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Elon Musk ends Trump’s Twitter ban • ZebethMedia

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

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

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

New Twitter accounts will have to wait 90 days before buying a subscription • ZebethMedia

Twitter has published a policy change saying that newly-created Twitter accounts will have to wait 90 days before being allowed to subscribe to the new Twitter Blue plan and get verified. This is likely to avoid impersonation and spam from verified accounts. “Newly created Twitter accounts will not be able to subscribe to Twitter Blue for 90 days. We may also impose waiting periods for new accounts in the future at our discretion without notice,” the company said on its FAQ page about Twitter Blue. Prior to this, the Elon Musk-led company just said that new accounts created after November 9 won’t be able to purchase the $8 Twitter subscription plan. Twitter Blue terms on Nov 10 noting accounts created after Nov 9 can’t sign up for Twitter Blue. Image Credits: Twitter The old terms were published during the rushed rollout of Twitter Blue, which caused havoc and a barrage of verified accounts started impersonating brands, celebrities, and athletes. Because of fake verified accounts tweeting misinformation, shares of companies like Eli Lilly and Lockheed Martin took a dip. To avoid impersonation, the company has prohibited verified users from changing their names. Earlier this week, Musk said that paid accounts will lose the verified checkmark until the social network confirms that the new name follows its rules. However, the company hasn’t made any formal policy around that. With new release, changing your verified name will cause loss of checkmark until name is confirmed by Twitter to meet Terms of Service — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 15, 2022 Twitter is in the soup with the new paid plan. On the one hand, Musk has promised that subscribers will get prominence on the notification tab, replies, and searches — the company briefly moved the verified notification tab’s position to place it before all notifications too. On the other hand, after assessing the initial results from the verification rollout, it clearly has to thwart spam and impersonation to prevent more advertisers from leaving the platform. As a result, Musk paused the rollout of Twitter Blue last week. He also promised to relaunch the relaunched Twitter Blue program on November 29, but in Elonverse things can change rather quickly.

Twitter is working on a feature to divide long text into a thread automatically • ZebethMedia

Composing a thread on Twitter can be challenging as you need to separate the whole text into 280-character chunks. However, the company now seems to be working on a solution to turn long-form text into a thread automatically. According to a tweet posted by app researcher Jane Manchun Wong, twitter’s composer will automatically break the text into a thread when it crosses the 280-character limit. Twitter is working on making Tweet composer automatically expand into a thread when the characters count is approaching the 280 characters limit — Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) November 17, 2022 As she explained in a reply to a user (aka me), Twitter wants to reduce the friction of creating threads. Currently, users need to hit the + button to add a tweet to a thread and post the next set of 280 characters — which can be very annoying when you are trying out a thought or pasting info from another document. I guess the point is to reduce the friction so the user no longer need to tap that (+) button at every 280 characters — Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) November 17, 2022 In the last few hours, a few folks pointed out difficulties in posting and reading threads that have more than a few tweets — the one in focus was an 82-tweet-long thread on the fallen cryptocurrency exchange FTX. Musk replied to these tweets saying that the team is working on making thread writing easier. While the final details of the implementation are not apparent, as Financial Times product manager Matt Taylor pointed out, it will be good to have markers to indicate the start and end of a tweet in the thread — that makes it easier for users to edit the text in a way that it doesn’t break the reading flow. I’m sure that people who use this feature appreciate the ability to select what each tweet starts and ends with. This sounds like it does away with that in the name of simplicity. This is another engineering solution to what is not an engineering problem, it’s an editorial one. — Matt ‘TK’ Taylor (@MattieTK) November 17, 2022 This is not the first time Musk has addressed the issue of posting long-form tweets. Earlier this month, he said the social network is working on the ability to attach long-form text to tweets. It’s not clear if that will be a separate feature from the new thread composer. Some users currently rely on third-party solutions like Typefully, ThreadStart, and Chirr App, which provide tools to automatically split your post into threads without breaking sentence flow along with scheduling features. The company currently offers Twitter Blue subscribers an easy way to read threads — powered by its acquisition of Threader last year. But Musk hasn’t really mentioned if he is making changes to the reading experience for an average user. Twitter already has a program for long-form writing called Notes, but only a select set of writers have access to that, and with Musk’s management, there is no clarity about its future. It’s not clear when the new composer feature for threads will roll out even if Twitter engineers are working on it at this moment. After taking over the company, Musk has fired half the staff — and more. Plenty of executives have resigned and the new boss even put an ultimatum yesterday that the remaining employees have to be “hardcore” or leave. In this environment, there is no guarantee that products will be shipped on time. The company rushed the rollout of the new Twitter Blue plan with a verification mark, only to discontinue the program days later. Earlier this week, Musk said that it will now roll out later this month. Wong also recently discovered code hinting that Twitter is working on making direct messages end-to-end encrypted.

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.

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.

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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