Twitter

Elon Musk details his vision for a Twitter payments system • ZebethMedia

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

Elon Musk detailed his vision for Twitter’s plan to enter the payments market during a live-streamed meeting with Twitter advertisers, hosted on Twitter Spaces on Wednesday. The new Twitter owner suggested that, in the future, users would be able to send money to others on the platform, extract their funds to authenticated bank accounts, and later, perhaps, be offered a high-yield money market account to encourage them to move their cash to Twitter. The new remarks followed a report this morning by The New York Times which confirmed Twitter last week had filed registration paperwork that would allow it to process payments. The report cited Twitter’s filing with the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), noting that a business would need to register before it could conduct money transfers, exchange currency or cash checks. In today’s meeting, Musk explained how paid verification, which Twitter is rolling out now with its revamped Twitter Blue subscription, as well as support for a creator ecosystem could pave the way for a payments system on its platform. He stressed that, initially, Twitter would need to make fundamental technology architecture changes in order to better support video. The company was recently reported to be working on a “Paywalled Video” feature that would allow creators to charge for access to their content. This suggests Twitter could be moving into a space where it may try to compete more directly with various social media video providers, like TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and others. The Washington Post saw mockups of this concept where a tweet with a video could be unlocked for as little as $1.00. It said creators may be able to choose from preset prices, like $1, $2, $5, or $10 when paywalled videos were launched. As a result, creators would end up with a cash balance as they began to monetize their content. In addition, Musk noted that Twitter’s paid verification program would help in its plan for payments because anyone who subscribed to Twitter Blue would have already been verified by the “conventional payment system.” That is, Twitter Blue subscribers have to sign up using a credit or debit card and have their payments processed through the app stores’ in-app purchase system, which helps to combat fraud. Musk then explained how this payments system could scale saying that, once users gained a cash balance, Twitter could prompt them to move that money on its platform. It could even make a small donation to users’ accounts to get them started. “Now we can say, okay, you’ve got a balance on your account. Do you want to send money to someone else within Twitter? And maybe we pre-populate their account…and say, okay, we’re gonna give you 10 bucks. And you can send it anywhere within Twitter,” Musk said. Later, the user could move their money out of Twitter by transferring it to an authenticated bank account, he added. In the longer term, however, Musk appeared to be toying with the idea of establishing bank accounts on Twitter’s platform that would pay a high-interest rate to attract users. This could become a competitor, perhaps, to Apple’s recently launched Savings Account for its cardholders, various fintechs or other payment providers, like PayPal and Venmo, which encourage their users to retain cash balances within their own ecosystems. Explained Musk, “the next step would be this offer for an extremely compelling money market account where you get an extremely high yield on your balance.” If such a system existed, he believed people would move cash to Twitter. “And then add debit cards, checks, and whatnot and…just basically make the system as useful as possible. And the more useful and entertaining it is, the more people will use it,” he said. The move to enter the payments business also ties to Musk’s larger plan to turn the social media platform into an “everything app” or “super app” called “X.” While that plan today is still fairly vague, the general sense is that Musk aims to combine payments, social networking, entertainment and other things into one experience, similar to China’s WeChat (though that plan could be misguided.) Musk has experience in payments, of course, as he founded an early digital payments company X.com. It’s not surprising that he would try again, given the opportunity Twitter presents. His ideas about Twitter payments, however, may not have been good fodder for a conversation with advertisers who are already worried about Twitter’s long-term commitment to their goals, given the company’s move into subscriptions which signals a desire to reduce reliance on ad dollars. Musk tried to assuage these fears by saying that Twitter was thinking about protecting advertisers’ brand safety in the longer term, not just about its ability to drive short-term sales.

