Elon Musk

Twitter’s lead EU watchdog for data protection has fresh questions for Musk • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 11, 2022Posted in DPC, Elon Musk, GDPR, Government & Policy, Privacy, Social, TwitterNo Comments

In parallel with the FTC’s ominous warning to Elon Musk’s Twitter yesterday — that ‘no CEO or company is above the law‘ — the microblogging platform’s lead regulator in the European Union is on its case in the wake of senior staffers in charge of security and privacy compliance walking out the door. Graham Doyle, a deputy commissioner at Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC), which currently leads oversight of Twitter under the EU’s General data Protection Regulation (GDPR), told ZebethMedia it’s in contact with the company following media reports yesterday that its data protection officer (DPO) had resigned. A meeting between the DPC and Twitter will take place early next week, according to Doyle. He also confirmed to us that Twitter had not informed the regulator of the DPO’s departure prior to the media reports. Getting clarity over the DPO situation will be top of the meeting agenda, per Doyle. But he said the regulator now has another concern it wants to discuss with Twitter — regarding whether Twitter’s main establishment, for GDPR purposes, is still located in Ireland… Next stop: One-stop-shop stopped? “One of the issues that we want to discuss is the issue around main establishment,” Doyle told ZebethMedia. “They’re obliged to have a data protection officer in place and provide us with the details but equally, under the [GDPR] one-stop-shop (OSS) mechanism in order to get a main establishment to engage with one regulator, the decision making processes — in terms of the processing of EU data — needs to take place in that country. That’s one of the principles of main establishment. And what we want to establish is that that is continuing to be the case for Twitter.” Ireland being Twitter’s lead regulator for the GDPR under the OSS is important because it puts the Irish watchdog in the driving seat when it comes to opening inquiries (or not), or otherwise acting on concerns over Twitter’s compliance (such as following up on the un-notified resignation of its DPO now). From Twitter’s point of view, the arrangement is advantageous because it streamlines compliance since it only needs to liaise with one (lead) regulator over any issues, rather than handling inbound from multiple data protection agencies (potentially in different languages). Ireland has a lead supervisor role for Twitter because the company was able to notify its Dublin office as its “main establishment” in the EU — what the regulation refers to as either the place of “central administration in the Union” or “where the main processing activities take place in the Union”. However were Twitter to be deemed to no longer have this processing base in Ireland there would be an immediate regulatory reconfiguration and data protection authorities across the bloc, from any of the EU’s 27 Member States, could instigate inquiries or act on local complaints themselves — cranking up the regulatory complexity, velocity and risk for Twitter’s European business. With Musk slashing 50% of Twitter’s headcount globally just last week — and a reported “carnage” in the Irish office, per an Irish Times report which said more than 50% of local staff were affected — questions have arisen in Dublin over the stability of its main establishment status for the GDPR. “We’ve made contact with Twitter.. And for us one of the issues we want to discuss with them is the issue of main establishment — is there any change? With the announcement of the departures — including the DPO — is there any plans to change the decision making process that’s in place that allows them to avail of the main establishment,” Doyle reiterated. Reports that all was not well up at the senior echelons of Twitter’s security and privacy function spilled out onto Twitter yesterday afternoon. Platformer journalists, Casey Newton and Zoë Schiffer, reported that Twitter’s CISO, chief privacy officer and chief compliance officer has all resigned — citing messages shared in Twitter Slack which they had obtained. Soon afterwards, the Washington Post’s Cat Zakrzewski tweeted that the Irish DPC was “seeking more information” from Twitter. According to messages shared in Twitter Slack, Twitter’s CISO, chief privacy office, and chief compliance officer all resigned last night. An employee says it will be up to engineers to “self-certify compliance with FTC requirements and other laws.” — Casey Newton (@CaseyNewton) November 10, 2022 NEW: A senior member of Twitter’s legal team just posted this message in Slack:“Everyone should know that our CISO, Chief Privacy Officer and Chief Compliance Officer ALL resigned last night. This news will be buried in the return-to-office drama. I believe that is intentional.” — Zoë Schiffer (@ZoeSchiffer) November 10, 2022 Twitter CISO Lea Kissner later confirmed her departure in a tweet — as did Damien Kieran, Twitter’s now ex chief privacy officer. While Marianne Fogarty, Twitter’s (reportedly ex) chief compliance officer, tweeted what may be an indirect confirmation too late yesterday — writing: “Therapy Thursdays have taken on new meaning of late. #LoveTwitter”. Enquiries to Twitter’s press line have gone unanswered since Musk took over so it’s not been possible to obtain an official line on what’s going on. The company’s communications department appears to have been a major casualty of the 50% headcount reduction Musk swiftly applied on taking over — with press staffers either entirely or almost entirely laid off. It also not clear how many of Twitter’s staff in Ireland were laid off last week. There is no obligation on the company to report overall layoffs numbers to the DPC. Nor is the criteria a regulator should use for assessing main establishment clear as it is not stipulated in the GDPR itself — but rather left up to regulators to determine. (On determining main establishment, the regulation states: “The main establishment of a controller in the Union should be determined according to objective criteria and should imply the effective and real exercise of management activities determining the main decisions as to the purposes and means of processing through stable arrangements” — further stipulating that “criterion should not

