Social

Twitter faces a class action lawsuit over mass employee layoffs with proper legal notice • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 4, 2022Posted in Apps, elon buys twitter, Elon Musk, Government & Policy, Layoffs, Social, TwitterNo Comments

Twitter is being sued for not giving employees advanced written notice of a mass layoff, in violation of worker protection laws including the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act as well as the California WARN Act, both of which require 60 days of advance notice. Following Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, the company began mass layoffs early on Friday in an effort to reduce costs by eliminating 3,700 jobs, or 50% of its total workforce. Bloomberg first reported the news of the lawsuit, filed on November 3, 2022 in the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California. The complaint notes that Twitter began its layoffs on November 1, when it terminated the plaintiff in the lawsuit, Emmanuel Cornet, without providing the proper written notice in violation of U.S. and California law. Additional plaintiffs, Justine De Caires, Jessica Pan, and Grae Kindel said they were terminated on November 3 by being locked out of their accounts. Twitter is also enacting widespread layoffs across its workforce today, on Nov. 4, 2022, it stated, adding that California’s Employment Development Department had not received a notice related to the event. The suit reminds the court that Musk had previously laid off employees without notice at another company he owns, Tesla. A federal judge later ruled that Tesla must inform workers of the proposed class action lawsuit, as the termination agreements they had signed may have been misleading and caused them to waive their rights under federal law, Reuters reported at the time. Musk had dismissed that lawsuit as “trivial,” when commenting on the lawsuit at the Qatar Economic Forum organized by Bloomberg. In the new complaint against Twitter, the plaintiffs are asking the court to declare that Twitter has violated the federal and California WARN Acts and certify the case as a class action suit. It’s also asking the court to stop Twitter from having the laid-off employees sign documents that would release their claims without informing them of this lawsuit. And it’s seeking a range of relief, including compensatory damages (including wages owed), as well as declaratory relief, pre- and post-judgment interest, plus other attorneys’ fees and costs. Under Twitter’s takeover deal terms, Musk had agreed to keep employee compensation and benefits the same. That means the laid-off employees should receive 60 days of salary and the cash value of the stock they were to receive within three months of their last date at the company, per law. “Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, has made clear that he believes complying with federal labor laws is ‘trivial’ We have filed this federal complaint to ensure that Twitter should be held accountable to our laws and to prevent Twitter employees from unknowingly signing away their rights.” Shannon Liss-Riordan, one of the attorneys who filed the lawsuit told CNN in a statement. Twitter hasn’t responded to requests for comment — but that could also be because its comms staff has been included in the layoffs. The company has gone about its mass layoffs in a chaotic and fairly cold fashion. Instead of being informed personally, Twitter employees were to receive an email with an update about their employment status by Friday 9 AM PT. If they still had a job, the email would come to their work inbox. If not, they’d receive a personal email as access to internal systems was cut off. A number of Twitter employees around the world have already posted tweets indicating that they have been laid off and are sharing sympathies with their fellow “tweeps.” Twitter also closed its offices temporarily as the layoffs were underway by disabling badge access. The transition has been one of confusion for Twitter staff. It’s been reported that Twitter’s new owner hadn’t officially communicated with employees following the deal’s closure on Oct. 27, leading staff to learn of events by following Musk’s tweets, through private chats, on workplace gossip site Blind, and by reading news media reports. Immediately after the takeover, Musk fired CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, General Counsel Sean Edgett and Head of Legal Policy, Trust and Safety Vijaya Gadde. Other top executives like Chief Consumer Officer Sarah Personette and Chief of People and Diversity Dalana Brand handed in their resignations the following day. General manager for core technologies Nick Caldwell, Chief marketing officer Leslie Berland, Twitter’s head of product Jay Sullivan, and its vice president of global sales, Jean-Philippe Maheu, have also left. The company canceled its upcoming developer conference Chirp and it appears that Twitter’s head of its developer platform, Amir Shevat, is also out, as he tweeted he’s “better out than in” and thanked the developer community for the amazing journey they had. In addition to reducing the number of employees, Musk has also been overhauling Twitter’s product at a rapid pace. Earlier this week, he announced his intention to enact a new version of the Twitter Blue paid subscription, which will cost $8 per month and offer users the verification check mark, fewer ads, and the ability to post longer videos. According to a report by The Platformer, Twitter is also planning to shut down its long-form writing product Notes and newsletter product Revue, which was acquired in 2021. Tweets indicate that staff that worked on Twitter Communities were also laid off, suggesting that product may also be shut down. The new legal complaint is embedded below. Twitter class action lawsuit over mass layoffs by ZebethMedia on Scribd