RIP ZebethMedia’s Official Twitter Badge (11/9/22-11/9/22) • ZebethMedia

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

For a few hours this morning, ZebethMedia was recognized by Elon Musk’s newest plaything, Twitter, as a news organization with enough merit to warrant a highly-coveted “official” designation. We regret to inform our readership that this elite classification has since been rescinded… along with the designation on all other accounts that earned this momentous honor. This morning, Twitter began rolling out a grey “official” badge. Since the blue checkmark can soon be purchased for $8 per month, this designation was intended to denote important accounts to protect them against impersonation (essentially, the same purpose that the blue check used to serve). But after a blissful few hours of acknowledgment from our new bird app overlords, our official check has moved on to a better place. When tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee posted about his own grey official badge, Chief Twit Elon Musk replied, “I just killed it.” The Tesla and SpaceX CEO followed up, “Blue check will be the great leveler.” Musk then took to his own account to explain: “Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months. We will keep what works & change what doesn’t.” Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months. We will keep what works & change what doesn’t. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 9, 2022 Esther Crawford, the product manager who announced the roll out of official badges last night, said that this reversal may be temporary: “The official label is still going out as part of the @TwitterBlue launch — we are just focusing on government and commercial entities to begin with. What you saw [Musk] mention was the fact that we’re not focusing on giving individuals the ‘Official’ label right now.” For now, those of us at ZebethMedia HQ remain hopeful for our future as a Super Extra Verified account. “We at ZebethMedia were thrilled to be recognized as official by Twitter. We will always look back on our time as official with fond recollection and a sense of immense pride,” said Managing Editor Darrell Etherington in a statement. ZebethMedia has had a blue check on Twitter for at least ten years, an in-depth investigation into the Wayback Machine revealed. Though its tenure as an “official” account was short-lived, sources inside of ZebethMedia say that these meaningful memories will not be forgotten. “Despite no longer being official, we will continue, as a brand, to act in such a manner as we hope reflects the high honor of the mantle now that we’re once again reduced to just a single checkmark,” Etherington added. “Special thanks to our community for sticking with us through this trying time.”

Twitter begins to roll out grey checkmarks for high-profile accounts • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 9, 2022Posted in Apps, grey checkmark, Social, social media, Twitter, verificationNo Comments

A day after announcing that it’d denote high-profile accounts in a way distinctive from the blue checkmark now available to all Twitter Blue subscribers, Twitter has begun to roll out new badges that denote particular categories of official accounts, including government accounts, major media outlets and some public figures. The move is an attempt to safeguard against information spreading and impersonation on the platform as Twitter grapples with the fallout of expanding eligibility for its blue checkmark, which was previously reserved for vetted, expressly-ID-verified Twitter users. The new badges — a grey checkmark beneath the old blue verification checkmark — designate accounts as “Official,” in line with what app researcher Nima Owji revealed less than a week ago in Twitter’s public code. Accounts including ZebethMedia’s and several government officials, among them U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Mitt Romney (R-UT), show the grey check as of this morning. But from a cursory search, there doesn’t appear to be much rhyme or reason to how the badges have been applied. For example, The Wall Street Journal’s account initially didn’t have a grey badge; The Information’s still doesn’t. Nor does Twitter CEO Elon Musk’s. Image Credits: Twitter Those oversights will be addressed in the coming days presumably — Twitter no doubt has thousands, if not millions, of high-profile accounts to comb through and vet. It’s work it made for itself — as alluded to earlier, the recently-launched Twitter Blue plan that grants subscribers a blue checkmark doesn’t include ID verification, a flaw Twitter users including comedians Sarah Silverman and Kathy Griffin exploited in the past week to show how easy it is to pose as another account. Silverman, Griffin and others who created satirical handles were banned following Musk’s unilateral decision over the weekend to permanently bar from the platform impersonators who don’t make it clear that they’re engaging in parody.