Musk flip-flops on Twitter verification — brings back (some) ‘Official’ badges (in some parts of the world) • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 11, 2022Posted in Elon Musk, Social, Twitter, verificationNo Comments

Strap back in for another Musk-Twitter U-turn: After a wave of impersonation chaos that hit a number of high profile brands and celebrities in recent hours, including an account pretending to be pharma giant Eli Lilly tweeting that insulin in “now free” — surely cooling the last embers of any advertiser ardour for the social media platform — Twitter’s new billionaire owner, Elon Musk, seems to have had another rethink as it appears that an extra layer of “Official” verification has been brought back. Just, er, it depends on where you’re viewing the platform from. (Quick reminder: After the Twitter owner/chaos edgelord’s decision on taking over to devalue Twitter’s legacy ‘blue check’ verification system — by opening it up to anyone who’ll pay him $8 — some of the sane people still left at the company (following Musk’s 50% headcount cull) apparently tried keep up with the madness by rushing out the grey check ‘Official’ badge layer of verification that was applied to some of the legacy verified Twitter accounts (including, briefly, @ZebethMedia). But a few hours later the badges had gone and Musk tweeted that he’d “killed it”.) The Verge spotted the re-reversal (if we can put it that way) earlier, writing that “brands such as Coca-Cola, Twitter, Wired, and Ars Technica have the new-old gray checks”. ZebethMedia’s account has also been re-badged “Official”. However, at the time of typing (and lord knows what might happen in an hour or two at Musk-Twitter), the truth looks a little, uh, greyer — because these returned “Official” badges/grey check marks are not always visible, depending on where in the world you’re looking at Twitter. For eg, if you’re looking at ZebethMedia’s Twitter account with an IP address inside the US the “Official” stamp is visible (below, top). However in some locations outside the US (including the UK and Spain) the verification badge is missing (for now). Although a colleague in India was able to see the Official stamp on our account. So, er, fresh chaos reigns! Now you see it officially badged (top, US IP), now you don’t (above, UK IP)… (Natasha Lomas/ZebethMedia) Is this ‘regional Official verification’ another Musk joke now that he has his hands on the Twitter steering wheel — perhaps aimed at trolling mainstream media? Or is this just a slow global rollout of the U-turn, given he liquidated half the staff and a bunch more have been walking out the door. Frankly, who tf knows. We can’t confirm officially with the company because Twitter sacked its comms department and messages to the press email and individuals still working at Twitter since Musk took over have been ignored. What else is coming? It’s anyone’s guess but Musk tweeted recently (in reply to a Twitter user called “BiasedGirl”) to imply that Official verification status won’t be universally granted to legacy-verified Twitter users — saying: “Far too many corrupt legacy Blue “verification” checkmarks exist, so no choice but to remove legacy Blue in coming months”. Far too many corrupt legacy Blue “verification” checkmarks exist, so no choice but to remove legacy Blue in coming months — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 10, 2022 In another recent emission from the previously self-styled Chief Twit, Musk has also stipulated that “parody impersonation” accounts must clearly label themselves as such in their name, not just in their Twitter bio. “Basically, tricking people is no ok,” he added. Advertisers will surely be flocking back to a version of Twitter that’s flooded with verified parody impersonation accounts whose priority tweets trashing their brands are flooding the feeds of the remaining, very confused users. Not. To be more precise, accounts doing parody impersonations. Basically, tricking people is not ok. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 11, 2022

