The Twitter Controversy: How Mr. Musk Can Reverse the Permaban on Twitter, And What Will He Reverse?
In July, when the company reported earnings, it said its revenue fell due to macroeconomic reasons but also because of uncertainty related to the pending acquisition of it by a Musk-linked company. It will not be given Musk credit for. Its growth is user growth. The service reported reaching more than 237 million daily users, up from 229 million last quarter. That, of course, was due to “ongoing product improvements.”
Then Mr. Musk tore it all up. In July he told the company that he had wanted to buy that he didn’t want to go through with it.
Now the $44 billion deal — the same amount that Mr. Musk offered in April — could be significantly more costly for lenders like Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Barclays that committed to put big money into the deal before inflation, rising interest rates, economic uncertainty created by the war in Ukraine and Mr. Musk’s bombastic behavior.
It’s a theme he reiterated both in public, telling Twitter employees at an all-staff meeting that the platform should allow all legal speech, and in private, texting investor Antonio Gracias that “Free speech matters most when it’s someone you hate spouting what you think is bull****.”
One big question is what he will do about the ban on Donald Trump on the platform. During the conference, Musk said he would reverse it. “I guess the answer is I would reverse the permaban,” he said, “obviously I don’t own Twitter yet, so it’s not a thing that will definitely happen because what if I don’t own Twitter?”
If you want a “key hole view” of what Musk will look like, just look at alternative platforms, such as Gab and Parler, who promise fewer restrictions on speech, said the president of Media Matters for America.
The feature of those sites is that it allows people to do things that are not allowed on more mainstream social media platforms. And what we see there is that they are cauldrons of misinformation and abuse.”
“Would be great to unwind permanent bans, except for spam accounts and those that explicitly advocate violence,” he texted Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal shortly after agreeing to join the company’s board (a decision he soon backtracked).
That could mean lifting bans on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who was kicked off for abusive behavior in 2018; Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., whose account was suspended in January for tweeting misleading and false claims about COVID-19 vaccines; and 2020 election deniers like Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell and Mike Lindell, who were all banned in early 2021.
The person urged Musk to hire “someone who has a savvy cultural/political view” to lead enforcement, suggesting “a Blake Masters type.” Masters, the Republican Senate candidate in Arizona, has echoed the false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him, after being endorsed by Trump.
Twitter Doesn’t Work together: Trump or Agrawal? Musk’s Twitter troubles confront the Wall Street and the Digital Advertising Landscape in 2028
Allowing Trump and others to return could set a precedent for other social networks, including Meta-owned Facebook, which is considering whether to reinstate the former president when its own ban on him expires in January 2023.
“If Trump is replatformed on Twitter, it makes it easier for [Meta president of global affairs] Nick Clegg and [Meta CEO] Mark Zuckerberg to say, ‘Well, he’s already back on Twitter. We might as well let him back on Facebook,'” said Nicole Gill, executive director of Accountable Tech, a progressive advocacy group.
After a video meeting a few weeks later with Agrawal and Musk, Dorsey tersely summed up the situation in a text to Musk: “At least it became clear that you can’t work together. That was clarifying.
Twitter’s roughly 7,500 employees have been expecting layoffs since Musk took the helm of the company. Already, the billionaire Tesla CEO has fired top executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal, on his first day as Twitter’s owner.
The billionaire has been unhappy with the cost of the company and has implied that the company is overstaffed for its size.
Costs and staff cuts are only two pieces of the equation. In the spring, Musk pitched investors that he would quintuple Twitter’s annual revenue to $26.4 billion by 2028 and attract 931 million users by that same year, up from 217 million at the end of 2021, according to an investor presentation obtained by The New York Times.
The weak state of the digital ad market and his desire to make changes to content moderation may give him no choice other than to find alternate sources of revenue.
“Advertisers want to know that their ads are not going to appear alongside extremists, that they’re not going to be subsidizing or associating with the types of things that would turn off potential customers,” Carusone said.
Comments on Silicon Valley Super-Apps: Musk, Zatko, and the CEO of WeChat in the U.S.
What exactly he meant is, as always, anyone’s guess. Musk told his staff in the summer that the company should create its own version of WeChat, a Chinese phone app that combines social media, messaging, payments, shopping, and ride-sharing.
Other American tech companies, including Facebook and Uber, have tried this strategy, but so far Chinese-style super-apps haven’t caught on in the United States.
According to Insider, the execs got handsome payouts for their troubles, and Personette got $11.2 million.
Musk can include claims of Zatko in its case, according to the Delaware Chancellor, but she also denied another attempt to delay the trial. I am not sure if it would be worth it to delay even four weeks and cause more harm to the site. And as we continue to learn more about the brain drain happening at Twitter, it seems she might be right.
“Day zero,” Calacanis texted Musk. “Sharpen your blades boys.” Twenty percent of the staff would leave if required to return to offices, Calacanis wrote. Also, Calacanis told Musk, “Twitter CEO is my dream job.”