Tech layoffs may get worse before they get better • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 9, 2022Posted in Continuum, Equity podcast, Layoffs, Nolan Church, Startups, TwitterNo Comments

Carta’s former chief people officer turned entrepreneur chats through his advice for conducting a layoff Natasha Mascarenhas @nmasc_ / 8 hours Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single person, think about their work, and unpack the rest. This week, Natasha interviewed Nolan Church, the CEO and co-founder of Continuum, about his perspective on the tech layoff wave. While we do indeed get into how his vision of fractional work fits into this conversation, we start with the fact that Church helped conduct Carta’s layoffs in 2020 (a low of his entire career, he says) and what that experience taught him about the importance of being direct. Here are a few of the topics we get into: Twitter’s recent layoffs, Jack’s silence and who should take ownership for what The generic CEO statement on macroeconomic challenges Stripe’s recent layoffs What is the best way to conduct a layoff, and how should you communicate with staff? How does that change based on stage? Is the rumor that all startups should just cut 20% of staff to extend runway accurate at all? If Church could go back in time, would he change anything about the way that Carta conducted its layoffs? What executive role is most likely to be disrupted and why Q1 may bring more doom and gloom into the tech sphere And finally, Church’s attempt to summarize all of 2022 in a headline (I don’t disagree with his final answer, by the way). I’ll fully take ownership for the fact that my column from just two weeks ago (!) has poorly aged. If you or someone you know is whipping up a cool program – like this – to support those laid off, hit me up on Twitter and I may just create a good news show. Equity drops every Monday at 7 a.m. PT and Wednesday and Friday at 6 a.m. PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. ZebethMedia also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, a show that details how our stories come together and more!

Laid off from your tech job? Day One wants to give you $100,000 to start a company • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 8, 2022Posted in day one, Layoffs, Startups, stripe, TwitterNo Comments

Day One Ventures, a venture firm launched in 2018 with a pitch to combine venture capital acumen with marketing and communications support, has launched a program aimed explicitly at those impacted by tech layoffs this year. The program, titled “Funded Not Fired”, will write $100,000 checks into 20 startup teams by the end of the year. Top businesses from the cohort will then get follow-up capital from Day One Ventures commitment to lead their pre-seed round with a $1 million check. In total, the firm is allocating at least $5 million from its $52.5 million fund to back founders spinning out of turbulent startups. Founder and GP Masha Bucher, who left her former life in Russia as a politician and TV reporter to become a venture capitalist, spun up the program in the wake of Stripe and Twitter’s layoffs over the past week. Her bet? At least 0.1% to 1% of the thousands of employees impacted by tech layoffs this year could become incredible founders. The program is essentially a formalized double click on venture’s obsession with mafia founders, aka people who left high-profile gigs at even higher-profile companies to start their own business. The added layer of complexity, however, is the downturn that has somewhat defined tech’s 2022. For example, if I was laid off from my job, I don’t know if my first thought would be to take a bet on myself and start a risky business most likely to fail. Per Bucher, however, that mindset is exactly what would weed me (and presumably a lot of laid off tech employees) out from the entrepreneurship world anyways. “I think if you’re afraid of risk, you’re just not going to be a great founder,” Bucher said. “Don’t get me wrong, starting a company in this time when so many changes have happened over the last three years,” is hard, she added, saying that it definitely makes sense if people want to find a job or work with founders instead of become one. Other examples of programs spun up to help activate the next generation of entrepreneurs includes Z Fellows and Cleo Capital’s former fellowship for laid-off workers. She made sure to emphasize that the program is “not charity” and that folks from Stripe and Twitter would not get preferential treatment when pitching Day One Ventures (even though they were the inspiration for the program). Aspiring founders don’t need an incorporated company, or even a fully flushed out startup idea, to apply to the program. The form asks for founders background, top ideas, metrics, and the why behind their journey into entrepreneurship. In order to be qualified for the accelerator, at least one co-founder must have been recently laid off, they must go full time on the startup, and be able to show three references. The deadline to apply is November 25, 2022 and final decisions will be made by December 20, 2022. “Compared to all other VCs who are taking time off until next year, we’re going to be working until December 31st – which is totally fine,” Bucher said. “I just feel like times like this are just a perfect opportunity for us to do a little more, to go the extra mile, to not take time off and just hopefully back some companies which in the future will be the size of Coinbase, Airbnb and Stripe.”

