The Twitter Debacle

[Aaron44126]

35 minutes ago, Reciever said:

Source?

 

If you're asking about the article immediately above, The Verge has many links in the article pointing to information about the downtime itself and Musk's statements on the matter, but as far as Twitter's internal situation is concerned, The Verge has acquired some internal sources (Twitter employees) that can't go "on the record" for obvious reasons.

 

So I guess it's up to individuals to decide how reliable that reporting is.  (I've been reading The Verge since its launch in 2011 and have found no reason to doubt their credibility...  It's my second favorite tech news outlet.)

[ryan]

maybe the link you posted isn't showing up on his end. You provided a source already and yes the verge is a good source

[Reciever]

1 hour ago, Aaron44126 said:

 

If you're asking about the article immediately above, The Verge has many links in the article pointing to information about the downtime itself and Musk's statements on the matter, but as far as Twitter's internal situation is concerned, The Verge has acquired some internal sources (Twitter employees) that can't go "on the record" for obvious reasons.

 

So I guess it's up to individuals to decide how reliable that reporting is.  (I've been reading The Verge since its launch in 2011 and have found no reason to doubt their credibility...  It's my second favorite tech news outlet.)

 

Thats true I didnt consider that, likely NDA's seems to be the norm in that space. I really dont like sourceless material though. Not exclusive to the Verge, we're told.

 

1 hour ago, ryan said:

maybe the link you posted isn't showing up on his end. You provided a source already and yes the verge is a good source

 

No, The Verge is not a source, being a source and a publication would allow so many conflicts of interest it would render both to be without value.

[Aaron44126]

6 minutes ago, Reciever said:

Thats true I didnt consider that, likely NDA's seems to be the norm in that space.

 

Yeah, NDAs are one thing to worry about, but I was thinking more directly of the fact that anyone speaking publicly about internal turmoil will likely be outright fired by Musk as soon as he figures out who they are...

[Reciever]

3 minutes ago, Aaron44126 said:

 

Yeah, NDAs are one thing to worry about, but I was thinking more directly of the fact that anyone speaking publicly about internal turmoil will likely be outright fired by Musk as soon as he figures out who they are...

California has some pretty stringent guidelines for terminations. If someone gets fired immediately after airing out some dirty laundry I'd imagine they would get a nice settlement. That all being said, only a chosen few actively seek to garner the ire of their bosses.

 

Unless of course they are now following the guidelines for Texas, even then retaliation terminations still dont fly that well here. Especially in the court of public opinion. Musk is in a position where he has everything to lose in that arena.

[Aaron44126]

1 hour ago, Reciever said:

California has some pretty stringent guidelines for terminations.

 

He's apparently been failing to pay out severance — which is required by California law in some cases (since he gave short notice for the initial mass layoff) — in addition to failing to make rent payments and fulfill other financial obligations.  I'm not sure what's up with this guy, it is bound to catch up to him eventually indeed as lawsuits play out, but he doesn't seem to care about "guidelines" right now.  He's also been shown to fire people at the drop of a hat for basically saying things he doesn't like to hear.  If I were employed by Twitter then I would certainly be treading carefully.

[Reciever]

2 minutes ago, Aaron44126 said:

 

He's apparently been failing to pay out severance — which is required by California law (since he gave short notice for the initial mass layoff) — in addition to failing to make rent payments and fulfill other financial obligations.  I'm not sure what's up with this guy, it is bound to catch up to him eventually indeed, but he doesn't seem to care about "guidelines" right now.  If I were employed by Twitter then I would certainly be treading carefully.

True enough, though I would've been nervous to work there in the first place. Regardless of era lol.

I despise corporate politics just like regular politics, too many cubicles and I'll start looking for the door. Altogether suffocating nature of it all is just not in my nature. Too long and I'd be screaming like James McAvoy in Wanted.

[Etern4l]

I'm worried the amount of care billionaires have for the court of public opinion roughly halves with every $20B or so of net worth. 

 

In another beautiful story, the sociopath mocked a disabled employee whom apparently Twitter kept in a limbo to avoid a contractual severance paynent:  https://fortune.com/2023/03/07/elon-musk-twitter-ceo-office-space-clip-haraldur-thorleifsson-layoff/

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-64871183

 

How about just letting people you no longer need go in a civil and respectful manner, and in accordance with prior legal arrangements you bought into? 