The Supreme Court agreed to take up two cases that could determineTwitter’s liability for illegal content.
Mellon Musk: Buyout News Updates for the Biggest Bose-Einstein Condensates on Twitter after the Trump-Bose Deal
This is a huge story, with a lot of fast moving parts. It will probably go on for a while over the next few months. We thought we would make a guide for you, our readers, that can be updated as things go on. Because, like him, we are you.
You can not either, as a few days later, Twitter responded the way it always does: your argument is invalid, it hasn’t broken its side of the deal, and so you can.
Mudge Zatko was terminated from his job as the head of security for TWhc in early 2022, just weeks after the election. In July he filed a report saying that the company hid negligent security practices, misled regulators and failed to properly estimate the number of bots on its platform. It is certain that the allegations made by Zatko will have a profound effect on the social networking site. Congress, for one, has already said it is investigating Zatko’s claims.
The subpoenas ahead of the trial have become a who’s who of the tech industry, including Dorsey, Larry Ellison, Marc Andreessen, Tesla, Keith Rabois, and many others. The fact that a man like him could have so much information, given his tenure as CEO and his role in pushing for Musk to buy the company, is surprising.
We wouldn’t normally tell you it’s worth reading a 162-page legal filing that gets deep into the weeds of bot measurement procedures. This case is filled with legal fighting so spicy it was written to be read by a wide audience. It’s a good yarn.
Source: https://www.theverge.com/23026874/elon-musk-twitter-buyout-news-updates
Twitter isn’t the only thing stopping Musk from buying a social media company: Employee frustrations, layoffs, and the fate of the platform
After Musk made his bid public, there was a weird all-hands meeting. After serenading employees with Backstreet Boys and Aretha Franklin, the company said it would continue to evaluate the offer.
Employees told The Verge’s Alex Heath they were frustrated by the lack of a more detailed response. They’re concerned about the future of the social media platform, as well as the possibility of layoffs.
But even a free speech maximalist like Musk needs to convince shareholders that his buyout offer is in their financial self-interest. What are we doing here?
Casey was right in positing that Twitter’s poison pill provisions may not be enough to stop Musk. He suspected that Musk would continue to troll the company through histweets.
Steve Jobs, Tesla, and the Twitter Employees of a Private Company: A Failure in the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Law
I was at Apple headquarters in 1998 to hear Steve Jobs’ plans for the company. He had been its interim CEO for almost a year, after returning to the company that fired him over a decade earlier. Greeting me in the boardroom of his suite at One Infinite Loop, he went to the whiteboard and began scrawling out his solution to the company’s business woes. He had a new product plan, a new product, and a workforce revitalized by an inspiring ad campaign.
The absurdity of Musk’s haste cannot be viewed farther than his own successful enterprises. When he took over Tesla in 2008, the company was already five years old. 17 years after being incorporated, the company did not 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 Musk company is a private one and does not report earnings. But making rocket ships is the ultimate test of patience—it takes years to even launch successfully, and cutting corners to go faster can wind up killing people.
As of Thursday, Musk and Twitter had given no public notice of the coming layoffs. That’s even though the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification statute requires employers with at least 100 workers to disclose layoffs involving 500 or more employees, regardless of whether a company is publicly traded or privately held.
Some employees lost their access to their work accounts. The email to staff said job reductions were “necessary to ensure the company’s success moving forward.”
He also removed the company’s board of directors and installed himself as the sole board member. On Thursday night, many Twitter employees took to Twitter to express support for each other — often simply tweeting blue heart emojis to signify Twitter’s blue bird logo — and salute emojis in replies to each other.
Barry C. White, a spokeswoman for the California Employment Development Department, said Thursday the agency hasn’t received any such notifications in the last few weeks.
The laid off person and three others who were locked out of their work accounts were sued in federal court in San Francisco. It alleges that Twitter intends to lay off more employees and has violated the law by not providing the required notice.
The Money emoji: Facebook does not sell. It makes money for the internet, and why users don’t want to leave Twitter
Meta Platforms Inc., the company that owns Facebook, had a revenue decline in the second quarter of this year and its shares are currently trading at their lowest levels since 2015. Weak earnings reports from Microsoft and Google led to Meta’s disappointing results.
The personnel turmoil, plus the fact that major advertisers like General Motors, Pfizer and United Airlines have paused advertising in the midst of the chaos has heaped additional stress onto the company. This despite Musk’s assurances to companies that he would not let Twitter morph into a “free-for-all hellscape.” Advertising makes up the majority of Twitter’s revenue.
It doesn’t take a cut of the money that you send via Tips, but it is set up. It does take a slice of the revenue from Super Follows, but it is more than the money Apple makes from in-app purchases.
This is the internet, and there is forum drama. Blue users get a blue check mark, which looks exactly like the check mark verified users get — but Twitter Blue customers don’t have to verify their identity, which is how an account with a blue check mark and the display name “Nintendo of America” managed to put up a tweet of Mario flipping the bird. To an unwary user, that might look sufficiently like the actual Nintendo account to do brand damage.