More key Twitter execs just quit, including the head of trust and safety • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 10, 2022Posted in Elon Musk, Social, TwitterNo Comments

Hours after news broke that Twitter lost top cybersecurity executive Lea Kissner, another round of departures deepened the company’s ongoing crisis. Platformer’s Zoë Schiffer first reported that Twitter’s Head of Trust and Safety Yoel Roth quit the company Thursday after just two weeks under Musk’s leadership. Robin Wheeler, who was elevated to lead Twitter’s marketing and sales teams, has also reportedly left the company, according to Bloomberg. Roth, who remained a public face at the company in the brief Musk era and tweeted reassurances about the company’s moderation efforts, is an especially shocking departure. But both executives played a visible role in Musk’s version of the company. Just yesterday Roth and Wheeler moderated a rambling Twitter Space in which Musk shared his vision for the company. Twitter also lost its chief privacy officer Damien Kieran and Chief Compliance Officer Marianne Fogarty on Thursday along with the departure of its CISO. The latest wave of resignations on top of Musk’s erratic behavior and his haphazard mass layoffs are likely to crater whatever advertiser and regulator trust remained in Musk’s ability to run the company. I’ve made the hard decision to leave Twitter. I’ve had the opportunity to work with amazing people and I’m so proud of the privacy, security, and IT teams and the work we’ve done. I’m looking forward to figuring out what’s next, starting with my reviews for @USENIXSecurity 😁 — Lea Kissner (@LeaKissner) November 10, 2022 Per multiple reports, Musk also convened an impromptu all-hands meeting at the company on Thursday, painting a dire picture of its financials and stating that “bankruptcy isn’t out of the question.” Twitter’s new owner repeated his assertion that the company would no longer allow remote work, suggesting that anyone who didn’t report to the office in person would be fired. This story is developing…

FTC warns ‘no CEO or company is above the law’ if Twitter shirks privacy order • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 10, 2022Posted in elon buys twitter, Elon Musk, FTC, Government & Policy, Privacy, Social, TwitterNo Comments