Twitter’s mass layoffs are set to begin tomorrow morning • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 4, 2022Posted in Elon Musk, Layoffs, Social, TwitterNo Comments

According to an internal memo sent to Twitter employees, the new management under Elon Musk will begin conducting layoffs Friday morning. These layoffs have been rumored since before Musk’s takeover, with the most recent report estimating that half of the 7,500 employees will lose their jobs. On Thursday evening, all employees received an email stating that they will be informed of their employment status at 9 A.M. PT on Friday. Each email will be sent with the subject line “Your Role at Twitter.” If an employee is keeping their job, they’ll be notified via their work email — if they’re let go, they’ll be notified on a personal address. “To help ensure the safety of each employee as well as Twitter systems and customer data, our offices will be temporarily closed and all badge access will be suspended,” the email reads. “If you are in an office or on your way to an office, please return home.” The email was impersonally signed “Twitter.” According to a post from a Twitter employee, staff members have been flooding an internal Slack channel with blue heart emojis as they wait to learn their fate tomorrow. Musk’s team has already tried to evaluate the productivity of Twitter employees by asking engineers to print out the code that they have written in the last 30 to 60 days. Musk also brought in Tesla engineers to look over Twitter code. Still, it’s not clear what divisions of the company will be impacted. At Tesla, Musk axed the entire PR team a few years ago — by that notion, it’s likely that he will get rid of Twitter’s PR team. When Musk first took over last week, he immediately fired four key executives: CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, General Counsel Sean Edgett and Head of Legal Policy, Trust and Safety Vijaya Gadde. Twitter’s Chief Consumer Officer Sarah Personette and Chief of People and Diversity Dalana Brand resigned the following day. This story is developing…

Substack targets Twitter with launch of discussions feature, Substack Chat • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 3, 2022Posted in Apps, chat, newsletters, Social, Substack, TwitterNo Comments

