Elon Musk

Elon Musk ends Trump’s Twitter ban • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 20, 2022Posted in donald trump, Elon Musk, Social, TwitterNo Comments

Former President Donald Trump’s Twitter account has been reinstated following a permanent ban in January 2021. On Friday, new Twitter owner Elon Musk posted a poll asking if Trump should be allowed back on the platform. Just over 15 million people voted, with 51.8% voting in favor of reinstating Trump on Twitter. When the poll ended on Saturday, Trump’s account was unbanned. “The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated,” Musk tweeted. “Vox Populi, Vox Dei.” Trump’s controversial ban took place days after the January 6 riots on the U.S. Capitol, in which insurrectionists violently attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. “After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” Twitter wrote in a January 2021 blog post. Still, it is unclear whether the former president will actually return to Twitter. After he was deplatformed from mainstream social media networks like Twitter and Facebook, Trump created his own social platform called Truth Social. Image Credits: Donald Trump on Truth Social “Vote now with positivity, but don’t worry, we aren’t going anywhere. Truth Social is special!” the former president posted on Truth Social this evening. Since taking over Twitter mere weeks ago, Elon Musk has already reversed suspensions on two high-profile accounts that were deplatformed for maliciously misgendering trans people: conservative satire publication The Babylon Bee and Jordan Peterson. He also reversed the ban on Kathy Griffin, a comedian who had impersonated Musk on Twitter. This story is developing…

ZebethMedia staff on what we lose if we lose Twitter • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 18, 2022Posted in Drama, EC Media, elon buys twitter, Elon Musk, Social, social media, TwitterNo Comments

I spied a tweet the other day that journalists would suffer if Twitter ever shut down because they would lose a driver of traffic. While there is some truth to that — Twitter does help expose your writing to a larger audience — it’s also true that Twitter has value beyond that for journalists and other users. It’s safe to say that Twitter is in disarray as Elon Musk fecklessly tries to grasp the business, instituting mass layoffs as the remaining essential employees flee the general chaos, spurred on by midnight email ultimatums. That most recent missive, it seems, triggered a mass resignation, according to reports. When you add that to the people who were let go in the layoffs, it’s fair to ask how many people are left to run the site. Even before all this happened, the ZebethMedia team had a conversation on Slack about what we would miss if Twitter went away tomorrow. At the time (three days ago), it felt more like a whimsical game than a real possibility. For all its warts, Twitter has a way of connecting people who otherwise might never connect. It gives us a place to share our passions, our random thoughts, and yes, our shitposts, all while keeping us up on what’s happening in the world in real time. “It’s hard to imagine anything could replace Black Twitter. But if history has taught us anything, it’s that we’ll always find our way.” Dominic-Madori Davis While there are surely many negatives to the platform — it’s way too easy to spread misinformation and hate speech and attack people you disagree with — there are also loads of positives, and many things we would miss if Twitter perishes. It now feels like it very well could. So several ZebethMedia staffers contributed what they would miss most if Twitter went away (while hoping it’ll still be up tomorrow): I’m not even sure where to begin to describe the immense impact Black Twitter has had on, well, the world, really. From when I was a teenager, watching so many Black people mobilize to bring awareness to the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, to that time we all shared experiences and made jokes as to what it was like having Thanksgiving with a Black family. “When it’s time to leave and the plate you hid is missing, *insert Kermit screaming meme here.*” The memes are endless, as is the support — and the heat — we give and place onto people and topics. It was a place to find community in a world so unkind to us. It really does feel like its own universe sometimes. I remember a few years ago going to Clubhouse to hear the talks and then running to Twitter to watch everyone live-tweet the conversations. This thread from a few days ago really brought back memories, in which author Kira J hosted a little “Black Jeopardy.” Famous dates for 500, please. “On December 21st, 2020, what were Black people waiting around to get?” Superpowers. And they’re coming still, don’t worry. They’re just running on CP time. The community always felt quite insular; what happened there rarely burst out of our bubble. When it does hit the mainstream, everything shifts, everything changes. Like someone walking in on you mid-shower. Non-Black people often don’t understand the humor, the sarcasm, the wait, did we all have the same childhood? I’m always reminded of some tweet a while ago asking, How does one get into Black Twitter? It’s not quite the same or as easy as people just giving invites to the cookout (stop just giving those out, please!!!). “I really want a place to post sentence-long shitposts with no punctuation, and I don’t know where I would go if I couldn’t do that on Twitter anymore.” Amanda Silberling I often wonder what it is like to not be in Black Twitter. What do people think when they come across a photo of Chris Evans wearing long neon yellow acrylics with a honey mustard-colored satin bonnet? Where do other people get their news, if not from Philip Lewis? I’ll miss seeing something trending and saying yep, that’s Black Twitter, it has to be. I would miss the solidarity, the camaraderie often not easily made or reciprocated out in the physical world. Yes, I think I would even miss Roc Nation Brunch Twitter, also known as LLC Twitter, also known as the people who tell everyone to start a business and become entrepreneurs. “Would you rather take $500,000 or dinner with Jay-Z?” Seriously, just take the money and run. Last week, Brooklyn White-Grier, the features editor at Essence, asked everyone what we were going to wear to Twitter’s homegoing service. Someone made programs, started planning gospel music performances, and, of course, we started picking out our hats. I tweeted that I was excited to get an extra low vibrational plate at the repast and would probably show up with slicked-back baby edges and in Valentino couture, as Zendaya did to the Emmys. It’s hard to imagine anything could replace Black Twitter. But if history has taught us anything, it’s that we’ll always find our way.

