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BoomPop gains traction by designing high-end off-sites for our now remote-first world • ZebethMedia

There’s nothing sexy about corporate retreats. But BoomPop, a 26-person, San Francisco-based outfit that the startup studio Atomic launched in 2020, is managing to infuse some sizzle in the historically staid industry. In fact, given what BoomPop is building, one can see it evolve into an option for more than companies looking to more easily plan luxury meet-ups for their far-flung employees, which is how it largely exists right now. It could (conceivably) become a solution for weddings, family reunions, and business conferences and more. That’s assuming the company can make it through what looks to be a long economic downturn. We will say the startup’s pitch is persuasive. Here’s what we know right now, based on an interview earlier today with the company’s gregarious CEO Healey Cypher. The company was born during the pandemic; Cypher, who is also the COO of the startup studio Atomic, was intent on keeping his colleagues’ morale up and began devising increasingly creative ways to do it, including through virtual Napa Valley wine-tastings, magic shows, customized games and the like. Along the way, it occurred to Cypher and his Atomic colleagues that there could be a business in creating a curated marketplace of virtual experiences, and he says that by the end of last, beginning with an email blast to 150 contacts, that business had nearly 2,500 customers who were letting BoomPop plan their virtual team-building exercises. Fast forward to today, and the viability of the business is no longer a question mark, says Cypher. Some of its customers have already paid BoomPop to organize “60 to 70” mini meetups for them – both virtual and offline. In fact, he says the company has been so focused on creating a vibrant marketplace of places to go and things to do that it now features “thousands of hotel options, meeting spaces, activities, photographers who can create sizzle reels of these events and swag” to give to participants as they head back home. It also handles the invitations, creates event pages with agenda, tracks schedule and budget changes and handles payments. (It creates an escrow account for every event  that shuts off when it’s over.) In short, it’s a lot of mini-businesses in one, and it has all been built from the ground up, says Cypher, who claims that so far, 4,000 companies have made arrangements for 150,000 of their employees at an average price of $65,000 per event. Most of those customers — 73%, says Cypher — have never planned or hosted an off-site before. All pay a flat fee that BoomPop guarantees that is “at least 10% to 20% off the best rates you can buy,” says Cypher. The numbers would seem to validate Cypher’s theory that as companies shrink their physical footprint and the associates costs of outfitting those offices, there’s a lot of “new, shiny, found money” that is being spent on extending runway but also on maintain social cohesion, which is ultimately what makes most jobs sticky and their employees loyal. Little wonder that BoomPop isn’t alone in spying the opportunity. In addition to competing with Airbnb Experiences (which is more disjointed), BoomPop is going up against the internal event planning teams within big companies as well as a spate of startups, including the end-to-end retreat planning startup Flok, whose founder was a former Apple engineer (the company went through YC last winter) and Marco Experiences, an L.A.-based seed-funded outfit that is similarly designing off-sites and other experiences for its customers. Still, BoomPop would seem to have some advantages over some of these rivals. First, Atomic is a company-making factory whose best-known brand include the telehealth outfit Hims & Hers, which went public via a special purpose acquisition company early last year and OpenStore, an outfit that is snapping up Shopify storefronts. Atomic hasn’t had a blow-your-hair-back-level exit yet, but it has seen plenty of success to date, including on the basis of how many of its startups raise follow-on rounds and considering that it doesn’t pour a lot of capital into its creations. BoomPop itself quietly raised a previously unannounced round of $14 million back in February from ACME Capital and Atomic, along with Box founder and CEO Aaron Levie. (Levie apparently understands the pain point BoomPop is solving.) Cypher is himself no slouch, having cofounded some of Atomic’s companies, as well as founded his own company before he teamed up with Atomic. That earlier startup, Oak Labs, made a full-length touch-screen mirror for dressing rooms and was acquired for “tens of millions” of dollars three years after it was founded, per Cypher, who was once a retail innovation head at eBay. There are also those headwinds. While a recession could certainly crush a business like BoomPop depending on its severity and length, there’s little question that in the future, companies will need to do more — and should have more free capital to spend — to keep far-flung employees happy and engaged and focused on teamwork. The data tells the numbers. Even with layoffs in the air, offices in the U.S. are still less than half full, according to recent data out of the security firm Kastle Systems. Companies are adjusting in real time. According to a July survey of 250 U.S. companies from the flexible workspace software provider Robin, 46% of companies plan to cut their office space in the next year. Of those outfits, 59% said they would shrink their space by more than half. From left to right, BoomPop’s cofounders (dressed ironically in suits — we’re told they do not actually wear suits): Vaibhav Chauhan (revenue/operations); Healey Cypher (CEO); and Blake Hudelson (product/design). Not pictured: Atomic CEO Jack Abraham.