Another company hoping to capitalize on Twitter’s upheaval in the wake of Elon Musk’s takeover is the newsletter platform Substack. The company has openly targeted Twitter’s user base over the past few days and has now thrown its hat into the ring as a more direct competitor with the launch of Substack Chat. The new feature allows Substack writers to communicate directly with their most avid and loyal readers right in the Substack mobile app. With Chat, Substack is not only taking on Twitter, where many back-and-forth threaded discussions between writers and readers already take place, but also other online communities where writers have been building out networks of their own, like Discord, Slack and Telegram. The company says the new Chat feature will eliminate the need for its writers to “frankenstein together different software tools and cross-reference subscriber lists,” it explains in its announcement. Image Credits: Substack Chat is not a Twitter clone by any means — though there is overlap with how writers have used Twitter in the past. For starters, the Chat feature will be opt-in, meaning not every newsletter may have chats enabled at this time. Publications will have to first enable the feature on their Settings page or by simply starting a new thread in the Substack app for iOS. Already, Substack says writers including sports journalist Joe Posnanski, pop culture writer Hunter Harris, and comics writers 3 Worlds / 3 Moons have launched chats on the service. In some cases, these chats have been used to discuss live events — like Game 3 of the World Series — or they’ve been used in place of email or other ways writers may have chosen to interact with their readers in the past. Readers can react to posts using emojis and add their own comments in the chat threads. The feature could benefit those who spend a lot of time reading on Substack or those who want to more closely network with fellow creators or readers. However, it isn’t really a direct replacement for tweeting more publicly as it lacks Twitter’s reach. Plus, the user interface is designed more like a traditional chat app — not a timeline you scroll. Still, the launch could relocate some of the discussions that would have normally taken place on Twitter to a more private networking space. Combined with the ongoing exodus to alternative social networks like Mastodon, and later perhaps, Bluesky, Twitter may lose access to some of the conversations that it would have otherwise hosted. Chat’s launch isn’t the only way Substack has attempted to capitalize on the Twitter chaos in recent days. It also took a more direct shot at Twitter, when it warned in a post on Oct. 31 that “Twitter is changing, and it’s tough to predict what might be next.” The post had encouraged creators of all sorts to port their Twitter follower base to Substack, given the current uncertainty around Twitter’s future. The launch of Chat arrives at a time when there’s been a broader shift to more personal and private social networks, which we’ve seen with the rise of friends-only apps like BeReal as well as the launch of private discussion groups on WhatsApp, called Communities. Substack Chat also reflects Substack’s larger goal of becoming a more private social network itself. The company alludes to its plan, writing in its post that “these are just the early days for Chat and all of Substack’s social features,” and adding there’s “more to come” in the future. Given the company’s propensity to host controversial writers and the otherwise deplatformed, however, this direction could see it wading even deeper into the culture wars surrounding what constitutes free speech — an area Musk’s Twitter is also having to grapple with. The more Substack associates its brand with the more extreme personal brands of divisive media personalities, the less it will be able to attract the larger (and typically more moderate) readers that constitute the majority of any network’s user base. That could limit Substack’s ability to go mainstream, no matter how clever its social features may be. Substack Chat is only available in the Substack iOS app at launch but will come to Android soon, the company says.

TikTok privacy update in Europe confirms China staff access to data as GDPR probe continues • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 3, 2022Posted in China, data transfers, GDPR, Government & Policy, Privacy, Social, TikTokNo Comments