[Etern4l]

A summary trial by the court of public opinion can sometimes make a difference, even if the odds are not grear:

 

Elon Musk backpedals after mocking disabled Twitter worker in tweet ‘storm’

 

More form the BBC:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-64884287

 

Mr Musk replied: "Based on your comment, I just did a video call with Halli to figure out what's real vs what I was told. It's a long story. Better to talk to people than communicate via tweet."

 

Hilarious stuff. 

[Aaron44126]

Supposedly the open source Twitter algorithm is going to drop later this week, but it looks like some source code was already made available .....

 

Twitter says source code was leaked on GitHub, now it’s trying to find the culprit

https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/27/23657928/twitter-source-code-leak-github

[Aaron44126]

Twitter's recommendation algorithm is open source.

 

GitHub

Twitter blog post

The Verge article

 

[Edit]

Just find it kind of funny that the pitch at the end of the Twitter blog post asking people to join links just to an email address, rather than something like an actual HR jobs portal with a list of open positions and a process to submit an application.  I wonder how well their recruitment process is going right now .....

[Etern4l]

Good old Elon, doing his bit to support hostile autocratic and criminal super-power:
Telegraph: Twitter lifts restrictions on Russian top government accounts

Also always good to do a little blatant crypto manipulation again (pecunia non olet, as the Romans used to say):

Dogecoin price falls after Twitter restores bird logo on home page

 

What a guy!

[Aaron44126]

Meanwhile, Musk decides NPR is "state-affiliated media", the same label given to propaganda outlets in Russia and China, going against Twitter's own policy (subsequently updated to remove references to NPR), despite the fact that NPR operates independently and receives around 1% of its funding from federal sources.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/04/twitter-labels-npr-state-affiliated-media-contradicting-its-own-policy/

 

...But realizes that perhaps it was a mistake.

https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-npr-state-affiliated-media-label-2023-4

https://www.npr.org/2023/04/07/1168728804/musk-asks-basic-facts-about-npr-after-labeling-it-state-affiliated-media-on-twit

 

Apparently yesterday, they switched the label to "government funded".

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattnovak/2023/04/08/twitter-changes-label-on-npr-account-from-state-affiliated-to-government-funded/

[Etern4l]

Same story in the UK: BBC account branded as state-funded, although the organisation is independent from the government. 

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-65226481

 

Clearly those are attempts to discredit the media which cannot be easily controlled by private interest groups. 

[Reciever]

14 hours ago, Aaron44126 said:

Meanwhile, Musk decides NPR is "state-affiliated media", the same label given to propaganda outlets in Russia and China, going against Twitter's own policy (subsequently updated to remove references to NPR), despite the fact that NPR operates independently and receives around 1% of its funding from federal sources.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/04/twitter-labels-npr-state-affiliated-media-contradicting-its-own-policy/

 

...But realizes that perhaps it was a mistake.

https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-npr-state-affiliated-media-label-2023-4

https://www.npr.org/2023/04/07/1168728804/musk-asks-basic-facts-about-npr-after-labeling-it-state-affiliated-media-on-twit

 

Apparently yesterday, they switched the label to "government funded".

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattnovak/2023/04/08/twitter-changes-label-on-npr-account-from-state-affiliated-to-government-funded/

 

Technically true, I'd rather see "funded in-part by US government". 

 

9 minutes ago, Etern4l said:

Same story in the UK: BBC account branded as state-funded, although the organisation is independent from the government. 

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-65226481

 

Clearly those are attempts to discredit the media which cannot be easily controlled by private interest groups. 

 

Elon be trolling it seems lol 

[Etern4l]

14 minutes ago, Reciever said:

 

Elon be trolling it seems lol 

 

Actually, looks like a petulant response to BBC making Twitter access opt-in recently. Whenever there is an article referring to some Twitter BS, there is just a window asking "Do you want to enable Twittter content?" :) 

[Aaron44126]

PBS also got the same label in the US.

 

And, there are some issues with the implementation.  For example, clicking on the "government funded" label takes you to a help page about the "state-affiliated" label which says that the state exercises control over the content.  Also, both NPR and BBC operate numerous Twitter handles and so far only their main handles have been given this label.  It seems like things are being slapped together haphazardly (par for the course).

[Aaron44126]

More Twitter news.