The FTC has telegraphed what appears to be a now-inevitable investigation into Twitter’s internal data handling practices, as the company continues to shed important staff and improvise new features. “No CEO or company is above the law,” the agency said in a statement — and if Elon Musk’s Twitter continues its current spree, they may find themselves in violation of the FTC’s order and facing serious consequences. To be clear at the outset, the FTC has not announced any investigation into Twitter, Elon Musk, or even that they are gathering information in service of such an investigation. Nor would it be able to confirm it was investigating if it was. But circumstantial evidence, common sense, and the ominous statement issued today leave little doubt that the company is in the agency’s crosshairs. In the course of its ordinary oversight duties, the FTC looks into complaints by consumers, companies, and anyone with a bone to pick about things like misleading advertising, broken privacy promises, illicit business arrangements, and so on. But in 2011 Twitter agreed to a consent decree with the regulator after being found to have misused user data. It was also found to have done so again for many years in an investigation culminating in a $150 million settlement earlier this year, so this isn’t some bygone red tape. This decree required Twitter to establish and maintain a program to ensure and regularly report that its new features do not further misrepresent “the extent to which it maintains and protects the security, privacy, confidentiality, or integrity of any nonpublic consumer information.” The revised order adds more oversight and gives the FTC more power, since evidently Twitter needed a stick as well as a carrot. The gist of it is that Twitter is in the doghouse with the FTC already, and it has specific and legally binding requirements regarding what it can and can’t do with data, and how it verifies that it is in compliance. Around the time of the settlement, Elon Musk entered the stage and now we have all… this. But the news that last night several data handling executives, no doubt important to walking the line with a watchful regulator, all reportedly left at once. Literally minutes after I wrote this paragraph, the company’s head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth, was reported to be leaving as well. NEW: A senior member of Twitter’s legal team just posted this message in Slack:“Everyone should know that our CISO, Chief Privacy Officer and Chief Compliance Officer ALL resigned last night. This news will be buried in the return-to-office drama. I believe that is intentional.” — Zoë Schiffer (@ZoeSchiffer) November 10, 2022 This would be troubling at any company, at any time, under any level of federal scrutiny. But for Twitter the departing chiefs might as well have hired a skywriter to spell out “INVESTIGATE ME” in huge letters above Twitter HQ. (Of course normally that might apply to any number of companies in downtown San Francisco, but right now there’s little question.) The amount of changes, new products, eliminations of various departments and processes (many of which had to do with privacy, fairness, data handling and other crucial topics) don’t mean Twitter is necessarily in violation of the consent decree. But with things going the way they are, it’s quite hard to imagine that it is in compliance now, or it is is, will remain so for long. It’s important, though, to understand that the FTC isn’t like the FBI, kicking doors down and arranging evidence in damning dioramas. The FTC conducts its investigations privately and at great length — they can’t and don’t publicize the fact that they are looking into a company for some violation or another until there is a legally binding consequence like a signed consent decree, settlement, or a decision to go to trial via the Department of Justice. Although many expected the FTC under the leadership of tech skeptic and very smart person Lina Khan to be more proactive, it is limited by law what it can do. It’s actually a bit surprising that the agency got as spicy as it did in the full statement: We are tracking recent developments at Twitter with deep concern. No CEO or company is above the law, and companies must follow our consent decrees. Our revised consent order gives us new tools to ensure compliance, and we are prepared to use them. Though it stops short of saying “We are sharpening our knives,” this statement nevertheless is about as strong an implication that they will be giving Twitter a call soon as they can make. (A juicy tidbit uncovered by CNN’s Brian Fung, while enticing, could relate to ongoing discussions regarding the $150M settlement, so don’t get too excited.) If they decide to pursue an investigation, which would probably happen if there are any red flags at all, let alone this many, it will be done confidentially — but importantly, it is not secret. That means that although it is the FTC’s policy not to reveal or comment on an investigation, a company or person being investigated may do so at any time if they wish. So if the FTC makes a formal request for certain data from Twitter, or deposes its executives (present or former), they may decide to publicize that information. In fact Twitter did this in late 2020, long before the settlement with the FTC was finalized. After all, you don’t want your investors to be the last to hear about something like a $150M charge, even though in telling them you risk discovery by hawk-eyed journalists. So if the FTC investigates Twitter, it’s far more likely that we will hear about it from the company — in a filing with investors or, more likely, from its incautious and prolix CEO during one of his increasingly frequent emergency meetings. The state of chaos at Twitter makes the commonplace observation that we don’t know what it will look like in six months

Who’ll get the last laugh over Musk toying with Twitter’s veracity? • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 10, 2022Posted in disinformation, Elon Musk, EU Code of Practice on Disinformation, Government & Policy, Social, TwitterNo Comments