An incoming privacy policy change announced by TikTok yesterday for users in Europe — which, for the first time, names China as one of several third countries where user data can be remotely accessed by “certain” company employees to perform what it claims are “important” functions — has landed months ahead of expected movement on a year+ long investigation into the platform’s data exports to China under the bloc’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The GDPR probe into the legality of the video sharing platform’s data transfers to China is being led by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC), TikTok’s lead privacy regulator in the region, which opened the inquiry just over a year ago. The DPC told ZebethMedia today that it expects its TikTok data transfers inquiry to progress to the next stage in the coming months — with a draft decision slated to be sent to other EU DPAs for review in the first quarter of next year. This ‘Article 60’ review process could lead either to an affirming of Ireland’s draft decision — which would then, in relatively short order, allow for a final decision to be issued (potentially before the middle of next year, judging by past inquiry timelines). However if other EU regulators raise objections to Ireland’s draft decision the inquiry would have to move to an ‘Article 65’ dispute resolution process — which could add many more months to the process before a final decision could be issued as the bloc’s regulators seek consensus. It’s not clear whether TikTok’s announcement of the privacy policy tweak relates to this overarching GDPR investigation. The incoming changes — which are due to apply from December 2 — do also include an update on how the platform collects users location information so they are not wholly focused on data transfers. But the disclosure of China staffers accessing European user data could also be a not-very-subtle attempt to pre-empt regulatory enforcement over its data transfers — and try to soften a future blow by being able to point to steps already taken to improve its transparency with European users. (Not that that is the only potential issue of regulatory concern vis-a-vis data exports, though.) A spokesman for TikTok declined to comment on whether its updated privacy policy is in any way linked to the GDPR inquiry — saying it could not do so as the inquiry remains ongoing. However in a blog post announcing the update, the company claimed the changes “include greater transparency into how we share user information outside of Europe”. That’s notable because transparency is a key principle of the GDPR — while infringements of the transparency principle can lead to stiff penalties (such as the $267M fine for Meta-owned WhatsApp last year, after an Ireland-led inquiry found a string of transparency breaches). Claiming you’re being transparent and actually being transparent are not necessarily the same thing, of course. So it’s worth noting that TikTok’s updated privacy policy appears to atomize key bits of information — such as the full list of third countries countries where employees may remotely access European users’ data and for what specific reasons — across a number of collapsable menus and hyperlinks spread throughout the policy, thereby requiring a user to click around, follow multiple links and basically hunt for relevant intel amid a larger morass of data in order to piece together a comprehensive view of what’s happening with their data (rather than clearly articulating and collating everything into a single, easy to digest view…). So, if it’s transparency TikTok is really shooting for here it still looks like it has work to do. Also still a work in progress for TikTok: A data localization project to store European users’ data in the region — which, earlier this year, it announced had been delayed again (until 2023). Thing is, if TikTok intends to continue to allow employees located in third countries with no EU adequacy agreement affirming they have essentially equivalent data protection standards as the bloc to have remote access to European users’ information then questions over the legality of its international data transfers are likely to persist. As well as China, TikTok’s privacy policy names Brazil, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and the US (which has only a preliminary agreement with the EU for a fresh data transfer agreement atm) as countries where employees have remote access to European user data without the cover of an adequacy agreement — saying it’s relying on standard contractual clauses (SCCs) for these transfers. But, as the EDPB guidance on data transfers points out, each transfer to a third country must be individually assessed and some may not be possible legally, even with supplementary measures applied. So every single one of these transfers will need to stand up to regulatory scrutiny. Given so many third country transfers, TikTok’s European data localization project can only — at least for now — be considered a PR exercise. And/or an attempt to curry favor with local regulators in the hopes they take a kinder view of ongoing data exports. Unless or until it ceases data exports to third countries and finds a way to fully firewall its parent entity in China from being able to access any European users’ data in the clear. TikTok’s spokesman declined to comment on any future plans it may have to further adapt its data transfers in light of these challenges but he pointed back to its blog post — which describes its approach to data governance in Europe as being “centred on limiting the number of employees with access to European user data, minimising data flows outside of the region, and storing European user data locally”. TikTok’s wider problem is that it’s facing dialled up regulatory scrutiny across the Western world more generally as a result of security concerns attached to the Chinese state’s ability to gain access to data commercial platforms/services hold on their users — with national security laws in its home country overriding the usual standard contractual protections. Its platform

StretchSense built an actually comfortable hand-motion capture glove • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 3, 2022Posted in Gaming, metaverse, New Zealand, Robotics & AI, Social, Virtual realityNo Comments

