He usually knows what he's doing
He usually knows what he's doing
Got to remove al the cancer in thereOriginally Posted by Teh One Who Knocks
By Ryan Saavedra - The Daily Wire
Billionaire Elon Musk will reportedly gut Twitter with massive cuts when he takes over, getting rid of the overwhelming majority of the company.
The Washington Post reported that Musk told prospective investors that he plans to get rid of “nearly 75 percent of Twitter’s 7,500 workers, whittling the company down to a skeleton staff of just over 2,000.”
The report said that even if the Musk’s acquisition of Twitter somehow does not go through, large cuts are still expected as the current people running the company planned to get rid of roughly 25% of the company’s staff.
The report said that the planned cuts by Twitter’s executives helped to explain why the company wanted to sell to Musk once he made the offer.
The social media platform had been fighting Musk in court over his attempt to cancel a previous offer to buy the company for $44 billion, a move he said was driven by concerns that executives were underestimating the actual number of fake accounts on the platform. Musk revived his efforts to purchase Twitter earlier this month.
Beyond his concern about fake accounts, Musk has voiced criticism over lackluster support on Twitter for free expression. He began his shakeup campaign several months ago with a poll for his millions of followers regarding the platform’s adherence to the principle of free speech.
Former Twitter data scientist Edwin Chen said that the cuts would immediately impact the platform and that users would probably be able to notice a difference right away.
“It would be a cascading effect where you’d have services going down and the people remaining not having the institutional knowledge to get them back up, and being completely demoralized and wanting to leave themselves,” he claimed.
The report said that Musk believed that gutting the company was the first step and then he could reshape it through new hires.
The report also disclosed some of the people who decided to help invest in Twitter with Musk, including Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and Sequoia partner Doug Leone, who the Post said “were also Trump supporters and self-proclaimed believers in the type of free speech ideology Musk promised to bring back to the platform.”
The report added that hedge fund manager Kenneth Griffin, “the second largest GOP donor in the current midterm cycle, also committed a smaller amount — under $20 million compared with $1 billion from Ellison — to the deal.”
DemonGeminiX (10-24-2022), Teh One Who Knocks (10-24-2022)
Mega meltdown ensues as Elon Musk carries sink into Twitter ahead of takeover
By Joseph A. Wulfsohn | Fox News
Tesla CEO Elon Musk made a big splash on Twitter with a video of himself walking into the tech giant's headquarters ahead of his takeover of the company.
Musk, who is set to officially have ownership of the social media platform by Friday, shared a clip of himself walking into Twitter's lobby while carrying a sink.
"Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in!" Musk exclaimed with a visual pun.
Many Musk fans and other conservatives rallied behind the billionaire.
"Let Freedom Ring!" GOP commentator Wesley Hunt reacted.
"I can't even calculate how much money I'd pay to read the Slack chat of Twitter employees today. Definitely would pay extra to read the thoughts of ‘Content Moderators,’" Substack journalist Glenn Greenwald wrote.
Conservative comedians the Hodge Twins said, "Elon bout to make Twitter great again."
"Boy it makes me happy to see Elon Musk at Twitter HQ after 13 years on this platform getting censored and shadowbanned and taking away followers. LET FREEDOM RING!" journalist Emily Miller tweeted.
"If you didn't like The Babylon Bee calling an adult male a man, you could have just not followed them on Twitter. Look what you did," The Daily Wire's Frank J. Fleming pointed out.
Others, however, did not see the humor in Musk's video.
"This is fundamentally cruel," CNN analyst Juliette Kayyem reacted. "Whatever the masters of the universe are doing with this website, lots and lots of people — not fancy people, just people with kids and houses and vacation plans and who make companies run and rich men richer — will lose their livelihoods."
"He's such a piece of trash," Mississippi Free Press reporter Ashton Pittman tweeted.