Twitter’s painstakingly layered infosphere looks to be light-speeding back to chaotic noise under new owner Elon Musk. The billionaire is no fan of meritocratic signals nor, it seems, a friend to genuine information — preferring anyone pay him $8/m to have their account on his microblogging social network badged with a check-mark that looks like the old Twitter verification check yet does not involve Musk’s Twitter checking they are who they say they are. In short, it’s a joke made real. Now, in order to verify if a check mark displayed on a Twitter account is a legacy verification of actual identity — or just a late stage capitalism status symbol for Musk’s most loyal fanboys — users must click on the check symbol next to an account name and read the small print that pops up and will either read: “This account is verified because it’s notable in government, news, entertainment, or another designated category” (aka, it’s pre-Musk Twitter verified); or “This account is verified because it’s subscribed to Twitter Blue” (aka, not verified; but yes probably a Musk super fan). At the time of writing, there is no ‘at a glance’ way to distinguish between the old ‘identify verified’ Twitter check mark and non-verified paying subscribers. It’s inherently confusing — presumably intentionally so, given Musk’s love of trolling. He certainly wasted no time laughing about the informational chaos he’d wrought… (At least, we *think* the below account posting crying-with-laughter emojis is him but who can tell anything on Twitter these days?) Screengrab: Natasha Lomas/ZebethMedia Musk’s new Twitter Blue subscription product enables imposters and other purveyors of misinformation to assume (and, if they wish, trash) reputations of others, one check-marked tweet at a time — as immediately started happening on launch — just so long as they can sign up for an $8 charge to pay for Musk’s “leveller” tool. Early targets for impersonation by Twitter Blue subscribers have included basketball star LeBron James, former president George W Bush, former UK prime minister Tony Blair, and tech and gaming brands Apple, Nintendo and Valve Software among others. Account bans followed for some of these impersonator accounts soon after — but the barrier to entry to Musk’s chaos game is incredibly low so plenty more trolls will surely follow. (Hence Twitter’s new nickname being ‘$8chan’.) Twitter Blue is also touted to boost the visibility of subscribers’ tweets vs non-subscribers thereby skewing the information surfaced by the platform’s algorithms — and most likely eroding the visibility of quality information (based on who’s happy to pay vs who’s not). As we’ve reported before, the risks aren’t just reputational (nor to information quality on Twitter): Scams and fraud could easily result if genuine Twitter users are taken in by a fake that’s seeking to harvest their personal information for identity theft or pointing them towards malicious websites to try to run phishing scams to compromise financial information or other sensitive data. Still, as Twitter users everywhere feel the chill of Twitter Blue diluting the veracity of verification signals available on the platform (is it an actual politician or a troll? Maybe that is Musk’s joke?), spare a thought for the European Union — whose reputation as a global regulator risks taking a major nose dive in the Musk-Twitter era. Thing is, Twitter is an existing signatory to the EU’s recently beefed up Code of Practice on Disinformation — a voluntary set of “commitments and measures” platforms agree to apply with the goal of combating the spread of misinformation and disinformation online. Seriously. Musk-owned Twitter is technically already signed up to actively fight disinformation. Yes, we lol’d too. If you take a look at the specifics of what Twitter’s prior leadership team signed the business up for it makes especially awkward reading for Musk-Twitter (and/or the European Commission) — with a requirement on the platform to “limit impermissible manipulative behaviours and practices” by having in place (and/or further bolstering) policies against “impersonation” (emphasis ours); and against “the creation and use of fake accounts“, to name just two especially relevant “behaviors and practices” Twitter is supposed to be discouraging rather than amplifying per this EU Code. Twitter is also signed up to Commitment 18 of the Code — which is summarized in its subscription document as (again, with our emphasis): “Relevant Signatories commit to minimise the risks of viral propagation of misinformation or disinformation by adopting safe design practices as they develop their systems, policies, and features.” Hands up anyone who thinks Musk’s chaotic product iteration at Twitter since taking over as “Chief Twit” fits the bill for “safe design practices”? Er… anyone? No, of course not. It took Musk a matter of hours to kill an “official” extra layer of verification — which took the confusing form of a duplicate check mark and ‘official’ label (yes, srsly) — and had been (very) briefly applied to a sub-set of (legacy) verified accounts by certain of the remaining Twitter staff after Musk fired the other half of the company in a massive cost cutting drive immediately on taking over. “I just killed it,” Musk tweeted yesterday in response to (legacy verified) YouTuber Marques Brownlee — who had just spotted that the ‘Official’ badge he’d also just spotted was now missing; aka, AWOL soon after materializing. So, basically: Ohhai chaos! “Blue check will be the great leveler,” was all Musk offered by way of public explanation at the time. Trust & safety features that come and go within a matter of days/hours/minutes — and product launches that drastically impact trust & safety being rushed out without zero care and attention to their impact on, um, trust & safety — is the new normal at Musk-Twitter. The Chief Twit said as much — tweeting soon after nixing the extra ‘Official’ label: “Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months. We will keep what works & change what doesn’t.” Which is really another way of Musk taking a pen to the Disinformation Code and

Twitter chief information security officer Lea Kissner departs • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 10, 2022Posted in chief information security officer, Elon Musk, Security, TwitterNo Comments