New Zealand-based StretchSense, a maker of hand motion capture technology, believes virtual and augmented reality are going to replace the smartphone as the dominant way we interact with digital worlds and each other. And when that happens, we’ll need natural ways be immersed in those spaces, which means being able to touch and control virtual stuff with your hands. The startup has built a glove that captures the intricate motions of human hands, along with the software that then translates those movements into an animation. Currently, StretchSense’s tech is used by more than 200 gaming and visual effects studios worldwide to create realistic hand gestures for everything from sign language videos to cinematic fight scenes to virtual health and safety training. In fact, it was recently used to make Snoop Dogg’s ‘Crip Ya Enthusiasm‘ music video. Benjamin O’Brien, co-founder and CEO of StretchSense, told ZebethMedia he thinks StretchSense can “be the future of human machine interface for virtual worlds by building garments, not devices.” StretchSenses’s glove is made using the startup’s proprietary stretchable sensor technology that precisely measures the human form. Before it’s been sewn into the glove, the stretchy material looks and feels like elastic rubber with some light black lines running through. Those black lines are referred to as a stretchable capacitor — a capacitor is the same type of sensor used on the screens of smartphones to measure the amount of energy the screen is storing based on where you put your finger down, which is how it works out what you’re touching. In StretchSense’s case, when the material stretches with hand movements, the amount of energy it can store increases. “If you can measure the amount of energy that this can store, you can then work out its geometry very, very, very accurately,” said O’Brien. I tried the glove on myself during a demo in Auckland and can admit that it was indeed a comfortable fit, which O’Brien says isn’t always a given in the hand motion capture world. “The really core advantage is that we actually make garments, not devices. And by that we mean we make garments that are comfortable to wear, that don’t interfere with movement, that don’t break easily, and don’t have hard, lumpy bits of plastic,” said O’Brien. “And so the way we were able to beat out the competition in the motion capture space, if you look at any competitive product, it’s got all these lumpy bits of plastic all over and interferes moving the hand, it breaks easily. And it’s based on technology that just doesn’t naturally conform to the body.” StretchSense closed a $7.6 million Series A investment Thursday, led by Scotland-based Par Equity with participation by existing StretchSense investors GD1, the NZ-based venture capital firm, and Scottish Enterprise, Scotland’s national economic development agency. The startup intends to use the funds to grow out its center of excellence in Edinburgh which is focused on AI and spatial computing and will work on machine learning problems to constantly improve the product — things like making a finer and more accurate capture of details, lowering the threshold of the uncanny valley in animations, and transitioning from a 2D screen to a 3D virtual world. The startup is also working on developing a haptic glove which it will launch into VR training next that will stimulate both touch and motion in virtual worlds. “We want to be the future of how people control and influence and touch virtual worlds, but you have to ground that in realistic business models,” said O’Brien. “And so realistic business model number one was content creation for gaming and movie studios. Number two for us would be VR training. And that’s all about solving the retraining crisis where you have people with shorter and shorter careers, but the complexity of those jobs is increasing. So you’ve got this issue where you actually need to be able to train people really quickly and often in time-critical, safety critical situations where there’s money or lives at stake.” Once StretchSense has built a viable business in the VR training sense, the startup hopes to use a next iteration of that tech to move into the VR gaming and experience space. “We want to create tools that the creators of the metaverse will use to build amazing virtual spaces and experiences,” said O’Brien.

Decentralized social network Mastodon grows to 655K users in wake of Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 3, 2022Posted in Apps, elon buys twitter, mastodon, Social, TwitterNo Comments