"Tech billionaire with very strong, eccentric and often half-baked views on politics, powered by enormous ego, is live-tweeting his takeover of this platform," Der Spiegel journalist Mathieu von Rohr wrote.
The nine-second video has already gathered over 16 million views in the matter of hours.
Musk also changed his Twitter bio to read "Chief Twit" and later tweeted, "Meeting a lot of cool people at Twitter today!"
Last spring, Musk was set to buy Twitter for $44 billion but then attempted to pull out of the deal after he accused the company of being deceitful regarding the number of bots that were on the platform. Twitter, in return, took Musk to court to force him into buying the company. In recent weeks, Musk changed his tune and pledged to proceed with the original offer.
Conservatives have widely supported the Musk takeover as the billionaire tycoon has signaled his support for free speech principles while liberals have sounded the alarm that Musk will allow "misinformation" and hateful content to run rampant and perhaps reinstate former President Trump's Twitter account.
By Lawrence Richard | FOXBusiness
Elon Musk claims he has "freed" Twitter in one of his first tweets following his formal and finalized acquisition of the platform Thursday.
This freedom took several months and a whopping $44 billion to obtain, but the "Chief Twit," as Musk calls himself in his updated bio, is now in full control of Twitter.
"The bird is freed," Musk tweeted just before 11 p.m. ET. It was swiftly liked by over 500,000 users.
While Musk has advocated for promoting "free speech," his immediate plans for the struggling platform are not clear — though he has reportedly fired off its former leaders.
A source with knowledge of the matter told FOX Business that he fired Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, and Vijaya Gadde, head of legal policy, trust, and safety.
Bloomberg reported Sean Edgett, a general counsel for Twitter, was also fired and escorted from the building Thursday.
Musk previously accused the officials of misleading him and investors over the number of fake users, or bots, on the platform.
Musk also has plans to personally replace Agrawal, according to Bloomberg, at least for now.
He may eventually appoint someone to the role, as Musk also spearheads Tesla, SpaceX, and other enterprises.
Musk has also suggested he would loosen content moderation and has reportedly eliminated lifetime bans.
Several Twitter users have been permanently banned, including former President Donald Trump, which drew outrage from conservatives and others.
It is not clear when this change will be implemented or if Trump intends to return.
The former president currently uses Truth Social, a Twitter competitor.
Twitter banned Trump immediately following the Capitol protest on Jan 6, 2021, claiming the "risk of further incitement of violence."
Trump routinely used Twitter before his ban and even as an official outlet while serving in the White House. Inviting him back to the platform would give him access to his millions of followers before a potential run for the presidency in 2024.
By Joe Silverstein | FOXBusiness
Elon Musk, Twitter's new owner and the CEO of Tesla, denied a report by the New York Times that alleged he will fire Twitter employees just before they are set to receive their November 1 compensation in the form of stock grants.
"This is false," Musk responded to a tweet by ProPublica's deputy managing editor, Eric Umansky, that highlighted the New York Times report.
The Times report claimed that employees are being cut before the 1st as a cost-cutting measure. "The layoffs at Twitter would take place before a Nov. 1 date when employees were scheduled to receive stock grants as part of their compensation. Such grants typically represent a significant portion of employees’ pay," The Times reported.
"By laying off workers before that date, Mr. Musk may avoid paying the grants, though he is supposed to pay the employees cash in place of their stock under the terms of the merger agreement," the piece continued.
The report cited Ross Gerber, an investor who helped Musk finance the takeover, to report that Musk plans to cut around 50 percent of Twitter's 7,500 people workforce. Geber's comments about the expected cuts did not detail the timing of the layoffs.
Musk has promised to make vast changes to Twitter. Upon taking control of the company, he immediately fired the company's top executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal, who argued the company should deemphasize the importance of free speech, and Twitter's top lawyer Vijaya Gadde, who was behind the decisions to ban then-President Trump from the platform and to censor the New York Post's Hunter Biden laptop story in the weeks before the 2020 presidential election.