Snapchat gears up for the FIFA World Cup with new AR experiences, filters and more • ZebethMedia

Snapchat is introducing a slew of new features and experiences ahead of the FIFA World Cup to let users show support for their teams and keep up with the tournament. The new features let you virtually try on jerseys, dress up your Bitmoji, watch match highlights and more. The app has partnered with Adidas to let users virtually dress their Bitmoji in the official home football kits of their team. Users will also get access to official team stickers and filters to decorate their snaps and support their team. The app is launching official team kit try-on experiences that allow users to express their fandom by wearing official team jerseys. The try-on Lenses leverage AR technology that originated as a Snap Research project and was in development for years, and is now available for developers to begin testing in Lens Studio. Image Credits: Snap Snapchat Discover, the app’s curated content platform, will publish highlights, goals, player interviews, match analysis and behind the scenes content during the tournament in over 30 countries. On Spotlight, Snapchat’s in-app entertainment platform for user generated content, users in the U.S. will have the chance to submit Snaps to for a chance to win cash prizes for creating top-performing snaps using specific Lenses, Sounds or Topics. In addition, Snap Map will feature curated stories of fans watching and celebrating their team during the games. Users will be able to tap specific places to see Snaps shared publicly. The stories will include Snaps from watch parties, fan experiences, reactions in the stands, game highlights and more.

I volunteer as tribute! • ZebethMedia

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

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

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.

Yubo expands its real-time audio moderation technology to the U.K., Australia and Canada • ZebethMedia

Yubo, a social livestreaming app popular with a Gen Z audience, announced today it’s expanding its audio moderation technology to the U.K., Australia and Canada. The Paris-based company first launched the technology in the U.S. earlier this year in partnership with Hive. Yubo says although the technology is still in its infancy, its has proven to be effective at detecting potential real-world risk, such as violence to others or self-harm. The audio moderation technology works by recording and automatically transcribing 10-second snippets of audio in livestreams of 10 or more people. The text is then automatically scanned using AI to detect problematic content, such as nudity or drug use. Yubo sends alert pop-ups to tell users that they’re doing something inappropriate while it’s happening. Yubo says only text that contains words or phrases that violate the app’s policies are flagged for review by Yubo’s. The incidents are then investigated in real time to determine what actions should be taken. Transcripts with no suspected violations are not reviewed and are automatically deleted after 24 hours. Transcripts that are flagged and require investigation internally or by law enforcement are stored for up to a year. “Our expansion of audio moderation technology is not only a key element of Yubo’s ever-evolving safety product roadmap, but a critical development in expanding the parameters of online safety industry-wide,” said Yubo COO Marc-Antoine Durand in a statement. “There is still a lot of progress to be made in the area of voice detection, but we are proud to be forging a path for our peers by being the first to launch audio moderation with Hive and helping make this tool more reliable and effective through this trial.” Founded in 2015, Yubo users hang out in livestreaming rooms where they can socialize, play games and make new friends. Unlike other social media platforms, there aren’t creators on the platform broadcasting to fans. Instead, Yubo’s main focus is on helping users socialize naturally. The company has managed to attract 60 million young users, which means that the stakes are high when it comes to safety in all aspects. In September, Yubo said it was nearly done verifying the age of 100% of it user base using age estimating technology. The startup originally started verifying the age of its users back in May. By building a safe community on its platform, Yubo will be able to foster engagement, which could in turn lead to increased revenue.

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

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.

Hinge’s new feature makes it easier for those seeking non-monogamous relationships • ZebethMedia

Today, Hinge rolled out a feature that allows users to add their “Relationship Type” to their profile, whether that be “monogamous,” “non-monogamous,” or “figuring out my relationship type.” The update lets users express precisely what they’re looking for to more efficiently minimize unsuited matches. “Relationship Type” is available globally for all Hinge users starting today. Note that adding the feature to Hinge profiles is optional. If a user chooses to add their type, it will be in the “virtues” section of a profile. Like Hinge’s “Dating Intentions” profile feature, there’s a “Backstory” open-text option, so users can add more context about their relationship type. “Dating Intentions” launched over the summer and encourages users to select a dating goal like “long-term,” “short-term,” “life partner,” or “figuring out my dating goals.” Image Credits: Hinge “Hinge is the place for all daters to find intentional and meaningful romantic connections, and I want it to enter a new era of dating where the word ‘relationship’ defies traditional and heteronormative meaning,” said Michelle Parsons, Chief Product Officer at Hinge, in the announcement. “With the launch of Relationship Types, we are empowering users to openly share what kind of relationship they are looking for, and as a result, have a new way to know if someone’s dating goals match theirs from the moment they look at their profile.” Some non-monogamous users have found it difficult to use Hinge and other traditional dating apps because it’s more difficult to narrow down these like-minded daters. While there are dating apps dedicated to non-monogamy, like Feeld, #Open, MoreThanOne, and PolyFinda, Hinge is more well-known. Cosmopolitan contributor and non-monogamy educator Gabrielle Smith noted just how hard it is for a non-monogamous person to find partners on dating apps. “Dating apps aren’t the most conducive to finding partners as a non-monogamous person. It can be hard to sift through the noise and find partners who are on the same page. Plus, the dating pool can often feel tiny,” Smith wrote. Recently, there’s been a rise in non-monogamous relationships. According to 2022 data from Hinge, one in five Hinge users “would consider” an open relationship, BBC reported. One in 10 users said they had already tried open relationships. The “Relationship Type” feature will likely attract more non-monogamous users to the app.