Open-source, decentralized social network Mastodon has been benefiting from the chaotic Twitter takeover by Elon Musk. In addition to seeing a record number of downloads for the Mastodon mobile app this past weekend, the non-profit company today announced a new milestone. In a post on Twitter — where Mastodon has been successfully marketing its app to those now considering leaving the service — it noted that 230,000 people have joined Mastodon in the last week alone. Thanks to these new sign-ups as well as people returning to old accounts they had set up previously, the network now has 655,000 active users, the post noted. This is the highest number of users Mastodon has seen to date, Mastodon said. The number of people who switched over to #Mastodon in the last week alone has surpassed 230 thousand, along with many returning to old accounts bumping the network to over 655 thousand active users, highest it’s ever been! Why? 👉 — Mastodon (@joinmastodon) November 3, 2022 This follows the recent news that the open-source network had gained over 70,000 new sign-ups on Friday, Oct. 28 — the day after Musk’s deal to acquire Twitter had closed. From Friday through Sunday, the Mastodon mobile app also saw around 91,000 new installs, third-party data from Sensor Tower indicated — a 658% increase from the 12,000 installs it saw the three days prior. This rapid growth has not been without its downsides for the Twitter alternative, however. This week, one of the most popular servers on the Mastodon network, mastodon.social, has been experiencing lags and downtime as it struggled to accommodate the influx of new users. This could turn some people off from using Mastodon as their initial experience was sub-par. Though Mastodon founder and CEO Eugen Rochko has been working long hours to optimize the service and even ordered new hardware, the upgrade process has taken time at this crucial moment for Mastodon’s future. Often, when new users who try a service for the first time get frustrated by bugs and other issues, they don’t come back a second time. Plus, some users came to Mastodon without a full understanding of how a decentralized social network works and have found the process confusing or overly technical. Unlike on Twitter, or any other traditional social network, users don’t just create an account and start posting. They have to first pick a server to join as their Mastodon home. This is the part that causes people to stumble, as they don’t know where to find a server list, how to choose the right one, or whether or not they’re limited to chatting with people only on that server. This could also turn them off from exploring Mastodon further. It’s unfortunate because this is actually the key selling point for Mastodon — you join a server that best fits your interests. And by distributing the load across a network of servers, running Mastodon doesn’t require the infrastructure and engineering — or the massive amount of capital — that a network like Twitter does. That means Mastodon can be supported through smaller revenue streams, like sponsorships and donations, instead of ads. It also means Mastodon can’t be bought or sold to someone like Musk. Each Mastodon server is operated by a different individual or organization and can set its own moderation policies. But users aren’t limited to only communicating with friends on their own server — you can find and follow friends anywhere on the network. However, you can view your server’s timeline feed and the larger, “Federated” feed separately from your own Home feed of people you follow. This is particularly helpful if the server you’ve joined is filled with community members who post about things you’re interested in. There are a number of topic-based servers to choose from, too, to help with this. For example, some topic-based servers focus on areas like technology, music, gaming, art, activism, LGBTQ+, food, and more, in addition to general servers for socializing. This allows everyone to find their own niche. Of note, decentralization is the direction that Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey is going with his new social networking protocol Bluesky, which now has over 30,000 sign-ups on its waitlist, pre-launch. A Bluesky mobile app will help people to connect using this technology in the days to come. But the open source community — including those who have been doing the hard work on Mastodon over the years — have been frustrated with the Silicon Valley exec’s decision to go his own way with Bluesky, instead of using established protocols like ActivityPub, which powers Mastodon and others. Soon, it seems, users will have to choose what sort of decentralized social networking future they want — or whether the action on Twitter, regardless of its owner, is too enticing to give up.

Snapchat now lets you share your Strava activities in snaps and stories • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 3, 2022Posted in Apps, Snapchat, Social, StravaNo Comments

Snapchat is partnering with activity and fitness tracking platform Strava to launch a new Lens that lets users share their fitness journey on Snapchat. The new Strava Activity Lens works by connecting directly to your Strava profile, giving you access to stats and activity maps from your recent workouts. Each time you a workout, it will be automatically loaded into Snapchat. To share your activity from Strava to Snapchat, you need to open the Strava app and find your profile. From there, you have to select the “Activities” tab and scroll to the workout you want to share. Shareable activities must be visible to “Everyone” or “Followers only” on Strava and include a visible map. On Snapchat, you can find the Strava Lens in the app’s Lens Explorer or on Strava’s public profile. Your most recent workout will automatically appear, or you can toggle through different activities to pick one to share. Once you’ve chosen a workout to share, you can create a snap or story. The post will include a link back to your Strava workout so your friends and family can learn more through the Strava app. You can also share a slideshow from your camera roll by tapping “Memories” to access photos from your workout. Snapchat notes that you can press and slide the capture button to the left to lock and record hands free. You also have the option to narrate while you go through photos from workout. The new Lens is available globally to all Strava and Snapchat users on iOS and Android. The launch of the new partnership comes a day after Snapchat announced that it’s partnering with Amazon to give Snapchat users the ability to digitally try on eyewear styles from a range of popular brands. The new partnership will see brands including Maui Jim, Persol, Oakley, Ray-Ban, Costa Del Mar and others made available for virtual try-on.