Musk has said ensuring free speech and turning the company profitable by better monetizing ads on the platform are his main goals. Although Twitter has been one of the most popular social media platforms in the world for over a decade, the company has struggled financially for years. It only turned profits in 2018 and 2019, and posted net losses every other year since 2012.
However, Musk's vision for a Twitter that reaffirms its commitment to free speech and open inquiry is not unanimously supported. Despite many Americans' expressing optimism that Musk's reign will usher in a new era of open debate, the Wall Street Journal reported that some advertisers have threatened to leave the platform if Trump is reinstated.
Musk said Friday he will not reinstate banned accounts until the convening of a "content moderation panel." Last week, he also published a letter to Twitter's advertisers to reassure them that the platform would adhere "to the laws of the land" and "be welcoming to all".
By Ryan Saavedra - The Daily Wire
New Twitter CEO Elon Musk is reportedly set to start charging users $20 per month to be verified on the platform in what is expected to be a new package the social media company is set to offer.
The Verge reported that the “directive is to change Twitter Blue, the company’s optional, $4.99 a month subscription that unlocks additional features, into a more expensive subscription that also verifies users,” according to sources and documents the publication accessed.
While pricing is subject to change, the plan is to charge $19.99 for the new Twitter Blue.
The report said that people with existing verified accounts will have 90 days to sign up for the new $19.99 package or they will lose their verification badge.
The report said that Musk has informed employees that they must meet the deadline to launch the new product by the end of the first week in November or they will be fired.
Musk tweeted on Sunday evening, “The whole verification process is being revamped right now.”
Musk is reportedly set to cut up to 50% of the work force at Twitter in the very near future after taking over the company late last week.
The New York Times reported that Musk “ordered the cuts across the company, with some teams to be trimmed more than others,” adding that “some managers [were] being asked to draw up lists of employees to cut.”
Musk acquired the company Thursday after his $44 billion purchase was finalized following a drama-filled six-month process that saw him try to back out at the last moment.
Ross Gerber, the chief executive of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth and Investment Management, said he was told by a top official from Musk’s team that major layoffs were coming to the workforce of 7,500 people.
“I was told to expect somewhere around 50 percent of people will be laid off,” Gerber said.
The layoffs are reportedly set to happen before employees were scheduled to get stock grants as part of their compensation, the report added.
Reports circulated this week that Musk was planning to cut up to 75% of the workforce, although he reportedly pushed back on the notion that the number would be that high.
Musk began his new reign at the company by firing leftist CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, and Vijaya Gadde, head of legal policy, trust, and safety, The Washington Post reported. The report said Musk also fired the company’s general counsel, Sean Edgett, who was escorted out of the building.
By Ryan Saavedra - The Daily Wire
New Twitter CEO Elon Musk became “the sole director” of Twitter on Monday after he moved to disband the social media company’s board of directors.
The move became official in a securities filing that stated that the members of the board, which included some recently fired top executives, were no longer directors “in accordance with the terms of the merger agreement,” CNN reported.
Musk also took action to limit the ability of Twitter employees to moderate content and enforce that platform’s often criticized rules.
Bloomberg News reported that “most” of Twitter’s Trust and Safety team is “unable to alter or penalize accounts that break rules around misleading information, offensive posts and hate speech,” except for extreme circumstances in which real-world harm could happen if action is not taken.
The team has not had access to a dashboard tool that they use to carry out enforcement actions like banning an account or locking a user out of their account for a period of time due to a violation, measures which many critics say are used as weapons because they disproportionately target conservatives.
A separate report from Bloomberg News said that Musk has asked his team to review the platform’s “hateful conduct policy,” specifically a portion that penalizes users for “targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals.”
Initial reports indicated that Musk was set to get rid of 75% of Twitter’s workforce. He started off his reign at the company by firing the company’s top executives and lawyers. Reports later claimed that he was eyeing cutting 50% of the company’s 7,500 person workforce. Now reports suggest that the number of employees who will get the axe has dropped all the way down to 25%.
