, with what experts call an “intermittent reinforcement schedule.” Most of the time, it’s repetitive and uninteresting, but occasionally, at random intervals, some compelling nugget will appear. B.F. Skinner’s research shows that rats and pigeons are good at generating impulse 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. She said that is what they have built. It is one reason people should know better how to self-destruct on the site.
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 said in Thursday’s post that the platform must be warm and welcoming to all so that people can choose their experience according to their preferences. “Fundamentally, Twitter aspires to be the most respected advertising platform in the world that strengthens your brand and grows your enterprise … Let us build something extraordinary together.”
Sarah Personette said she had a good discussion with Musk on Wednesday. “Our continued commitment to brand safety for advertisers remained unchanged,” Personette said. Looking forward to the future!
Insider Intelligence principal analyst Jasmine Enberg said Musk has good reason to avoid a massive shakeup of Twitter’s ad business because Twitter’s revenues have taken a beating from the weakening economy, months of uncertainty surrounding Musk’s proposed takeover, changing consumer behaviors and the fact that “there’s no other revenue source waiting in the wings.”
Musk reiterated that the acquisition isn’t intended to be a money-making venture for him in the letter.
The company’s C-suite appears almost completely cleared out, thanks to a mix of firings and resignations, less than a week after Musk acquired it. Musk has dissolved the former board of directors.
The acquisition also promises to extend Musk’s 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 which affects how hundreds of millions of people communicate and get their news.
Musk also pledged to “defeat the spam bots or die trying,” referring to the fake and scam accounts that are often especially active in the replies to his tweets and those of others with large followings on the platform.
Twitter, the Deal, and the Public: The Fate of Musk and the Case for a Breakup of the Musk-Talako Deal
The parties were told to sign the deal or face a new trial.
“While slightly easing content moderation on the platform is sure to scare advertisers, many of whom already feel that the company’s brand safety tools are 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.
Jay Sullivan, the general manager of consumer and revenue product, has been the leader inside of the company since Musk proclaimed that he wanted to buy it again. The meeting that was to have been held with employees was canceled just after employees received a calendar invite for a “quick informal check in” call with him.
The absence of the CEO who Musk had begun talking about joining the board has been noted by many employees. “He has been completely absent for weeks,” one current Twitter employee, who requested anonymity to speak without the company’s permission, said of Argawal. “He has ghosted us,” said another. The Blind section of the Twitter employee-only platform was full of similar comments about Argawal.
The execs received handsome payouts for their trouble, Insider reports: Agrawal got $38.7 million, Segal got $25.4 million, Gadde got $12.5 million, and Personette, who tweeted yesterday about how excited she was for Musk’s takeover, got $11.2 million.
Musk was scheduled to be deposed on October 6th and 7th, after having moved his deposition from late September. The contract he had with his lawyers was a day before the deposition was to take place. That deposition was probably going to be uncomfortable; a judge found that Musk likely deleted Signal messages that were 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.
The Supreme Court will decide whether or not to penalize the social networking site for providing illegal content, as they face challenges to its free speech stance.
Melon Musk Takes Control of Twitter and Immediately-ousts Top Executives: Insights from a Top Executive’s Dilemma
Although they came quickly, the major personnel moves had been widely expected and almost certainly are the first of many major changes the mercurial Tesla 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.
He used social media to criticize the company’s top lawyer. His tweets were followed by a wave of harassment of Gadde from other Twitter accounts. The harassment included misogynistic attacks and racist attacks, as well as the calls for Musk to fire her. On Thursday, after she was fired, the harassing tweets lit up once again.
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.”
But it’s also a realization that having no content moderation is bad for business, putting Twitter at risk of losing advertisers and subscribers, she said.
Yildirim said that the platform does not take responsibility for consumers being bombarded with things they don’t want to hear about.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/27/1132153277/elon-musk-takes-control-of-twitter-and-immediately-ousts-top-executives
Twitter HQ: What Elon Musk is Changing about the Twitter Deal and How it Will Fail for Advertisers to Make More Money
But Musk has been signaling that the deal is going through. He strolled into the company’s San Francisco headquarters Wednesday carrying a porcelain sink, changed his Twitter profile to “Chief Twit,” and tweeted “Entering Twitter HQ — let that sink in!”
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.
Musk’s apparent enthusiasm about visiting Twitter headquarters this week stood in sharp contrast to one of his earlier suggestions: The building should be turned into a homeless shelter because so few employees actually worked there.
Elon Musk will begin laying off Twitter employees on Friday morning, according to a memo sent to staff, as several Twitter employees file a class action lawsuit alleging the layoffs are in violation of labor law.
A note to advertisers on Thursday emphasizes the need for advertisers to make more money, especially if they want to see more “relevant ads” that collect and analyze users’ personal information.
A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. Sign up for the daily digest chronicling the evolving media landscape here.
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. Recent news reports, including from CNN, indicate that he plans to strip public figures and institutions of their blue verified badges if they do not pay.
Charging for verified badges might appear at first glance as a business story. But the move will have significant ramifications on the information landscape. It will make it difficult for people to differentiate authentic and inauthentic accounts.
For the last several years, the right has criticized “blue checks”, whom they believe represent an aristocracy who control the conversation. Taking away the free blue checks and giving the authority to use them to profile will be a delight for conservatives.
The Musk era was a great man, but Twitter did not act before laying off employees: A class action lawsuit alleging violations of the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act
Musk’s authorized biographer, Walter Isaacson, tweeted in 2018 that “the best thing” one could do to “save social networks, the internet, civil discourse, democracy, email, and reduce hacking would be authenticating users.”
CNN obtained a copy of the email that says if your employment is not impacted, you’ll receive a notification via your social media accounts. “If your employment is impacted, you will receive a notification with next steps via your personal email.”
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.”
The class action lawsuit filed Thursday alleges Twitter is in violation of the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN Act) after laying off some employees already.
The WARN Act requires that an employer with more than 100 workers give 60 days’ advance notice before mass layoffs at a single site.
Attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan who filed the lawsuit said that the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, thinks complying with federal labor laws is trivial. “We have filed this federal complaint to ensure that Twitter be held accountable to our laws and to prevent Twitter employees from unknowingly signing away their rights.”
The Covid PLANdemic: Where do you come from? What’s going on? Where do we stand now? Where are we going?
“The Covid PLANdemic was created by Big Pharma to silence me. She said that everybody tries to silence her. Please speak in a lower volume. I’m sorry, am I too loud for your precious intensive care unit? You aren’t even sick!”
I’d like to speak with you. Your profile is hilarious. Schumer was dressed in a red dress and said she loved funny guys. I was told that I was a bot. I’m all woman and I love funny guys like you. You should check out the website where I 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 had his account banned in 2021.
“Yes, we’ve all moved to Truth Social, and we love Truth Social. It’s very great,” Johnson’s Trump said. In a lot of ways it’s terrible. It’s very bad. Very, very bad. It is a little buggy, in terms of making the phone screen crack, and the automatically draining of the Venmo.