I volunteer as tribute! • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 16, 2022Posted in EC Future of Work, EC Media, elon buys twitter, Elon Musk, Opinion, parody, Social, TwitterNo Comments

It’s not every day that an opportunity like this comes around. After working at Twitter for years, I’m finally being asked to do more with less. I’ve always wanted fewer co-workers, a manic boss, reduced communication, and non-stop chaos. And if I do well, I’ll help save the richest person alive both money and pride! Can you imagine a better offer? Let me explain. You see, there’s a man called Elon Musk. He’s very involved in a bunch of projects and doesn’t like to work in any single office. Heck, Elon doesn’t even work for just one company! He’s in charge of a bevy of concerns that keep him rather occupied. You can even track his jet as he flies about, busy as a bee. (It makes perfect sense that the leader should not have to work in an office while I am required to report to my cubicle daily — after all, the wealthy are our moral superiors!) But after he corralled a host of rich folks to invest and underwrite his hostile takeover of Twitter, things got sticky for poor Elon. He’s a big tweeter, you see, and before he owned the website, he could post whatever he wanted and get away with it. Remember that time he tweeted that he had the capital to take Tesla private? That was a tiny error, but Elon is still in charge of Tesla, collecting the lion’s share of the wealth on the backs of others. So it all came out fine!

Elon Musk, disaster artist • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 16, 2022Posted in Elon Musk, elon musk buys twitter, Social, TwitterNo Comments