All of this comes as Musk is reportedly set to start charging users $20 per month to be verified on the platform in what is expected to be a new package the company will offer.
The Verge reported that the “directive is to change Twitter Blue, the company’s optional, $4.99 a month subscription that unlocks additional features, into a more expensive subscription that also verifies users,” according to sources and documents the publication accessed.
While pricing is subject to change, the plan is to charge $19.99 for the new Twitter Blue.
The report said that people with existing verified accounts will have 90 days to sign up for the new $19.99 package or they will lose their verification badge.
The report said that Musk has informed employees that they must meet the deadline to launch the new product by the end of the first week in November or they will be fired.
Musk tweeted on Sunday evening, “The whole verification process is being revamped right now.”
PorkChopSandwiches (11-01-2022)
By Lawrence Richard | FOXBusiness
Twitter CEO Elon Musk issued a statement clarifying how the platform will proceed with election integrity and content moderation, including hate and harassment, after the platform took action against several networks that looked to sway or otherwise impact American political discourse ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.
In a series of tweets, Musk said he was looking into reinstating certain accounts on the platform and was establishing a content moderation council.
"Twitter will not allow anyone who was de-platformed for violating Twitter rules back on platform until we have a clear process for doing so, which will take at least a few more weeks," Musk said in a tweet to his 113 million followers.
The CEO added: "Twitter's content moderation council will include representatives with widely divergent views, which will certainly include the civil rights community and groups who face hate-fueled violence."
Musk also said he talked to several civil society leaders, including the Anti-Defamation League's Jonathan Greenblatt, The Asian American Foundation's Norman Chen, the NAACP's Derrick Johnson and more about how Twitter will "continue to combat hate & harassment & enforce its election integrity policies."
Musk's tweets came after the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), a non-partisan coalition founded in 2020 to locate and combat misinformation on social media, announced Twitter suspended six pro-Republican and pro-Democratic networks primarily located outside the U.S. that allegedly intended to influence the upcoming election.
"On October 26, 2022, Twitter released six datasets to the Twitter Moderation Research Consortium, consisting of six distinct inauthentic networks with technical links to China and Iran that had tweeted about the United States’ November 2022 midterm elections," the EIP said in its analysis, released on Nov. 1.
According to the EIP, the six networks, some of which included over 100,000 tweets from various users, were ultimately suspended as they violated Twitter’s Platform Manipulation and Spam Policy.
"The content put out by five of the six networks focused primarily on U.S politics, and particularly the midterm elections slated for November 8, 2022. The sixth focused on a litany of geopolitical issues including the Russia-Ukraine war and America’s foreign policy on China, with some scattered commentary on the midterms," the EIP added.
The networks included: 10Votes, EvenPolitics, Follow Back Resistance, Florida Anti-Rubio Network, the Conservative #LeadFromWithin network and the Pro-China Network.
Yoel Roth, the head of Safety & Integrity at Twitter, confirmed the actions as Twitter is "staying vigilant" to stop election influence.
"We’re staying vigilant against attempts to manipulate conversations about the 2022 US midterms. Read on for independent analysis of our teams’ work," he said.
10Votes consisted of five accounts with 5,832 tweets that included messages, most posted from two accounts between December 2021 and September 2022, according to EIP.
One primary account on the network posted pro-Trump messages including challenges to the legitimacy of the 2020 elections. The accounts shared "memes and endorsement posts" of certain congressional candidates and discouraged abortion, among other liberal social issues.
Another account within the network posed as a "progressive political advocacy organization," that tweeted support for various Democratic candidates in races across the country, including "congressional districts #MI11, #NY03, #OH11, and #TX38," EIP reported.
The account also tagged numerous political figures including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, PA senatorial candidate John Fetterman, Sen. Ed Markey, Sen. Jeff Merkley and others.