Meta India head Ajit Mohan departs to join Snap • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 3, 2022Posted in ajit mohan, Facebook, india, meta, Snap, SocialNo Comments

Ajit Mohan, the head of Meta in India, has left the firm and joined rival Snap, according to sources familiar with the matter. At Snap, Mohan will serve as the President of the APAC business, two sources said. Mohan joined Meta, called Facebook then, in January 2019 as a VP and MD of the India business. During his stay at the firm, Facebook’s family of apps including Instagram and WhatsApp added over 200 million users in India and made a series of ambitious investments in the country, including cutting a $5.7 billion check to Indian telecom giant Jio Platforms and ramped up the commerce engine of WhatsApp. A McKinsey alum, Mohan rose to the stardom at Star, where he played an instrumental role in getting the entertainment conglomerate to launch a streaming service, called Hotstar. Along with Uday Shankar, Mohan also played a key part in the content strategy of Hotstar, banking on local movies and shows and sports streaming. The timely bet on online streaming and cricket helped Hotstar become a crown jewel in Disney’s portfolio after the Fox acquisition. “Ajit has decided to step down from his role at Meta to pursue another opportunity outside of the company,” Nicola Mendelsohn, Vice President of Global Business Group at Meta, said in a statement. “Over the last four years, he has played an important role in shaping and scaling our India operations so they can serve many millions of Indian businesses, partners and people. We remain deeply committed to India and have a strong leadership team in place to carry on all our work and partnerships. We are grateful for Ajit’s leadership and contribution and wish him the very best for the future.” (More to follow)

Musk to slash Twitter’s headcount by half — report • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 3, 2022Posted in Elon Musk, Social, TwitterNo Comments

More on rumors of looming job cuts at Twitter: Bloomberg is reporting that new owner Elon Musk will slash headcount by 50% to cut costs, citing people familiar with the matter. Its report suggests staff will begin being told Friday. Additionally, Bloomberg says Musk will reverse Twitter’s current ‘work from anywhere’ policy — and intends to require staff to work from offices, with the possibility that some exceptions could be made. The social media firm has around 7,500 employees in total globally — so halving headcount would mean cutting around 3,750 jobs. While issuing a blanket mandate to return to office working could be a strategy for Musk to accelerate the staff purge by encouraging employees to leave voluntarily if they don’t like the change of terms. We reached out to Twitter for comment on Bloomberg’s report but at the time of writing it had not responded. A number of staff already left Twitter prior to the Musk takeover, electing to leave pre-emptively rather than stay for the inevitable drama/workplace hell. Musk also fired a clutch of top execs immediately on taking over the company, including former CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, General Counsel Sean Edgett and Head of Legal Policy, Trust and Safety Vijaya Gadde — reportedly bringing in a coterie of advisors and Tesla staff to help him decide on how to restructure Twitter. The billionaire has not yet made it clear how he will reshape the company — but he is under pressure to shrink costs given the amount of debt he’s had to take on by taking over Twitter. In recent days, he has also been lashing out at Twitter’s core customers (advertisers), following reports that some are going cold on the platform over brand safety concerns attached to his particular brand of ‘free speech’ — a self-defeating dynamic that looks set to increase Musk’s financial bind. Bloomberg’s report of looming job cuts of 50% follows a Washington Post article at the end of last month that suggested Musk planned to cut 25% of the workforce. Earlier last month the Post had also reported that Musk planned to axe 75% of Twitter staff — a report Musk denied, according to a Bloomberg report citing ‘people familiar with the matter’. While Musk does not appear to have made public remarks on any of these headcount downsizing rumors he did tweet late last month to deny a New York Times report that had suggested layoffs at Twitter would take place before November 1 in order to avoid schedule stock grant payouts — dubbing that report “false”. In the small hours this morning, Musk was instead tweeting cryptically about Twitter’s potential for “improvement”. … with a lot of room for improvement — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 3, 2022

WhatsApp officially launches its new discussion group feature, Communities • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 3, 2022Posted in Apps, chat apps, communities, group chat, meta, Social, WhatsAppNo Comments