We’re at the point in the Elon Musk/Twitter debacle where the fact that it’s a shit show is our new normal, and anything that resembles a normal functioning tech company or leadership is more newsworthy than the inverse. But even as we take for granted that Musk’s rule will continue to tend towards chaos, it’s worth stepping back to look at the billionaire executive’s history of inciting catastrophe as a preferred method of doing business. Crises lead to an acute need for solutions Musk has always positioned his businesses as being intended to serve the long-term interests of humanity as a whole, and to his credit, he has always seemed to genuinely believe that to be true, a trait he shares with Superman — but also with Lex Luthor. In doing so, Musk is tapping into something often used as a unifying motivator behind great effort in disaster and alien invasion films: Namely, that if we face an existential threat, we’re more likely to face it as a unified force capable of superhuman feats. Starting with Tesla, Musk’s businesses have all been positioned as solutions to monumental problems that ultimately threaten the long-term survival of the human race. X.com, which would become PayPal, is probably the exception to that rule, but the fact that it’s an exception in more ways than one is probably much more prescriptive about everything that comes after than anything else. Tesla was intended to help humanity avoid the existential threat of climate decay — particularly at the hands of carbon emissions, by becoming the first company to effectively build electric vehicles at mass market scale. SpaceX is a different approach to the same problem — a means to “make humanity an interplanetary species” that imagines a future state in which Tesla and related climate change mitigation efforts have, at best, bought us extra time to get off this festering dirt ball and to another (even less hospitable though?) celestial body like Mars. Musk has also founded not one, but two organizations for the purposes of combatting a threat many would consider even more far-fetched, but no less existentially challenging should the worst-case scenario come to pass: namely, artificial intelligence. Aiming to take an approach to artificial general intelligence that worked more on influencing the direction of its development, Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 alongside former YC President Sam Altman and others. While he no longer seems directly involved in that organization’s day-to-day operations (he left the board in 2018), Musk also later founded Neuralink, a startup focused on the more ‘practical’ (insofar as the word has any meaning in this context) application of creating an implantable brain computer to help people augment their intelligence in a bid to keep pace with AI’s eventual presumed supergenius powers. Messes as macro- and micro-motivators As much as Musk uses looming global threats as consistent base notes that hum threateningly in the background of all his businesses, he also employs specific, immediate crises to ‘motivate’ his employees for fast (and often reckless) change. To be fair to Musk, it looks like often these crises arose from the same kind of brash hard-charging that you could say allowed him to break his way into businesses like the automotive and aerospace industries, where entrenched interests and high-costs have typically meant newcomers didn’t last long. Musk has specific intelligence and talents that have contributed to his success, but preparedness and planning aren’t among them, based on my longtime observation of his career. Some leaders, as they proceed in their career, seek to shore up their shortcomings through training and self-improvement: Musk, I think, saw the power that chaos creates and chose to go in a different direction, frequently architecting the disasters that prompt abrupt transformations and fire-drill urgency in his own teams — and that further his business interests when it comes to public policy, too. Author and tech industry critic Paris Marx famously pointed out that much of Musk’s hyping of his proposed hyperloop technology was actually about defraying support for the high-speed rail project in California, framing much of his work in transportation as amounting to attempts to “stifle alternatives” to individual car ownership, and by extension, Tesla. Perhaps the most insidious (but also arguably effective) way that Musk wields disaster as a motivator is in moving his employees to action. The Tesla Model 3 production process is a prime example: Musk himself described it as “production hell” in the early days, and was frequently found sleeping on factory floors while trying to rally his workforce around the challenges they faced. But much of the challenge was down to a decision on Musk’s part to eschew a traditional auto assembly line approach in favor of ultra-dense and ultimately unworkable automated robotic assembly units. On its surface, that was a big bet that didn’t quite pay off despite Musk’s best efforts. A more critical observer might argue, though, that Musk chose a much riskier path to the detriment of his workforce because he knew he’d be able to recoup a lot more sweat equity once they were in crunch mode regardless of the outcome of the automated play. Twitter: Elon’s calamity masterpiece Elon’s piece-de-resistance so far has to be Twitter, however, when it comes to causing massive problems and then putting added responsibility on people under his supervision. From the start, when he cleared house by laying off half the workforce (with predictable ripples in terms of knock-on infrastructure effects, not unlike when Thanos disappeared half the Marvel cinematic universe) he’s being sowing chaos. For the past couple of weeks since then, it’s seemed like he’s been introducing new disasters almost daily, including sprint product introductions (and rollbacks), sudden reversals in the company’s work-from-home policies, and just today, an ultimatum essentially promising those who remain significant overwork. Musk clearly thrives in a chaotic milieu, and Twitter is the best example yet of him architecting the landscape exactly to his preferred habitat. In the process, he’s also revealed much more about

New code suggests Twitter is reviving its work on encrypted DMs • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 16, 2022Posted in Apps, dms, Elon Musk, encryption, Security, Social, TwitterNo Comments