But Musk doesn’t mind. When our own Tom Warren took a screenshot of the tweet, a user replied, “The beauty of this is each account that gets verified paid $8. The account is suspended while the website keeps the money. It’s genius, and I hope more people do it. It’s free money for Twitter.” Musk himself replied to that user with a bullseye emoji, a smiley face wearing sunglasses, and a bag of money emoji.
I don’t think a lot of advertisers would want to come back to someone with that attitude toward impersonation, even without an economic downturn. The open question is whether users want to stay in that environment, as a new layer of hoaxing and scamming has just been added. Billionaire Mark Cuban has already complained that the influx of new checkmarked users has made his mentions miserable. People stay on the platform because of Cubans thoughts, and because it is less valuable than the platform.
Incidentally, Twitter is under a consent decree with the federal government requiring full documentation, in writing, of any foreseeable risks of “any product or service affecting commerce.” The changes to the social media service were rolled out in less than two weeks. Do you think there’s full documentation about its risks? It sounds like lawyers for the microblogging website are worried.
And it’s risky debt to boot, B1 rated, which is “on the lower end of the junk rating spectrum,” says Wharton’s Roberts. The investor appetite for this debt was quite large four months ago. Moody’s used governance as a significant driver of risk when it rated the debt of Twitter.
In just a single week, one of the world’s most influential social networks has laid off half of its workforce, alienated powerful advertisers, blew up key aspects of its product, and unleashed other features intended to compensate for it.
Hours after the gray badges launched on Wednesday as a way to help users differentiate legitimate celebrity and branded accounts from accounts that had merely paid for a blue check mark, Musk abruptly tweeted that he had “killed” the feature, forcing subordinates to explain the reversal.
“We’re not currently putting an ‘Official’ label on accounts but we are aggressively going after impersonation and deception,” Twitter’s verified support account tweeted on Wednesday evening.
misinformation experts warned that the paid verification feature could make it harder to identify trustworthy information in the run up to the USmidterm elections, and the feature’s rocky roll-out resulted in widespread criticism. Some of Musk’s other high-powered users on the platform had some tough feedback.
“@elonmusk, from one entrepreneur to another, for when you have your customer service hat on. I just spent too much time muting all the newly purchased checkmark accts in an attempt to make my verified mentions useful again,” tweeted billionaire Mark Cuban.
Cuban added that there was a decision to be made. The onus is on all users to discover and distribute their own content on new micro-messaging service. Or maybe even bring back some of the popular social networking website’s original content. One makes it quicker and easier to keep up with all that’s going on. The other is awful.”
In a Twitter Spaces event held for advertisers this week, Musk pleaded with brands to keep using the platform, after a growing number of companies paused ads, causing what Musk previously described as a “massive drop in revenue.” In the event, Musk sought to appear magnanimous in accepting responsibility for the company’s performance.
The company is already facing billions in potential fines from the FTC over alleged privacy missteps dating to before Musk’s ownership. But, the Twitter employee warned colleagues, Twitter could find itself even more legally exposed after the sudden resignation of multiple top Twitter executives charged with fulfilling the company’s FTC obligations, including its chief information security officer and chief privacy officer.
The debt payment of $2 billion could be used to make the case that the company’s best course of action is to reorganize in a bankrupt state.
The turmoil that is taking place inside the company is adding even more pressure on the company, with the departure of several top executives who were in charge of the safety of the platform and complying with federal regulations.
“My sense is that Musk and his co-investors are both driven by their values, which is a little bit odd since they are both potential financial returns,” Wu said.
But that did not change what Musk sees as a core problem at the company, which is that it has just one primary way of making money: online advertising.
It is an unfortunate reality for the company right now, considering it is a miserable time to be in the online advertising business. A substantial pullback in ad spending has convulsed the tech industry. Facebook owner Meta has laid off 11,000 people. Snap let go of 20% of its staff. Tech companies that rely on ad revenue are feeling the squeeze.
Tobac: How Imposters Scammed to Destigmatize the President, CEO and Pepsi in the Presidency of Elections
So far, the program’s launch has had the exact opposite effect. A flurry of accounts pretending to be sports stars like Lebron James, former president Donald Trump and companies like Eli Lilly and Pepsi put a spotlight on how quickly the blue check-for-sale option could be used to spread deception.
Imagine, Tobac said, if an emergency service account with a blue check was opened by an impersonator and began dispending harmful advice about, say, where to seek shelter during a natural disaster.
Tobac also fears disinformation agents paying $8 to sow confusion and discord in connection with an election — something fresh on her mind, as the country awaits the final outcome of a number of key midterm election races.
“Right now, we have people making jokes, impersonating the president, impersonating Nintendo and Elon Musk is laughing at those jokes because he thinks they’re funny right now,” she said. “What’s not going to be funny is someone impersonating an election official and meddling and causing interference within the election results.”