WhatsApp today is officially launching Communities, the new feature offering larger, more structured discussion groups that first entered into testing earlier this year. Designed to help organizations, clubs, schools, and other private groups better communicate and stay organized, Communities bring a number of new features to the messaging platform, including admin controls, support for sub-groups and announcement groups, 32-person voice and video calls, larger file sharing, emoji reactions, and polls. Communities themselves can support groups of up to 1024 users and offer end-to-end encryption. Some of the features developed for Communities, like emoji reactions, large file sharing (up to 2GB)and the ability for admins to delete messages, had already made their way to the WhatsApp platform ahead of today’s launch. Now, the company says polls, 32-person video calls, and larger group sizes will also be supported on WhatsApp more broadly outside of Communities. The new feature may initially draw some comparisons with Facebook Groups as they both support things like sub-groups, file sharing, admin functionality and more. But while Facebook Groups are often used by disconnected strangers who share a common interest, WhatsApp Communities are meant to be used by members who may already be connected in the real world. Unlike on Facebook, WhatsApp is phone number-based, meaning people joining these discussion groups already have some familiarity with one another, as they may have exchanged phone numbers or at least have shared their number with a group admin. However, the phone numbers will be hidden from the wider Community and only made visible to admins and others in the same sub-groups as you. This is meant to balance users’ demand for privacy with the need to allow fellow group members to reach you. For instance, you may not personally know every parent on your kid’s sports team, but you’re likely comfortable interacting with them in a private group setting that may exist as a sub-group of the entire school’s Community. In addition, unlike Facebook Groups which can be discoverable on the platform, WhatsApp Communities are hidden. There will not be a search and discovery feature available — you have to be invited to join. Image Credits: WhatsApp At launch, admins of existing group chats will be able to transition their group to Communities, if they prefer, or they can opt to re-create their group as a Community from scratch. Admins also have the power to add members to the groups or they can send out invite links that allow others to become Community members. Communities are structured with one main announcement group which alerts everyone of the most important messages. But members can only chat in small sub-groups the admin has approved. This can keep members from being bombarded with messages about group happenings and events they’re not connected to. For example, members might create a sub-group for a volunteer project or planning group, where only some people would need to chat. The launch of Communities could challenge other apps that have grown popular for private and large group communications, including Telegram and Signal, as well as standard messaging platforms like iMessage, and apps aimed at organizations or schools like GroupMe, Band, TalkingPoints, Remind, and others. In an announcement, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also stressed the encryption aspects of the Communities feature, saying that the company is “aiming to raise the bar for how organizations communicate with a level of privacy and security not found anywhere else.” “The alternatives available today require trusting apps or software companies with a copy of their messages – and we think they deserve the higher level of security provided by end-to-end encryption,” he said. Image Credits: WhatsApp There are still concerns that Communities like this could facilitate groups that engage in illegal or dangerous behavior, similar to how Facebook Groups have allowed health and election misinformation to thrive in recent years, stoking the fires that led to events like the January 6 Capitol riot, for instance. WhatsApp’s measures to stop such things seem limited, as the company says it will rely on the available unencrypted information about the Community, like its “name, description and user reports” to determine if action is needed. It says if it finds a group is being used to distribute child sexual abuse material, coordinate violence, or engage in human tracking, it will ban the individual Community members and admins, disband the Community or ban all the Community members, depending on the situation. However, the company did note that messages that have already been forwarded will only be able to be forwarded to one group at a time, rather than five, which is today’s forward limit, in an effort to reduce misinformation’s spread. The company, of course, is also still working to rebuild its reputation on the privacy front after the backlash over its hard-to-understand policy update last year, which caught the eye of some anti-competition authorities and regulatory bodies, including in the EU and India. WhatsApp later added more clarity to its policies and noted the launch of Communities would not require another policy update. Communities have been in testing with over 50 organizations in 15 countries to gain early feedback. In August, WhatsApp confirmed it had rolled out the feature to a small number of testers but didn’t offer a launch date. Today, the feature will begin to roll out to the wider WhatsApp user base, reaching all users worldwide over the next few months on both Android and iOS.