Under Elon Musk, Twitter may be reviving a project that would bring end-to-end encryption to its Direct Messaging system. Work appears to have resumed on the feature in the latest version of the Android app, according to independent researcher Jane Manchun Wong, who spotted the changes to Twitter’s code While Musk himself recently expressed interest in making Twitter DMs more secure, Twitter itself had abandoned its earlier efforts in this space after prototyping an encrypted “secret conversations” feature back in 2018. Had the encrypted DM’s feature launched, it would have allowed Twitter to better challenge other secure messaging platforms like Signal or WhatsApp. But work on the project stopped and Twitter never publicly explained why — nor had it commented on the prototype Wong had also found being developed in the app years ago. Now, Wong says she’s seen work on encrypted DM’s resume, tweeting out a screenshot of Twitter’s code which references encryption keys and their use in end-to-end encrypted conversations. Another screenshot shows a “Conversation key,” which the app explains is a number generated by the user’s encryption keys from the conversation. “If it matches the number in the recipient’s phone, end-to-end encryption is guaranteed,” the message reads. In response to Wong’s tweets, Musk replied with a winking face emoji — an apparent confirmation, or at least what stands in for one these days, given that Twitter laid off its communications staff and no longer responds to reporters’ requests for comment. Unlike the other projects Musk’s Twitter has in the works, like a relaunch of the Twitter Blue subscription now due out later this month, end-to-end encryption is something that cannot– and should not — be rushed out the gate. Meta, for example, took years to fully roll out end-to-end encryption (E2EE) in Messenger, after having first tested the features in 2016. It wasn’t until this summer that Meta announced it would finally expand its E2EE test to individual Messenger chats. The company explained the delay to launch was, in part, due to the need to address concerns from child safety advocates who had warned the changes could shield abusers from detection. Meta also intended to use A.I. and machine learning to scan non-encrypted parts of its platform, like user profiles and photos, for other signals that could indicate malicious activity. Plus, it needed to ensure that its abuse reporting features would continue to work in an E2EE environment. In short, beyond the technical work required to introduce E2EE itself, there are complicating factors that should be taken into consideration. If Musk announces encrypted DMs in a compressed timeframe, it would raise concerns about how secure and well-built the feature may be. Plus, with Twitter’s 50% workforce reduction and the departure of key staff — including chief information security officer Lea Kissner, who would understand the cryptological challenges of such a project — it’s unclear if the remaining team has the expertise to tackle such a complex feature in the first place. Musk, however, seems to believe encryption is the right direction for Twitter’s DM product, having recently tweeted “the goal of Twitter DMs is to superset Signal.” And, in response to a user’s question about whether Twitter would merge with telecommunication or become a WhatsApp replacement, Musk responded simply that “X will be the everything app.” “X” here refers to Musk’s plan to transform Twitter into a “super app” that would combine payments, social networking, entertainment, and more into one singular experience. Last week, he spoke in more detail about his plans for the payments portion, suggesting Twitter could one day allow users to hold cash balances, send money to one another, and even offer high-yield money market accounts.

quit Twitter, or prepare to get “hardcore” • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 16, 2022Posted in Elon Musk, Social, TwitterNo Comments

Times are changing at Twitter. In about two weeks under Elon Musk’s leadership, Twitter has fired over 3,700 people, and a slew of high-ranking execs have resigned. But the company’s personnel changes aren’t ending there. According to a report from The Washington Post, Musk sent a late night email offering the remaining Twitter employees a choice: they can either resign and receive three months severance pay, or they can commit to a “hardcore” work environment. Twitter employees have until 5 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday to make up their minds. “Going forward, to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore,” the letter reads. “This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.” Musk issued a similarly intense email to staff last week, when he ended remote work effectively immediately. In his short tenure, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO has already set product deadlines so aggressive that deleted tweets from employees suggested that they had to sleep at the office. But after a botched rollout of Twitter Blue verification, he pushed that product re-launch back to November 29, at least according to his own tweets. Punting relaunch of Blue Verified to November 29th to make sure that it is rock solid — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 15, 2022 As Twitter employees weigh the ultimatum that landed in their inboxes late last night, Musk continues to find time to shitpost. On Tuesday, after several Twitter employees posted that they were fired for criticizing Musk, the “Chief Twit” posted a selfie with two actors who pretended weeks ago to be laid off Twitter employees. On the day after Musk took over the platform, the actors walked past a crowd of journalists who were camped outside the Twitter HQ, carrying boxes as though they were just fired. One claimed his name was “Rahul Ligma,” a clear giveaway that he was trolling (please, don’t make me explain the Ligma meme again), but unfortunately, the journalists on the scene were not very meme-literate and reported the layoff of “Ligma” as fact. At the time, Musk had not yet began conducting the anticipated mass layoffs. “Welcoming back Ligma & Johnson!” Musk tweeted two weeks later, posing with the trolls. “Important to admit when I’m wrong & firing them was truly one of my biggest mistakes.” The message is especially cringe-worthy given that Twitter asked some employees to come back after they were cut in the mass layoffs.

After key privacy and security departures last week, Twitter names ‘acting DPO’ • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 15, 2022Posted in DPO, Elon Musk, GDPR, Privacy, Social, TwitterNo Comments