The EvenPolitics Network consisted of 37 accounts that sent 109,410 tweets from 2020 to 2022.
According to the report, most of the accounts shared pro-"resistance" messages supporting Democrats, Black Lives Matter and LGBTQIA content.
Follow Back Resistance, a network of 16 accounts and 24,579 tweets, also shared content appealing to Left-leaning communities, including anti-Trump sentiments, posts about Roe v. Wade, and "Free Palestine."
EIP determined these accounts intended to amplify "strong views on polarizing issues in American politics" and to potentially influence those "who might vote in a way that is more aligned" with their views.
According to its website, EIP’s goal is "to empower the research community, election officials, government agencies, civil society organizations, social media platforms, and others to defend our elections against those who seek to undermine them by exploiting weaknesses in the online information environment."
Their analysis was conducted with the Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO), The University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public (CIP), Graphika, The Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab).
In its conclusion, EIP said: "We hope that this assessment of inauthentic activity on Twitter offers useful visibility into the tactics of incentivized foreign parties who wish to influence the American political discourse, particularly around elections."
"Despite the comparatively small number of engagements that these networks achieved, operations such as these reinforce that foreign interference is ongoing, and that platform integrity teams working alongside researchers to find, assess, and disrupt these manipulative operations remains critical to stopping them while they are still small," it added.
KevinD (11-02-2022)
By Gabriel Hays | Fox News
Twitter owner Elon Musk’s latest attempt to streamline his new social media company has been met with yet more wailing and gnashing of teeth from disapproving liberals on Twitter.
Early Wednesday morning, the world’s richest man and newly installed Twitter CEO emailed the site’s employees with an ultimatum, obligating them to commit to an "extremely hardcore" work ethic or leaving the company.
Musk argued that Twitter must be ready for a more "increasingly competitive world" and therefore employees must be ready to give more. CNN correspondent Donie O’Sullivan provided a screenshot of Musk’s surprise email.
In it, Musk wrote, "Going forward, to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore. This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade."
After mentioning that Twitter will become "much more engineering-driven," he gave his employees a choice to get on board with his ambitions or leave the company. He added, "If you are sure that you want to be part of the new Twitter, please click yes on the link below," adding, "Anyone who has not done so by 5pm ET tomorrow (Thursday) will receive three months of severance."
He provided a conciliatory sign-off, stating, "Whatever decision you make, thank you for your efforts to make Twitter successful."
Musk’s critics interpreted the billionaire’s email as an insult and took to his platform to smear it and call for better treatment of his employees.
Cultural commentator Ryan Pinesworth blasted Musk’s move, tweeting, "Elon Musk sent a midnight email telling Twitter employees to commit to an 'extremely hardcore' work schedule, or get laid off with 3 months severance This is why people aren’t loyal to a [company]. It’s a paycheck, nothing more."
Tech journalist Chris Middleton lectured Musk over his email, tweeting, "The fact that #Musk is now ordering whoever's left at #Twitter HQ to work insanely long hours to create a "hardcore" solution reveals him to be every dumb tech bro you've ever met. He paid $44bn for an almost bankrupt company, with zero due diligence. He's not that clever, folks."
Former New York Times reporter Steven Greenhouse lamented that Musk’s email proves he’s turning Twitter into a "hellscape." He wrote, "After firing half Twitter's workforce and now demanding ‘long hours at high intensity,’ Musk seems to be doing his best to turn Twitter into a place where no one wants to work, where employees will be eager to escape from. Musk is turning Twitter into a hellscape for workers."
Writer Mike Morrison used his personal experience working in tech to describe working for Musk as misery. He tweeted, "I once had a job at pretty big tech company. I hated it. I was miserable and I remember my parents saying to me ‘do you think everything great you’ve done in your life has lead to a job that makes you miserable?; Just quit. And I did the next day. No job is worth misery."