Twitter’s most senior cybersecurity staffer Lea Kissner has departed the social media giant. Kissner announced the move in a tweet on Thursday, saying they made the “hard decision” to leave Twitter, but did not say for what reason they resigned. Elon Musk completed a $44 billion takeover of Twitter two weeks ago, resulting in layoffs affecting more than half of the company and the departure of senior executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal, general counsel Sean Edgett, and legal policy chief Vijaya Gadde. News of Kissner’s departure was first reported by Casey Newton. Twitter’s chief compliance officer and chief privacy officer also resigned on Wednesday, Newton said. It’s not immediately clear who is responsible for Twitter’s day-to-day security operations following Kissner’s departure. A spokesperson for Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment. I’ve made the hard decision to leave Twitter. I’ve had the opportunity to work with amazing people and I’m so proud of the privacy, security, and IT teams and the work we’ve done. I’m looking forward to figuring out what’s next, starting with my reviews for @USENIXSecurity 😁 — Lea Kissner (@LeaKissner) November 10, 2022 Kissner, who previously served as Twitter’s head of privacy engineering, was appointed Twitter’s chief information security officer (CISO) in January 2022 following the departure of security head Peiter “Mudge” Zatko and then-CISO Rinki Sethi. Mudge went on to blow the whistle to federal regulators claiming security mismanagement and lax access controls that put users’ data at risk. Twitter is currently under a 2011 agreement with the Federal Trade Commission which accused Twitter of cybersecurity failings that allowed cybercriminals to access internal systems and user data. The decree mandates that Twitter “establish and maintain a comprehensive information security program” to be audited every decade. It’s not clear how Twitter maintains that compliance with the FTC without a company security lead in place. One employee said in a company Slack that it was for Twitter engineers to “self-certify” compliance with the FTC. Earlier this year, Twitter was fined $150 million for violating that 2011 consent decree for misusing email addresses and phone numbers provided by users to set up two-factor authentication for targeted advertising.

In his first emails to Twitter staff, Musk talks about ending remote work and battling verified spam • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 10, 2022Posted in elon buys twitter, Elon Musk, remote work, Social, TwitterNo Comments

More than 10 days after taking over Twitter, Elon Musk addressed the company’s employees for the first time in a series of emails. He talked about ending remote work and making the fight against spam a priority. According to a report from Bloomberg, the new CEO asked workers to be ready for “difficult times ahead.” At the same time, he asked them to mandatorily work from the office unless an employee received a personal exemption. The report also said that the employees will have to put in at least 40 hours per week working from the office and these policies are effective immediately. This is not really surprising as, during a Q&A with Twitter staff in June, Musk said only “exceptional” employees would be able to work remotely. Around the same time, he ended the remote work policy for Tesla employees and asked them to spend at least 40 hours a week in the office. During the first few days after taking control of Twitter, Musk fired top executives, tweeted about introducing new verification and subscription plans, and laid off half of the staff. But he just got time to address the remaining employees. All this while, the staff was living in uncertainty about the direction of the company and how their roles would change. The billionaire has set aggressive product deadlines after promising to bring a ton of features through a bunch of tweets. Now deleted tweets from employees suggested that they had to sleep at the office to meet some of these new product deadlines. Earlier this month, Musk also eliminated company-wide rest days that were introduced during the pandemic. In 2020, Twitter was one of the first companies to allow employees to work remotely forever. The Bloomberg report also noted that, in a separate email, Musk asked Twitter staff to make it a priority to battle verified spam, bots and impersonation. After he announced the plans to introduce new verification through a paid program, a bunch of legacy verified accounts changed their profile to imitate Musk. In response, he said that any verified account indulging in impersonation will be banned. On Thursday, the social network debuted its new Twitter Blue program for $8 a month allowing people to buy out verified check marks. Soon after the roll-out, a bunch of accounts started impersonating brands, athletes and officials across the world. In the terms of the new subscription plan, Twitter has specified that new accounts can’t sign up for this offering yet. The company has taken this step to possibly reduce spam. It is also preventing existing verified accounts from changing their display names. “Twitter Blue subscribers will be unable to change their display name after receiving a blue checkmark. We will be implementing a new process soon for any display name changes,” the terms read. So overall, the company has had a messy start to the Musk era with an extremely rough rollout to an ambitious subscription program.

Twitter blocks new accounts from its $8 verified tier after high-profile fakes abound • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 10, 2022Posted in Elon Musk, Social, Twitter, twitter blue, twitter verificationNo Comments