Following a flurry of resignations of senior Twitter privacy and security staffers late last week, the social media firm has informed its lead data protection regulator in the European Union that it has appointed an “acting” replacement for one of those positions: The key role of data protection officer (DPO). The abrupt departures of Twitter’s CISO Lea Kissner; chief privacy officer (and DPO) Damien Kieran; and chief compliance officer Marianne Fogarty immediately raised questions over its ability to meet regulatory requirements under new, norm-trashing broom, Elon Musk — who only completed his $44 billion takeover at the end of last month. A company that’s processing personal data at the scale Twitter does is obliged, under the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), to at least have a DPO — at a bare minimum. Twitter also has a 2011 consent decree with the FTC that requires it to submit regular reports on how it’s living up to ongoing commitments to safeguard user data — so the sudden departure of senior privacy and security staffers immediately set alarm bells ringing. Including at the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC), Twitter’s lead data supervisor for the EU’s GDPR. A meeting between the DPC and Twitter followed hard on the heels of the trio of resignations — arranged last week and taking place yesterday — and at this meeting the DPC said Twitter informed it that it has appointed an existing employee, Renato Monteiro, as its “acting DPO”. Monteiro has been employed at Twitter for two years nine months, per his LinkedIn profile — starting in Match 2020 in São Paulo, Brazil, as a Data Protection Counsel Lead for Latin America, before relocating to Twitter Ireland this summer to take up a role as director for international privacy and data protection lead — managing privacy and data protection teams in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, North and South America and APAC. It is not clear why Monteiro has only been named “acting” DPO — or whether his appointment is intended only as a stop-gap while a full replacement is sought, or not. Since Musk took over Twitter, the company has stopped responding to press enquiries so it is not possible to obtain confirmation via an official channel. But Musk appears to have a penchant for appointing ‘acting’ rather than actual job titles, as well as for playing with absurd job titles (such as initially christening himself “chief twit“, after he fired and took over from the actual CEO; followed by Musk becoming “Twitter complaint hotline operator“, seemingly as a commentary on users responding negatively to his early product decisions and other changes). One question that’s likely to arise, therefore, is whether Monteiro is being invested with the full responsibilities and duties required by the DPO role under GDPR — and, if not, whether an ‘acting’ framing will pass muster with EU regulators or not. At the time of writing the DPC had not responded to our question on this point. But we’ll update this report if we get a response. Last week, the Irish regulator told us that in addition to using Monday’s meeting with Twitter to seek information from it about the DPO situation it planned to discuss a wider concern — to ask whether the business is still claiming its main establishment (for GDPR purposes) in Ireland. This structure is important because it enables Twitter to participate in the GDPR’s one-stop-shop (OSS) mechanism — which sets up the DPC as its lead data supervisor for EU data protection issues and means complaints made elsewhere in the bloc are typically funnelled via Ireland — allowing the US-based company to streamline its GDPR compliance and shrink regulatory risk. However, given all the drastic changes accompanying Musk’s takeover of Twitter — including, reportedly, standard privacy and security review processes being dispensed with — doubts are being cast over whether Twitter can still credibly claim main establishment in Ireland, as we reported yesterday. The DPC’s deputy commissioner Graham Doyle declined to provide an update on its questioning of Twitter’s main establishment status following yesterday’s meeting — saying only: “We continue to engage with Twitter.” Other EU data protection agencies are likely to be watching developments on this front exceedingly closely. A spokesperson for France’s CNIL told ZebethMedia it will be approaching the DPC to discuss the nature and “possible consequences” of changes reported to have taken place at Twitter since Musk took over. Although the regulator also told us that, at present, it does not have “sufficient information” to question the application of the OSS. “Until now, the evidence available to the supervisory authorities has led them to consider that Twitter’s principal place of business in the EU was in Ireland, which made the DPC the lead authority. The CNIL intends to approach the DPC to discuss about the nature and possible consequences that the changes mentioned in the press are likely to have on the role and status of Twitter’s Irish establishment,” the CNIL’s spokesperson said. “At this stage, the CNIL does not have sufficient information to consider that the application of the one-stop shop system is in question.”

Is Elon Musk’s Twitter about to fall out of the GDPR’s one-stop shop? • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 14, 2022Posted in Elon Musk, GDPR, Government & Policy, Privacy, Social, TwitterNo Comments