 

Twitter has been merged into a new company set up by Musk called "X Corp".  This seems to have been set up as a "holding company" specifically to hold Twitter, but it's possible that Musk could merge in some or all of his other companies as well.  There's also talk about Musk wanting to launch an "everything app", similar to "WeChat" in China, that would be called "X".  In any case, this basically means that Twitter as a company no longer exists.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/04/twitter-no-longer-exists-as-a-company-merges-into-musks-x-corp/

 

Former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal has filed a lawsuit against Twitter to get reimbursed for his legal expenses.  Twitter (and many other large firms) have agreements in place with executives and directors to get paid by the company if they end up dealing with personal legal issues relating to their time with the company.  Twitter is (no surprise) thumbing its nose and refusing to even acknowledge its obligations.  This might make it difficult for Twitter to attract a new (qualified) CEO or people to hold other top-level positions, if there is no trust that Twitter will actually follow through on commitments made to them as a condition of their employment.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/04/ex-twitter-ceo-who-was-fired-by-musk-sues-company-over-unpaid-legal-expenses/

(I found the comments section on this one interesting, where some people explain what this actually means; I never really knew that this "employment benefit" was a thing.)

 

Musk might not want to pay the bills, but that doesn't mean he can't buy 10,000+ datacenter-grade GPUs to use for AI projects.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/elon-musk-buys-tens-of-thousands-of-gpus-for-twitter-ai-project

[Etern4l]

Now we know why he called for a 6 month pause on AI research "in the interest of humanity" lol The X-megalomaniac just wanted to buy some time for his own project. 

[Reciever]

All I get if I'm fired is an opportunity at the employment office. That's wild! 

 

What seems to not made the news all that much is the filtering of substack into newsreel on Twitter recently. Seems to fly in the face of their short partnership Twitter had with Matt Taibi? Unsure 

[Aaron44126]

I think that Substack recently introduced a Twitter-like “notes” feature, and Elon isn’t ready to handle any sort of new competition…

(They were also blocking Mastodon links at some point, not sure if they still are.)

[Etern4l]

Elon on an apparently futile PR campaign, agreed to change the BBC tag from "state funded" to "publicly funded", I guess in exchange for the interview. The broadcast was as well received as could be expected (in the comments section anyway) :

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65248196#comments

[Aaron44126]

3 hours ago, Etern4l said:

Elon on an apparently futile PR campaign, agreed to change the BBC tag from "state funded" to "publicly funded"

 

On the subject...

https://www.npr.org/2023/04/12/1169269161/npr-leaves-twitter-government-funded-media-label

 

NPR decided to quit Twitter because of its concerns regarding the platform's unpredictability.  (Individual NPR journalists will make their own decisions about how to engage with the platform with accounts tied to them personally, but the various "global"/"official" NPR accounts not tied to an individual will be going dark.)  The article linked here does mention Musk's comments in the BBC interview, including a comment that the "publicly funded" label will be applied to NPR as well, but apparently the "quit Twitter" decision had already been made before the label change went into effect (it still has not, as of now) and the concerns over how Twitter is being run are still there regardless.

[Reciever]

33 minutes ago, Aaron44126 said:

 

On the subject...

https://www.npr.org/2023/04/12/1169269161/npr-leaves-twitter-government-funded-media-label

 

NPR decided to quit Twitter because of its concerns regarding the platform's unpredictability.  (Individual NPR journalists will make their own decisions about how to engage with the platform with accounts tied to them personally, but the various "global"/"official" NPR accounts not tied to an individual will be going dark.)  The article linked here does mention Musk's comments in the BBC interview, including a comment that the "publicly funded" label will be applied to NPR as well, but apparently the "quit Twitter" decision had already been made before the label change went into effect (it still has not, as of now) and the concerns over how Twitter is being run are still there regardless.

There is also more value in opposing Elon's Twitter than going through the hassle of working with him. So its a win-win for NPR objectively speaking.

[Etern4l]

Elon went on Fox News where he told Tucker Carlson how Twitter was overstaffed, so he fired 80%. They had a good laugh about it.

 

Meanwhile, a positive development for a change: Elon threatened to sue M$ for "illegal use" of Twitter data for AI training purposes:

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/elon-musk-says-he-ll-sue-microsoft-for-training-illegally-using-twitter-data-in-row-over-ads/ar-AA1a4Gwn