The motto over at Twitter is clearly a throwback ‘move fast and break things’ at the moment under new ruler Elon Musk, and the latest thing to break is the just-introduced $8 monthly Twitter Blue tier, which includes a shiny ‘verified’ checkmark indistinguishable from the ones that Twitter used to hand out selectively to high-profile accounts. The social network updated its Twitter Blue info page to note that any accounts freshly created on or after Wednesday, November 9, will not be able to subscribe for now. I should stress that this is ‘as of this writing,’ since the pace of change is such over at Twitter HQ right now that what may be true as I type these words may not be by the time I add the period to the end of this sentence. That’s because Musk has overtly said the company will be doing “lots of dumb things in coming months” with an attitude of rapid iteration based on results. Twitter Blue terms on Nov 10 noting accounts created after Nov 9 can’t sign up for Twitter Blue. One fresh example is the ‘official’ account label, which was a second checkmark that Twitter was providing to organizations including news outlets, as well as high-profile individuals like politicians and influencers who are often imitated for scamming purposes. That program went live on Wednesday and was already nixed just a few hours later. The block on Blue for new accounts appears to be related to what happened immediately once the subscription actually provided the blue check ‘verification’ that Musk had previously provided: People abused it. A number of fake accounts pretending to be celebrities, brands and otherwise influential people immediately cropped up and made audacious, false claims, including a fake LeBron requesting a trade away from the Lakers, a fake Connor McDavid saying he already had been traded from the Oilers to the Islanders, a fake Nintendo account posting a picture of Mario flipping the bird and much, much more. Stopping new accounts from getting the blue check is a temporary solution to preventing some of this kind of impersonation (thought it doesn’t block legacy accounts from doing so, including the many inactive accounts that are out there ripe for takeover or manipulation) but it’s unclear how the company will prevent this kind of thing longer-term. As with everything that happens with Twitter these days, they’ll probably try a bunch of things in public across the platform at large and seed what sticks.

Fake Twitter accounts flock to blue check mark chaos • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 9, 2022Posted in Elon Musk, elon musk buys twitter, Social, TwitterNo Comments

Elon Musk’s mercurial leadership and half-baked product plans are already creating fertile ground for confusion on Twitter. We’ve lost count of how many times Musk has changed his mind or offered contradictory claims about what a new paid $8 verification badge would do, but after pushing the feature live, fake accounts are seizing on the chaos. Twitter’s bought blue check marks are now available for some paying subscribers, injecting the timeline with tweets that appear to be from official accounts. And apparently Musk’s Twitter skeleton crew made no meaningful changes to the visual language of the blue check, so right now it signals that you’re either really who you say you are — @CocaCola, for instance — or you’re somebody random who just coughed up $8 and got a stamp of approval. Now when tweets appear in Twitter’s timeline it’s impossible to visually distinguish the two categories of blue check accounts from one another. Doing so would require clicking through to examine a user’s follower count, which isn’t necessarily a reliable way to tell, or searching for whatever clues might be found in their other tweets. Clicking on the check mark itself from a profile page apparently displays different copy too, but like everything on Twitter right now, that is subject to change. So far this has resulted in some quick attention for an account impersonating LeBron James, which announced that the basketball star was requesting a trade away from the Lakers. A few other athletes got the same treatment, including baseball pitcher Aroldis Chapman and NHL player Connor McDavid. Following sports transactions and news could become a total mess with the new verification system Already fake LeBron and Aroldis Chapman tweets going around pic.twitter.com/vQgMqws1W0 — Joon Lee (@joonlee) November 9, 2022 As we’ve reported, Musk has already changed his mind a number of times already on the scheme to get rid of bots and spam by making people pay $8 a month. But now that the feature is suddenly live, anyone can impersonate someone else for $8 a month and see their content boosted algorithmically without any vetting. (Though apparently that paid perk, like nearly all of the “new” Twitter Blue’s features beyond the blue check mark, is “coming soon.”) All of those accounts are suspended now, but only after the tweets gained traction and caught the attention of Twitter moderators. With one half of the staff it was previously operating with, it’s impossible for Twitter to catch all of this stuff after the fact if it doesn’t have any interest in vetting at the time of payment, which Musk apparently doesn’t. The implications for Twitter as a reliable news source and the potential for abuse here is massive. Musk held off on his haphazard plan until the day after the U.S. elections, but with many races not yet called we can definitely expect to see confusion that’s orders of magnitude more consequential than a fake basketball trade. Misinformation potential aside, Musk’s plan also undermines the presence of celebrities — one of the things that makes Twitter interesting for the average user. If Twitter users can’t even reliably find prominent people like athletes, politicians and movie stars to follow, the platform’s value is going to fall off a cliff pretty fast, with its advertising revenue not far behind.