Helmed by erratic new owner Elon Musk, Twitter is no longer fulfilling key obligations required for it to claim Ireland as its so-called “main establishment” under the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a source familiar with the matter has told ZebethMedia. Our source, who is well placed, requested and was granted anonymity owing to the sensitivity of the issue — which could have major ramifications for Twitter and for Musk. Like many major tech firms with customers across the European Union, Twitter currently avails itself of a mechanism in the GDPR known as the one-stop shop (OSS). This is beneficial because it allows the company to streamline regulatory administration by being able to engage exclusively with a lead data supervisor in the EU Member State where it is ‘main established’ (in Twitter’s case Ireland), rather than having to accept inbound from data protection authorities across the bloc. However, under Musk’s chaotic reign — which has already seen a fast and deep downsizing of Twitter’s headcount, kicking off with layoffs of 50% of staff earlier this month — questions are being asked over whether its main establishment status in Ireland for the GDPR still holds or not. The resignation late last week of key senior personnel responsible for ensuring security and privacy compliance looks like a canary in the coal-mine when it comes to Twitter’s regulatory situation — with CISO Lea Kissner; chief privacy officer Damien Kieran; and chief compliance officer Marianne Fogarty all walking out the door en masse. It’s not clear whether any adequately qualified individuals will be willing to step into these critical compliance roles for privacy and security at Twitter given the current Musk-driven craziness — since anyone signing up for that level of responsibility risks opening themselves up to personal liability should regulatory requirements be breached on their watch. As we reported Friday, Musk’s attorney and now head of legal at Twitter, Alex Spiro — who has reportedly been given a key role in the overhaul of the platform — emailing all staff on behalf of “Elon” to claim they face no personal liability will surely sound alarm bells at regulators over Twitter’s direction of travel. Last week, The Verge also reported on turmoil inside Twitter’s privacy and security function as standard review procedures were dispensed with and engineers were asked to “self certify” compliance with FTC rules. Its report also cited an unnamed company lawyer who it said had Slacked employees to warn them that changes to how Twitter operates is piling personal, professional and legal risk onto engineers instructed to implement Musk’s will regardless of consequences. Under the EU’s GDPR, meanwhile, Twitter is obliged — in just one very basic requirement — to have a data protection officer (DPO) to provide a contact point for regulators. Hence the departure of Kieran, its first and only DPO since the role was created at the company in 2018, has not gone unnoticed by its data protection watchdog in Ireland — as we also reported Friday. But the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC)’s concerns are already spiralling wider than Twitter’s compliance with notifications about core personnel: Last week, the authority — currently Twitter’s lead EU DPA under the GDPR’s OSS — put the social media firm on watch by signalling public concern when it said it would be putting questions to the company about the status of its main establishment in Ireland at a meeting scheduled for early this week, to discuss all the recent privacy changes since the Musk takeover. Twitter has not commented publicly on the DPC’s warning nor on the departures of senior regulator-facing staffers. Indeed, since Musk took over, its communications department appears to have been dismantled and the company no longer responds to press requests for comment — so it was not possible to obtain an official statement from Twitter about these departures or on the substance of our report. (We’re happy to add a response if Twitter or Musk wants to send us one.) For Twitter’s business itself, there are a number of potential consequences in play if its ability to meet regulatory requirements falls. If the DPC assesses (or is informed by Musk) that it no longer has its main establishment in Ireland the company will crash out of the OSS — opening it up to being regulated by data protection authority across the bloc’s 27 Member States which would become competent to oversee its business. In practice, that means any EU data protection authority would be able to act directly on concerns it has that local users’ data is at risk — with the power to instigate their own investigations and take enforcement actions. So Ireland’s more business friendly regulator would no longer be leading the handling of any GDPR concerns about Twitter; probes could be simultaneously opened up all over the EU — including in Member States like France and Germany where data protection authorities have a reputation for being quicker to the punch (and/or more aggressive) in responding to complaints compared to Ireland. If Twitter loses its ability to claim main establishment in Ireland it would therefore drastically amp up the complexity, cost and risk of achieving GDPR compliance. (Reminder: Penalties under the regulation can scale up to 4% of annual global turnover — so these are not rules a normal CEO would ignore.) The GDPR does not set out specific criteria for assessing main establishment. But, in Twitter’s case — in order for it to be able to fulfil the regulation’s requirement of “effective and real exercise of management activities determining the main decisions as to the purposes and means of processing through stable arrangements” actually taking place locally, in Ireland, despite Twitter product development being led out of the US — we understand that the company devised a careful legal framework which was designed to empower an Irish entity to be the data controller for EU users by ensuring that this Ireland-located Twitter company, which has its own board of directors subject to

Twitter’s crazy week drives social apps’ growth, Google expands user choice billing • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 12, 2022Posted in app stores, Apple, Apps, Elon Musk, Google, This Week In Apps, TwitterNo Comments