Twitter safety head suggests further ‘identity verification’ beyond paid verification may later be required • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 8, 2022Posted in Elon Musk, identity, Privacy, Social, Twitter, twitter blue, verificationNo Comments

Twitter’s head of Safety and Integrity Yoel Roth admitted in a Twitter thread that the company may have to further invest in “identity verification” that goes beyond the paid verification system that will accompany its revamped Twitter Blue subscription. Under Elon Musk, Twitter has rushed to release a new version of its Twitter Blue subscription whose key selling point will be the ability to purchase a verification badge by paying $7.99 per month. This change is meant to make Twitter verification more accessible to users who previously couldn’t get verified under Twitter’s old system, which only doled out the coveted blue-and-white badge to public figures, celebs, politicians, journalists, and other high-profile individuals. Twitter’s prior system vetted who received the checkmark through an internal process that would confirm the person was who they said they were, so other users on Twitter could be assured of that public figure’s identity. Now, Twitter seems to realize that real identity verification — the kind that can’t be bought for $8, that is — actually has its advantages. But it’s unclear where Twitter would draw the line in terms of who would require their identities to be further verified or how that would be accomplished. In a thread where Roth attempted to explain Twitter’s differing policies around parody (which is permitted), and impersonation (which is not), he also detailed how the company would tackle a situation where a number of verified, blue-badged accounts engaged in impersonation. This led to him sharing his thoughts about identity verification on Twitter, as well. Verification! Impersonation! Twitter Blue! There’s a lot going on around identity on Twitter — let’s break down what our policies are, and some of the big questions we still need to answer… — Yoel Roth (@yoyoel) November 8, 2022 The thread came about because large-scale impersonation is something that recently happened to Elon Musk himself. This week, a number of verified celebrities appropriated Musk’s screen name and profile picture to troll him. Musk responded by announcing a ban on any accounts pretending to be someone else and even booted one of the impersonators — comedian Kathy Griffin — off of Twitter entirely. (She later returned to the platform by using her late mother’s Twitter account.) Roth said that going forward, Twitter will deal with impersonation conducted by verified users as it has in the past — it would suspend those accounts engaging in the practice. When the new Twitter Blue subscription launches publicly, however, impersonation could become more difficult to enforce if there’s an increase in verified users for Twitter to keep its eye on. To address this, Roth said that Twitter will “ramp up proactive review of Blue Verified accounts that show signs of impersonating another user,” and then suspend them, if found. He also called for Twitter users to also report accounts engaged in impersonation. Of course, Roth’s Trust & Safety team has seen layoffs following Musk’s Twitter takeover, potentially making such enforcement a challenge. While the exec claimed that his team only saw 15% cuts, compared with 50% cuts for Twitter overall, it’s clear that many teams that played vital roles around managing misinformation on the service were impacted – including those that dealt with election integrity and public policy. It’s not understood how well the newly under-staffed teams would be able to keep up if a large number of users decided to engage in impersonation after becoming verified. Because of the potential for abuse, Twitter decided to delay the rollout of the revamped Twitter Blue system until after the U.S. midterms elections on Tuesday, The New York Times reported this weekend and Roth has now confirmed. What’s more, is that Roth seems to admit that simply asking users to pay for their blue badge isn’t a very robust form of identity verification and that Twitter may need to do more in this area in the future. (You know…like it used to, back when verification meant something more than “I have $8!”). Roth explained Twitter’s older system made verification both a signal of authenticity (you are who you say you are) and notability, meaning you’re important in some way. The exec said he supports getting rid of notability and instead focusing on “proof-of-humanness” — something that the $8 paid subscription feed could help with as it could weed out spammers and bad actors who don’t want to pay or go through the fraud checks involved with in-app purchases on the major app stores. However, Roth hinted that paid verification alone cannot work to verify identities entirely, suggesting that Twitter will need to do more work on this front in the future. “Long-term, I think we need to invest more in identity verification as a complement to proof-of-humanness,” wrote Roth. “Paid Verification is a strong (not perfect) signal of humanness, which helps fight bots and spam. But that’s not the same thing as identity verification,” he said. Roth didn’t go into further detail about what Twitter may need to do differently beyond paid verification through Blue to accomplish identity verification. Long-term, I think we need to invest more in identity verification as a complement to proof-of-humanness. Paid Verification is a strong (not perfect) signal of humanness, which helps fight bots and spam. But that’s not the same thing as identity verification. — Yoel Roth (@yoyoel) November 8, 2022 His statement, however, raises questions about what Twitter could have in mind here. Today, a number of social networks have begun to embrace facial recognition and A.I. to verify their users, which has raised privacy concerns. Instagram, for example, uses A.I. to scan “happy birthday” posts to see if a child may have lied about their age at sign-up. Yubo is asking all the users on its platform to verify their age with a facial scan. While those methods are focused on making sure minors haven’t lied about their ages on the platform, they could be put to use for other purposes. Video, in particular, comes in handy for identity verification — even Amazon was