EU’s Digital Services Act enters into force — but no confirm if Twitter will feel its full force yet • ZebethMedia

The European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) enters into force today — setting the clock ticking on designations that will determine which larger Internet platforms face an extra layer of rules in areas likes algorithmic transparency and risk assessment. Larger platforms will also face centralized oversight by the European Commission in a marked change to the bloc’s decentralized (and much criticized) enforcement of data protection rules. Platforms have three months to report their active user numbers to the Commission (by February 17, 2023) so it can make these designations. The EU’s executive will use reported figures to determine which platforms are named VLOPs (very large online platforms) or VLOSEs (very large online search engines) under the DSA — and therefore subject to the tougher oversight. The main criteria for the special regime to apply is a platform or search engine reaches more than 10% of the EU population or has more than 45 million users. Although the DSA allows the Commission some discretion in the information it can use to inform designations. Likely candidates are platforms operated by the usual US Big Tech ‘FAANG’ giants — but some larger European tech firms should also fall into the category. VLOPs and VLOSEs face an accelerated compliance timetable for the DSA as it provides them with just four months for this once a designation is made by the Commission — after which the bloc will be able to start enforcements against rule breakers. This means the DSA regime is likely to be up and running in 2023 for these larger entities, assuming the Commission doesn’t delay making designations. The flagship reboot of the EU’s ecommerce rulebook will also apply to smaller platforms and digital services but they have longer to comply — until 17 February 2024. To support its supervision of VLOPs/VLOSEs, the Commission is setting up a European Centre for Algorithmic Transparency (ECAT) — to provide in-house and external multidisciplinary knowledge to help with algorithmic auditing. “The Centre will provide support with assessments as to whether the functioning of algorithmic systems are in line with the risk management obligations that the DSA establishes for VLOPs and VLOSEs to ensure a safe, predictable and trusted online environment,” it said today. Will Twitter be designated a VLOP? One very pressing question for European regulators (and citizens) is whether Twitter will be designated a VLOP under the DSA or not? The (relatively small) social networking firm is not expected to meet the bar for regulation under the DSA’s sister regime, the Digital Markets Act — an ex ante competition reform which will only apply to intermediaries with gatekeeper levels of market power. So the DSA is the main instrument the EU can use to clip Twitter’s wings. And given drastic changes to how the microblogging platform is operating under new owner, Elon Musk, the Commission is already facing pressure to ensure the fullest force of the DSA regime is brought to bear on it and soon. A report in today’s Financial Times couches the bloc’s regulators as being on a “collision course” with Musk’s chaotic piloting of the platform — citing sources familiar with EU regulators’ thinking saying there is concern in Brussels over the company’s ability to comply with the DSA, including in light of the mass sacking of 50% of its staff soon after he took over. MEP, Christel Schaldemose, who will chair a group on the implementation of the DSA, told the newspaper that Twitter could “very well be the case to test DSA for the first time” — and urged the EU to make sure the DSA rules apply for Twitter, warning that if it does not do this the regulation “would be a failure”, adding: “I hope and expect the EU commission to act fast and firmly.” ZebethMedia has also heard concerns about Twitter’s ability to comply with the DSA from another direction. A source familiar with how Twitter was preparing for dialled up EU regulation — pre-Musk takeover — told us “lots” of work had been done but said it’s all been “stymied” by the transition. We reached out to the Commission to raise concerns we’ve heard and ask about the question of Twitter’s compliance with the DSA. A Commission spokesman declined to confirm whether the company will be designated a VLOP — saying the list and number of VLOPs will only be provided after the designation step has been completed. But they added: “The designation is relatively straightforward. If a company is around the threshold, it’s a good decision to go for compliance rather than to hover in an area where they are not complying.” Despite the official EU line on whether Twitter will be a VLOP remaining ‘wait and see’, it’s notable that immediately Musk took over the company last month the bloc’s internal market commissioner, Thierry Breton, tweeted to put him on public notice — warning that Twitter must “fly by” the EU’s rules. Which — at the least — demands that a meaningful set of rules gets applied. (And today Breton has doubled down with a Twitter subtweet in a DSA thread — writing: “Social media platforms will no longer behave like they are ‘too big to care’. Whether they have feathers or not 🐦”) Since then, plenty more has happened to increase regulatory concern over Twitter’s direction of travel under Musk — including the resignation last week of a number of senior privacy and security Twitter staffers who had held key compliance-facing roles. These departures included Twitter’s first (and until then only) data protection officer (DPO) — a role that’s required under long-standing EU data protection law. And yesterday we reported a further development: Twitter had informed its data supervisor in Ireland of the details of a replacement DPO. However it had only named an existing staffer as “acting” DPO. That’s notable since, under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, the DPO role is required to be quasi-independent — so the conditionality and precariousness of Musk-Twitter naming an “acting” appointee could raise

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

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.”

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