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly ZebethMedia series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. Global app spending reached $65 billion in the first half of 2022, up only slightly from the $64.4 billion during the same period in 2021, as hypergrowth fueled by the pandemic has slowed down. But overall, the app economy is continuing to grow, having produced a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021, according to the latest year-end reports. Global spending across iOS and Google Play last year was $133 billion, and consumers downloaded 143.6 billion apps. This Week in Apps offers a way to keep up with this fast-moving industry in one place with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and much more. Do you want This Week in Apps in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here: techcrunch.com/newsletters It’s a Twitter dumpster fire and I can’t look away Image Credits: Cloudytronics (opens in a new window) / Getty Images Where to even begin? This week Twitter became one of the most chaotic, most disastrous social networks in history — and arguably, also the most interesting, in a sort of rubbernecking kind of way. There was something new taking place either on the platform directly or within the company itself at nearly every minute. In just a handful of days since Musk’s takeover, Twitter has seen the following: The launch of Twitter Blue (11/9) followed by a pause (11/10), followed by its disappearance from the app entirely (11/11). Widespread impersonation of high-profile accounts, including Musk’s own, by Verified users — including, almost immediately, the $8/month Twitter Blue Verified users after the new subscription went live. The launch of Official badges (11/8) for high-profile accounts, followed by their disappearance (11/9) followed by their return (11/11). Elon Musk’s reveal of his plan to have Twitter enter the payments business. Further departures of key execs, including its most senior cybersecurity staffer Lea Kissner (11/10), chief privacy officer Damien Kieran (11/10), chief compliance officer Marianne Fogarty (11/10) Head of Trust and Safety Yoel Roth (11/10) — the latter who has been one of the last remaining sane voices at the company amid the upheaval. Musk held a call with advertisers (11/9) that did not offer any solid assurances that all would be well. After this call, the call’s host and head of ad sales Robin Wheeler, quit. Later, she tweeted “I’m still here” after being persuaded by Musk to stay (11/10). After the departure of key executives across trust, safety, data governance and security, the FTC issued a rare warning to Twitter (11/10). The agency said had been “tracking the developments at Twitter with deep concern,” and that “no CEO or company is above the law.” Twitter was put under an FTC consent order in 2011 after being found to have misused user data. The order requires, among other things, that new product rollouts receive full security reviews and it dictates what Twitter can and cannot do with data. The number of rapid changes, eliminations of departments, departures of key personnel and fast launches and shutdowns of new products are now raising questions as to whether or not Twitter has managed to remain compliant with the FTC’s decree. The lead regulator in the European Union then came after Twitter, setting a meeting for next week to discuss concerns including the data protection officer’s departure and whether Twitter’s main establishment for GDPR purposes is still located in Ireland. Musk addressed employees at an all-hands (11/10) and warned them Twitter may have a net negative cash flow of billions in 2023 and suggested bankruptcy was not out of the question. One can argue that Musk was right to take a new approach at Twitter, which was losing money and failing to grow its user base. Coming in with fresh ideas and swapping out the executive team isn’t that unusual in a takeover, nor are widespread layoffs when a company is in financial trouble. New product experimentation is also to be expected. And revamping Twitter Blue, which has so far failed to attract subscribers, makes sense too. But it’s not the what that’s the issue here, really — it’s the how. Musk clearly had not thought through the impact of his changes and he laid off people who could have offered deeper insight. His move to immediately make deep cuts across Twitter (after weird ideas about code reviews, apparently), meant he missed the opportunity to actually listen to current staff who could explain what Twitter has tried, what’s failed and why they’re doing the things they are. Even if Musk disagreed with Twitter’s current direction, those understandings could be used to better inform his future decisions. Instead, he’s approached Twitter as a toy to be played with, saying even “Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months.” And it already has. Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months. We will keep what works & change what doesn’t. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 9, 2022 Living up to its promise, the first project Twitter landed on saw it reinventing the wheel. Musk, having only perceived the value of a blue Verified badge as a status symbol, believed a wide swath of Twitter users would pay for the privilege of owning one. What he didn’t understand (unlike most of Twitter’s user base), is that Verification is actually a service the platform provides its community, not just an ego-pleasing checkmark. In fact, many of those with the original badge don’t see it as a status symbol, and wouldn’t pay for the “honor” of having one. Instead, the original blue badge was a way to quickly see that someone is who they claim to be or that they’re a trusted source of news and information. Musk, on the other hand, thinks “citizen journalists” and everyday folks

Numerous social apps see gains in wake of Twitter chaos, new data shows • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 11, 2022Posted in Apps, Elon Musk, Social, social apps, TwitterNo Comments