A beginner’s guide to Mastodon, the open-source Twitter alternative • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 8, 2022Posted in mastodon, Social, TwitterNo Comments

As Twitter users fret over the direction that new owner Elon Musk is taking the company, masses of users have hopped over to Mastodon, an open-source Twitter alternative. Since October 27, when the SpaceX and Tesla CEO formalized his Twitter takeover, Mastodon has gained nearly 500,000 new users, effectively doubling its user base. But what is Mastodon anyway, and should we all be getting our accounts set up? If you’re a Twitter purist who likes to use basic functionality like private DMing, quote-tweeting and user-friendly onboarding, Mastodon might not be for you. But if you’re looking to try something new on the social internet, then why not give Mastodon a whirl? Elon Musk isn’t there! What is Mastodon? Mastodon was founded in 2016 by German software developer Eugen Rochko. Unlike Twitter, Facebook, Reddit or any other popular social media site, Mastodon is a non-profit, meaning that, ideally, its goal is to benefit the public, rather than shareholders. “Unlike the past 5 years that I’ve been running Mastodon operations as a sole proprietor, where Mastodon’s income was my personal income (minus all the expenses), I am now an employee with a fixed wage,” Rochko wrote in a blog post last year. “My personal income will thus be lower but I was willing to go this route because I want Mastodon to have more resources for things like hiring extra developers, UX designers, developing official apps and so on, and I want there to be a clear boundary between fundraising for that cause and my personal income.” Mastodon might look like a Twitter clone at first glance, but the underlying system behind the microblogging platform is far more complex. The service is decentralized (no, not in a blockchain way), describing itself as a “federated network which operates in a similar way to email.” When you first create your account, you choose a server — similar to how you choose to open an email account on Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo or wherever — which generates your profile’s address. So, for example, if you sign up for Mastodon via the climate justice server, then your address will be @[your username]@climatejustice.social. But no matter what server you sign up with, you will be able to communicate with users from any other server, just like how Gmail users email Hotmail users and vice versa. However, some servers might have blocked other servers (perhaps if it’s an unsavory group), which would mean you can’t communicate with anyone from the blocked server. The Mastodon lingo Mastodon users generally refer to individual communities as “instances” or servers. These Mastodon servers can be run by individuals, groups or organizations that each have their own set of rules regarding how users can sign up, as well as their own moderation policies. Some servers let anyone join, while others are invite-only or require approval by an admin. For example, a server for professional scientists asks applicants to include a link to their research to demonstrate that they are, indeed, professionals. Choosing which server to register your account with might seem stressful, but it’s possible to move your account later, so don’t worry. Plus, you can follow people regardless of what server they’re on. You may also hear Mastodon described as part of the “Fediverse,” or an interconnected web of various social media services. You know how having a Twitter account doesn’t mean you can use that account on Instagram? Through the Fediverse, your single Mastodon account also grants you access to other decentralized social networks, if that interests you. You may also see Mastodon’s equivalent of tweets being referred to as “toots,” but this is fading out of favor (since it’s kind of silly!). Many people are just calling them “posts” these days but “toot” is often found referenced in older third-party clients. Mastodon supports a number of Twitter conventions like replies, retweets, favorites, bookmarks, and hashtags. But its retweets are called “boosts” and it doesn’t support the concept of quote tweets. This was an intentional choice on the part of the founder who said it encourages speaking “at your audience” instead of “with the person you’re talking to.” In addition, Mastodon lists work slightly differently from Twitter as you can only add people to a list if you’re already following them. And Direct messages on Mastodon are just @username posts, not private messages coming to a DM inbox. Image Credits: Fediverse (opens in a new window) What does it mean that Mastodon is open-source? Anyone can download, modify and install Mastodon on their own server — plus, the developers of the platform don’t own the copyright. That doesn’t mean that you can grab Mastodon’s code without acknowledging the source, though. Former president Donald Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social initially launched with Mastodon code and passed it off as if it were original software. Mastodon did not take kindly to that. How do you create a Mastodon account? When you arrive on the Mastodon website, you can click a button called “create account,” which directs you to a page listing servers to choose from. You can filter these by various factors, like region, language, topic, sign-up speed and more. There, find a server that piques your interest and join — if it’s a server that requires you to be approved, you might need to wait a bit. From there, you can start finding people to follow, regardless of whether they’re registered via your same server. How do you decide what Mastodon server to join? Mastodon’s website has helpful resources — but it’s still a bit overwhelming and challenging to find a home base that aligns with your interests. Ask friends who are already on Mastodon if they have suggestions! Or just join somewhere random, because you can always change your server affiliation later once you get into the swing of things. Can you talk to people on other Mastodon servers besides your own? Yes, you can follow people outside of your local server and reply to their posts. However, when you