WIRED senior writer Megan Farokhmanesh wrote, "’extremely hardcore’ might be the dweebiest way to tell your employees you plan to run them into the ground and destroy any semblance of a personal life, or else fire them. not content to be ruinously incompetent, he must also be embarrassing."
Digital strategist Leslie Mac encouraged Twitter employees to get Musk to fire them in response to such an email, tweeting, "Twitter employees - time to minimally so-called ‘quiet quit’. Make him fire you."
Business mogul Katie Jacobs Stanton skewered Musk’s behavior, writing, "In a million years, I never thought I would feel this, let alone Tweet this, but I would not recommend any person work at Twitter nor any brand advertise on Twitter given this toxic takeover."
Elon Musk ‘dismantles safety work at Twitter,’ makes employees ‘cry:’ Washington Post report
By Gabriel Hays | Fox News
A Washington Post tech report claimed Tuesday that Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter has undermined the platform’s ability to "protect vulnerable communities."
Written by reporters Cat Zakrzewski, Faiz Siddiqui and Joseph Menn, the piece argued that Musk imposed his will on the company by gutting the "Trust and Safety team" that once used to carefully deliberate and "define dangerous language."
The piece, headlined "Musk’s ‘free speech’ agenda dismantles safety work at Twitter, insiders say," suggested he did so callously, mentioning multiple times his decisions made laid-off employees cry.
The story cited more than a dozen former and current Twitter employees frustrated with how Musk undid "years of careful work" by reinstating the Twitter accounts of former President Donald Trump, satirical conservative site The Babylon Bee and others deemed threats by the now-defunct Trust and Safety team.
The report added, "Massive layoffs and Musk’s demand that remaining employees pledge to work ‘hardcore’ hours have left one of the world’s most influential social media sites operating with a skeleton staff and experts predicting an eventual crash. Meanwhile, advertisers are fleeing."
It was then mentioned how the billionaire Tesla CEO leveraged "culture-war issues" to make the company in his own image. The piece said, "Musk has moved rapidly — at times erratically — to undermine a regime built over a decade to define dangerous language on the site and protect vulnerable communities, replacing it with his own more impulsive style of ad hoc decision-making."
As the article continued, the reporters said they spoke to "more than a dozen current and former employees" who claimed that Musk was able to impose his will on Twitter be
Rather than repopulate the team, the piece claimed, "Musk is looking to automate much of the Trust and Safety team’s work to police content — eliminating some of the nuance from complicated decisions for a cheaper approach," implying that Twitter will make poorer moderation decisions going forward.
The Washington Post reported how, "On his first night as owner, Musk fired its leader of 11 years, former Trust and Safety head Vijaya Gadde."
Suggesting Musk is insensitive, the report stated that within hours of assuming control of the site, "Gadde’s access to company email and other systems was cut off; she couldn’t even say a formal farewell. At a Halloween party at Twitter headquarters where workers had brought children dressed in costumes, some employees quietly left to go cry."
Mentioning Musk’s decision to reinstate The Babylon Bee and clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson, The Post stated, "If the company restored the two accounts without a clear reason, it would undo years of careful work." It characterized Musk’s decision as a "sudden demand" that was "problematic."
The piece also described "Black Thursday" – the day on which Musk laid off a big portion of the Trust and Safety team, writing, "As layoff notices went out — first to Asia and Europe, then the United States — a group of longtime Twitter executives huddled together in a conference room and cried."
Thenmozhi Soundararajan, the executive director of an Indian rights group called Equality Labs, after seeing her emails to fired Twitter employers bounce back to her, told the paper, "It is such a dangerous time to have fired the moderators and this team. Twitter has been already in a state of failure, this is just the nail in the coffin."
If there is one thing we know about Musk, it's that he has a habit of failing everything he touches.
Teh One Who Knocks (11-23-2022)
Yup, Twitter is about to collapse at any time.
PorkChopSandwiches (11-23-2022)
Sarcasm?
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