The drama at Twitter following Elon Musk’s acquisition has seen some users looking for an exit. In recent days, alternative social apps and microblogging platforms have seen strong gains, including, most notably, the open-source decentralized Twitter alternative Mastodon. The service’s founder and CEO recently announced Mastodon had topped 1 million monthly active users, after more than half a million users joined the network since the October 27th deal’s closure. But Mastodon isn’t the only app profiting from Twitter’s upheaval. In a new report, app intelligence firm Sensor Tower analyzed social app growth after Musk took over. It noted Mastodon has seen approximately 322,000 new downloads from U.S. app stores in the 12 days following Twitter’s acquisition (Oct. 27 through Nov. 7), which is more than 100x the 3,000 it had seen in the prior 12-day period. Globally, the app grew 657% to 1 million installs during that same Oct. 27-Nov. 7 timeframe, up from 15,000 in the 12 days prior. Other third-party Mastodon clients saw a bump, too, with Metatext and Tootle both growing from less than 1,000 installs to 19,000 and 7,000, respectively, between the two time periods. But Mastodon isn’t the only network seeing an uptick in app installs, as it turns out. Tumblr also saw its U.S. app installs grow 96% from 47,000 to 92,000 between the two time periods. Plus, its global installs grew 77% from 170,000 to 301,000. Image Credits: Sensor Tower In addition, alternative social app CounterSocial grew 2,300% to 24,000 installs in U.S. app stores in the 12 days following the acquisition, and grew 3,200% globally, with 33,000 installs, the report said. Another app intelligence firm, data.ai, sliced the data in a slightly different way. It examined various social apps’ worldwide download growth during a 7-day period following the acquisition (Oct. 27 through Nov 2), then compared that with the prior 7-day period. Its data, shared exclusively with ZebethMedia, also confirmed the sizable gains made by Mastodon and CounterSocial in terms of the growth in global installs between the two time periods. Mastodon’s installs jumped 2,200% and CounterSocial’s grew 1,200% its analysis found. But Data.ai looked further up and down the apps stores’ charts and found that a number of other social apps were seeing bumps, beyond just direct Twitter alternatives. These included David’s Disposable (up 83% during the two time periods), nFollowers (up 50%), CocoFun (up 46%), Substack Reader (up 24%), Tribel (up 11%), Tumblr (up 7%), and Pinterest (up 2%). Substack, in particular, has been marketing itself as a social community following the Twitter acquisition, even launching a new discussions feature that allows writers and their audience to engage in threaded chats. Dispo had fun trolling Twitter’s chaos in a couple of tweets and memes, like one that celebrated how Musk doesn’t own the Dispo app. Image Credits: data.aiThis isn’t to say the drama has been all bad for Twitter. Surprisingly, some people have even newly installed the app since the acquisition, as it turns out. Data.ai shows Twitter’s app installs jumped 17% after the acquisition, while Sensor Tower’s look at the slightly longer timeframe saw a 21% increase. The latter said Twitter saw 7.6 million global installs and $502,000 in consumer spending in the 12 days after the acquisition, an increase from 6.3 million installs and $303,000 in spending in the prior 12-day period. These consumer spending numbers, however, should be taken with a grain of salt for now as Twitter Blue’s launch was put on pause after being live for only a couple of days. There’s no reason to believe that these figures indicate, as of yet, a significant increase in demand for the subscription with long-term staying power. That data will come in time. If anything, it shows Musk’s ability to market things to his fanbase and users’ general curiosity about what’s going on with Twitter’s products at present. Image Credits: sensor tower Though Twitter may have seen slight gains this week, not everyone is happy about the changes. Some angrier Twitter users took out their angst over the acquisition in the Twitter app’s reviews on the App Store. On Nov. 5, 2022, the app saw a spike in negative ratings as 119 1-star iOS reviews were added — the most it has seen in a single day during this latest surge in negative reviews, also according to data from Sensor Tower. However, this isn’t the biggest surge of negative reviews Twitter has ever seen, we understand. Other incidents have caused larger bumps. After Trump was banned, for instance, Twitter saw 801 1-star reviews on Jan. 9, 2021. It also saw a surge in March 2022 after the new timeline was rolled out and in April and when Elon Musk said he was buying Twitter. Its largest spike in negative reviews this year wasn’t even this week — it was on Oct. 28, when Musk’s deal was finalized. Overall, however, it was the Israel-Palestine crisis in May 2021 that resulted in the highest volume of new negative reviews, followed by the Trump ban.