A list of features Elon Musk has promised to bring to Twitter • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 8, 2022Posted in Apps, elon buys twitter, Elon Musk, Features, TwitterNo Comments

Elon Musk has completed his takeover of Twitter, and he has lofty plans for this platform. In the short time, he has been at the helm of the platform he has promised things like a new verification system, revamped subscription program, and better creator monetization. Musk has a knack for announcing these features on a whim through Twitter. But it’s hard to know in what form and when they would make their way to the public release. So here is a handy list of things Musk has announced that’s coming to Twitter: After taking over Twitter, the first product change Musk announced was revamping the verification system. Days later, he posted more details that included new features for Twitter Blue paid plan. Musk said the new system will cost $8 per month and have fewer ads, priority in replies (something which verified handles get through the “Verified” notification channel), mentions and search, and the ability to post longer videos. At this moment, paid users can post 10-minute long videos and other users have a time limit of two minutes and 20 seconds on videos. The company has already been experimenting with things like moving the verified notification tab to appear as the default screen in the notification screen. While the new Twitter Blue plan will cost $8 in the U.S., Musk has said that he will adjust the pricing for different regions according to purchasing power parity. In a reply to a user, he also said that revamped subscription will roll out to India by the end of the month. This means Twitter will soon expand Twitter Blue beyond existing markets — the U.S., Canada, New Zealand and Australia. Musk has already got the Twitter Blue team working on a better video experience, too. He said that with the new paid plan, users will be able to upload 42 minutes of video at 1080p resolution. The Tesla CEO said that the platform is working on removing the 42-minute limit as well. The new Twitter CEO said that the company is working on attaching long text to the tweet. This announcement is strange as the platform debuted Notes, its program for long-form content, in June. Under this test, a set of writers from the U.S., Canada, Ghana, and the UK got access to tools to write long posts. A Twitter employee, who was part of a mass layoff at the company, pointed out that Musk fired the team who built and shipped the Notes feature. The Twitter CEO said that the platform’s search reminds him of “Infoseek in ’98” and wants to fix the experience. But we don’t know what improvements to expect. Search within Twitter reminds me of Infoseek in ‘98! That will also get a lot better pronto. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 5, 2022 In his short tenure as the head of the social network, Musk has promised to implement better payouts for creators. In a reply to YouTuber Marques Brownlee (MKBHD), he claimed that Twitter can become an S-tier (Super tier) network. In another tweet, the SpaceX CEO said that he can beat YouTube’s 55% ad-revenue share rate with creators. But that revenue might not be significant if major ad spenders don’t splash big bucks on the platform. Trust and Saftey Apart from announcing a ton of product changes, Twitter’s new head is also making some critical policy decisions. However, it’s unclear when these rules will come into effect and how they will play with various international laws. Just after taking charge of Twitter, Musk said that the company will form a content moderation council that will have people sharing diverse sets of views. At this moment, there is no clarity about who will participate in this council, how many members it might have, and what kind of powers it might wield. Notably, Twitter already has a Trust & Safety Council consisting of more than 100 organizations, but members are not sure if there is a future for them. After a ton of accounts changed their account name and details like profile photo and bio to mimic Musk, the billionaire said that Twitter Blue users won’t be allowed to impersonate anyone unless they specify that it is a parody account. He noted that accounts violating will be permanently suspended. He added that any change in name would result in accounts losing the verification mark temporarily. Currently, there are no written rules about this, so we don’t know how it will work in practice and what guidelines parody accounts might have to follow. Any name change at all will cause temporary loss of verified checkmark — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 6, 2022 Musk has also promised to make changes to Birdwatch, Twitter’s crowdsourced fact-checking program. But he has only said that it will be renamed to “Community Notes” — and Jack Dorsey didn’t like it. All these changes have very aggressive deadlines so it won’t be surprising if we don’t see these changes being rolled out in the promised timeframe. We will keep this piece updated to track these promises.