Elon Musk addresses Twitter advertisers in a meandering Q&A • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 9, 2022Posted in Elon Musk, Social, TwitterNo Comments

New Twitter owner Elon Musk joined a Twitter Space today to address concerns from advertisers about changes at the company. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO’s nascent foray into running a social media platform has been tumultuous, from launching unfinished products, to alienating advertisers, to laying off half of its staff. Twitter’s Client Solutions Leader, Robin Wheeler moderated the hour-long conversation with Musk, Trust & Safety Head Yoel Roth, and International Advertising Bureau CEO David Cohen. For the most part, Musk repeated many of the same talking points that he has been peddling since he initially launched his bid for Twitter. “We really want to be, as I’ve mentioned before publicly, sort of the digital town square, where that is as inclusive as possible… Like, can we get 80% of humanity on Twitter, and talking, and maybe, ideally, in a positive way?” Musk asked at the top of the call. “Can we exchange… instead of having violence, have words, and maybe once in a while people change their minds? The overarching goal here is like, how can we make Twitter a force for good for civilization?” If Musk wants to get 80% of humanity on Twitter, he has his work cut out for him. If Twitter’s estimate of 237.8 million monetizable daily active users is correct, then 3% of the world’s population currently uses Twitter daily. Musk also addressed the questions around his plan to verify any user who is willing to pay $8 per month for a blue check. “The issue is that creating a fake account is extremely cheap, it maybe is a tenth of a penny,” he said. “By charging $8 a month, it raises the cost of a bot or troll by somewhere between 1,000 and 10,000.” He obliquely nodded at the idea that only a certain number of accounts connected to an individual phone number or credit card can be verified. “Wouldn’t a state actor have $8 million a day to create a million fake accounts? Well, yes, they’ve got the budget. But here’s the problem. They don’t have a million credit cards, and they don’t have a million phones. That’s the actual kicker. There’s no way to overcome that. And we will be vigorously pursuing any impersonation,” he said. With regard to the verification process, Musk laid out clearly: “Someone has to have phone, a credit card and $8 a month. That’s the bar.” Musk has continued doubling-down on the idea that by verifying as many users as possible — and charging users for that privilege — it will be more difficult to see posts from users who don’t pay to be verified. “Over time, maybe not that long of time, when you look at mentions and replies and what not, the default will be to look at verified. You can still look at unverified, just as in your gmail or whatever, you can still look at the probable spam folder,” Musk said. “You can still look at all the others, but it will be defaulted to the highly, highly relevant category, which will be verified.” Since before Musk’s acquisition, Twitter has offered a separate feed for verified users that only shows notifications from fellow blue checks. In terms of other product updates, Musk elaborated on some plans for how Twitter can get more into commerce and payments. He also reiterated his previous statements about investing in creator monetization, though existing creator features have not been quite successful for Twitter thus far. With major advertisers listening to the call, Wheeler pivoted the discussion to ask about content moderation and brand safety. Last week, a report revealed that IPG — one of the world’s largest advertising companies, with customers such as Coca-Cola, American Express, Johnson & Johnson, Mattel and Spotify — issued a recommendation for clients to temporarily pause their spending on Twitter because of moderation concerns. The Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), a coalition of platforms, advertisers and industry groups fighting harmful content on social media, also said it was monitoring Twitter’s handling of content moderation. Yet Musk’s comments were vague and did not specifically address these groups’ concerns. “It stands to reason that if somebody’s advertising, that they do not want super negative information right next to their ad,” Musk said. “We all kind of work hard to make sure that there’s not bad stuff right next to an ad.” He also said that Twitter is working to increase the relevance of ads. When asked about hate speech, Musk responded, “I don’t think having hate speech next to an ad is great.” Musk was equally avoidant when asked about his plan to create his own content moderation council. Musk has continually said that this group will represent a diverse set of viewpoints, but did not state what kinds of people or groups will be on the board. After a meeting with human rights groups last week, Musk committed to including representatives from groups that suffer from hate-fueled violence. But Musk said today that it might take a few months to put this council together. 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 Roth commented on how enforcement policies might change soon, too. “For many years, the only thing that Twitter could do was delete tweets and ban accounts,” he said. “One of the directions that we’re trying to build towards is having more tools in our toolbox to be able to reduce the harmful impacts of content without always having to go to that step of a ban. And so in the coming days and weeks, you’re going to see us start to introduce some of these new concepts and frameworks for content moderation.” Roth elaborated: “There’s a lot of other stuff that we can do, from warning messages, to interstitials, to reducing the reach of content, that we haven’t fully explored in the past. And you’re going to see us move