Musk’s $56 billion Tesla pay deal goes to trial amid Twitter overhaul • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 8, 2022Posted in Elon Musk, elon musk buys twitter, Tesla, Transportation, TwitterNo Comments

As if Elon Musk didn’t have enough on his plate, the world’s richest man is headed to court next week to defend his $56 billion Tesla pay package. Richard Tornetta, a Tesla shareholder who filed suit in 2019 to rescind Musk’s 2018 pay deal, claims the package — “the largest compensation grant in human history” — is unjustly paid to Musk without demanding he focus entirely on the carmaker. The trial begins November 14, yet another drama Musk will have to juggle as he works to overhaul Twitter. Musk’s deal to buy the social media company went through at the end of October, and since then Musk has set to work laying off swathes of employees, getting sued for said layoffs, and generally scheming out loud on the platform about charging users $8 per month to get a blue tick next to their names. The Twitter buy didn’t exactly help Musk’s case in the lawsuit over his pay package. Aside from Tesla, Musk already serves as CEO of SpaceX, the Boring Company, OpenAI and Neuralink. With Twitter, Musk will only lend credence to Tornetta’s claims that Musk is a “part-time executive” at Tesla. Tornetta also claims the board set low bars on performance targets for Musk and that the grant was “demanded for the avowed purpose of colonizing Mars (the planet).” Tesla has said Musk’s pay package delivered a 10-fold increase in value to shareholders. The trial will be decided by Kathaleen McCormick on Delaware’s Court of Chancery. McCormick oversaw Twitter’s suit against Musk that ended in him agreeing to close his $44 billion deal, an acquisition which he financed in large part by selling his Tesla stock. The grant ‘defied its goal of focusing Musk on Tesla’ Tornetta’s lawyers argue the 2018 package did not achieve its stated purpose of getting Musk to focus on Tesla, and no wonder — there were no provisions requiring Musk to devote time or attention to Tesla, nor were there provisions limiting Musk’s allocation of time or attention to non-Tesla endeavors. “Indeed, Musk testified that since the Grant’s approval, he has spent a little more than half his time on Tesla matters and has dedicated substantial time and attention to various other endeavors,” the lawsuit reads. Musk’s lawyers responded that his ambition is what makes him unique as a CEO, and that he does not punch a clock to determine time spent at the company. The disputed pay package allows Musk to buy 1% of Tesla stock at a discount each time performance and financial targets are met. If they aren’t met, Musk gets nothing. Tesla hit 11 out of 12 targets, according to court papers. “In any event, under the proposed plan, Musk would not earn any compensation at Tesla unless he drove tremendous growth, which could not be accomplished without significant time and attention from the CEO,” said Musk’s lawyers. The suit against Musk also claims the package was not entirely fair because Musk controls the board. “None of the committee members were independent of Musk,” wrote Tornetta’s lawyers. For example, Kimbal Musk, Musk’s brother, sits on Tesla’s board — a pretty clear conflict of interest. Tornetta’s filing also points to former board member Antonio Gracias who the plaintiff describes as a close friend of Musk’s. Gracias, personally and through his private equity firm, has collectively invested over half a billion dollars in “essentially all of Musk’s entities,” according to the filing, including PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX, SolarCity, The Boring Company and Neuralink. In addition, the filing calls out Ira Ehrenpreis and James Murdoch, who are both still on Tesla’s board, as being personal friends of Musk and investors in Musk’s entities. Gracias, Murdoch and Ehrenpreis are also listed among the defendants on the case.

After laying off half of its staff, Twitter might be asking some employees to come back • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 7, 2022Posted in Apps, elon buys twitter, Layoffs, TwitterNo Comments

Twitter is reaching out to some employees to come back after it engaged in a mass layoff last week, according to multiple reports. The company’s new owner Elon Musk laid off 3,700 people from Twitter — almost half of its staff — after he completed the takeover. A Bloomberg report cited sources saying that the company asked some folks to return as they were laid off “by mistake.” It also noted it was calling some other employees back as they were critical for building features for the platform Musk envisions. In addition to this, several posts on the anonymous app Blind also indicated that Twitter might have called a few employees back. Casey Newton also reported in a thread that on internal slack, remaining employees were asked to make a list of potential candidates that could be called back. From Twitter Slack: “sorry to @- everybody on the weekend but I wanted to pass along that we have the opportunity to ask folks that were left off if they will come back. I need to put together names and rationales by 4PM PST Sunday. — Casey Newton (@CaseyNewton) November 6, 2022 The company had dismissed people across multiple departments including human rights, accessibility, machine learning ethics, transparency and accountability, advertising, marketing, communications, engineering, and curation. So it is not surprising that it realized some of those folks might be critical to keep the platform running smoothly and working on new features. Within weeks of taking over the company, Musk has promised a bunch of new features like revamped verification process and a new Twitter Blue experience priced at $8. The Tesla CEO has also set very tight deadlines for these feature rollouts. With a ton of people laid off across functions, it might be tough for the remaining employees to get things done in time. Last week, a bunch of former Twitter employees filed a class action lawsuit against the company for not giving them adequate notice before dismissing them from their jobs. The case alleged Twitter of violating worker protection laws like the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act as well as the California WARN Act — both require 60 days of advance notice before a mass layoff. Job cuts haven’t been the only chaotic thing at Twitter after the Musk takeover. The product rollout has also been a mess. Over the weekend, several folks received notifications on their iOS device that the company is rolling out the blue checkmark to people who are ready to pay $7.99 a month. However, Esther Crawford, a product lead at Twitter clarified that these notifications were just a part of a test. Over the weekend, Twitter reportedly shelved the plan of rolling out the new verification system until after Tuesday’s midterms elections in the US. Twitter didn’t comment on the story, but maybe because the whole communication staff was laid off. You can contact this reporter on Signal and WhatsApp at +91 816-951-8403 or im@ivanmehta.com by email.