DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ Elon Musk’s Twitter begins purge of blue check marks
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Clare Duffy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

New York CNN —Elon Musk’s Twitter on Thursday began a purge of blue verification check marks from users who have not signed up for its subscription service, with the checks disappearing from the accounts of journalists, academics and celebrities. The initial rollout of the change appeared to be fairly glitchy, as blue checks disappeared and reappeared on some accounts. The change — and its confusing rollout — threatens to create an even greater risk of impersonation of high-profile users and confusion over the veracity of information on the platform. Twitter had previously said it would “begin winding down” blue checks granted under its old verification system — which emphasized protecting high-profile users at risk of impersonation — on April 1. Last week, Musk tweeted that the “final date for removing legacy Blue checks is 4/20,” a date with special resonance to the billionaire entrepreneur given its meaning to marijuana enthusiasts.

☆ Analysis: Elon Musk escalates antics at Twitter, complicating turnaround
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-10 | by ( Clare Duffy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

New York CNN —Under Elon Musk, Twitter has antagonized multiple major news organizations by labeling them state-funded media, appears to have eased restrictions on Russian government accounts and made crude jokes on the front of its headquarters and on Musk’s own Twitter display name. Musk has said Twitter is working to improve the platform’s ad targeting to increase value for advertisers. But it didn’t exactly go to plan — instead of removing checks from all previously verified users, Twitter appeared to target a single account belonging to the New York Times. Days later, Twitter’s home button was temporarily replaced with doge, the meme representing the cryptocurrency dogecoin, which Musk has promoted. The company also briefly restricted Twitter users from sharing links to a rival platform, upsetting users, including one who had previously reported the so-called Twitter files using documents provided by Musk.

☆ Musk’s Twitter promised a purge of blue check marks. Instead he singled out one account
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-03 | by ( Clare Duffy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

New York CNN —Some VIP Twitter users woke up on Saturday expecting to have lost their coveted blue verification check marks in a previously announced purge by Elon Musk. But one high-profile account did lose its blue check over the weekend: the main account for the New York Times, which had previously told CNN it would not pay for verification. Although the New York Times’ main account lost its blue check, its other accounts, such as those for its arts, travel and books content, remained verified. Musk has been threatening to take away “legacy” blue check marks from users verified under Twitter’s old system since shortly after he bought Twitter last fall. In early November, Twitter launched the option for people paying for its Twitter Blue subscription service to receive blue checks.

☆ Fact Check-Fabricated Elon Musk tweet on ‘Twitter Gems’
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

An image appearing to show a tweet published by Twitter CEO Elon Musk stating that the platform will soon roll out so-called ‘Twitter Gems’ is fabricated. The tweet supposedly shows Musk stating that those who subscribe to Twitter Blue will get 250 gems a month for free, while unsubscribes would have to pay $5 for 100 gems. The tweet is not viewable when searching via Musk’s Twitter account (archive.is/wip/JvxjG). The message similarly does not show up when analyzing archived versions of Musk’s account saved on March 28 (here), (here). The screenshot is fabricated, and Reuters found no evidence that Twitter plans to roll out ‘Twitter Gems.’This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team.

☆ Musk’s Twitter markdown falls short of the mark
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-27 | by ( Lauren Silva Laughlin | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

The billionaire owner of Twitter has offered stock grants to the social media app’s shrunken staff at a valuation of about $20 billion, less than half the price he paid in October. In fact, based on Twitter’s operating performance, the effects of leverage and public market comparisons, the equity is probably worthless. Net out $13 billion of debt, as of January, and equity holders are left with just over $20 billion, or about the figure reported over the weekend by The Information. First, Twitter wasn’t generating consistent earnings before Musk bought it, and so it’s hard to believe it’s doing so now. Back out the debt and the equity is less than zero, assuming their cash position hasn’t meaningfully changed.

☆ Social Media Platforms Are Asking Users for Money. They Probably Don’t Mean You.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-24 | by ( Laura Forman | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Social-media companies are finally asking users to pay up. As of last month, the option to pay for Facebook’s new subscription service will run you nearly $12 a month in some countries despite co-founder Mark Zuckerberg’s 2010 declaration that his social-media network will always be free. Facebook parent Meta Platforms is also rolling out an optional subscription service for its photo sharing app, Instagram. Snap Inc. has added a subscription service for Snapchat. Elon Musk’s Twitter, bleeding cash, recently upgraded its legacy subscription service, Blue, and LinkedIn has had subscription offerings for well over 15 years.

☆ Fact Check-Fabricated Elon Musk tweet claims Earth is flat
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-14 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Twitter-owner Elon Musk did not post a tweet claiming that the Earth is flat, as suggested by a screenshot shared online. A Reuters search of Musk’s Twitter account and archived versions did not reveal the alleged tweet. One user who retweeted the screenshot said: “Elon Musk admitting we live in a flat earth just last year!” (here). A search through Musk’s Twitter account did not reveal the supposed tweet (archive.is/wip/fwivD), nor did archived versions of Musk’s Twitter account saved on April 25 (here), (here). Reuters found no evidence that Elon Musk tweeted that the world is flat.

☆ Where Musk’s Twitter Gambit Stands, Nearly Five Months In
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Mark Maurer | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The clock is ticking for Elon Musk to put Twitter Inc. back on a path to profitability as the social-media company continues to burn through cash nearly five months after the billionaire’s $44 billion takeover. Twitter’s finances remain strained in part because of an advertiser pullback and high-cost debt. As a result, Mr. Musk, the company’s owner and chief executive, has taken aggressive steps to stem the cash burn by slashing costs, including reducing Twitter’s workforce by about 75%.

☆ She was weeks away from maternity leave at Twitter. Then Elon Musk took over
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-06 | by ( Clare Duffy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +14 min

Twitter now reportedly has fewer than 2,000 employees following more cuts late last month, down from around 7,500 before Musk took over. CNN“We were on the Twitter-coaster, the Elon Musk chapter, for seven months,” Ali said. De Caires is one of the former Twitter employees taking legal action against the company following mass layoffs after Musk took over. Jeff Chiu/APInstead, Twitter employees say they heard very little from their new leader in the days immediately after his takeover. Attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan is representing around 1,500 former Twitter employees taking legal action against the company following Musk's takeover.

☆ Elon Musk’s Twitter Cuts More Jobs as Platform Seeks to Slash Costs
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( Alexa Corse | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Photo: Constanza Hevia H. for The Wall Street JournalTwitter has shed employees since Elon Musk acquired it last year. Twitter Inc. conducted another round of job cuts over the weekend, people familiar with the matter said, the latest among thousands of staff reductions under new owner Elon Musk. The cuts come as billionaire Mr. Musk has been pursuing sweeping changes to the platform, including slashing costs, releasing new features and changing content-moderation policies.

☆ Facebook Parent Meta Plays for More Pay
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-23 | by ( Laura Forman | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says the company’s new subscription plan is aimed at ‘increasing authenticity and security’ across its platforms. With Elon Musk’s Twitter tangled up in blue, Facebook and Instagram parent Meta Platforms once again looks as if it is lip-syncing a smaller rival. The social-media company turned metaverse maker attracted ridicule last weekend when Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said via a Facebook post that his company would start charging users for account verification and enhanced customer service. Dubbed Meta Verified, the new subscription plan is being rolled out in Australia and New Zealand this week, according to the company.

☆ With Twitter upended by Musk, these services see an opportunity
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-13 | by ( Jennifer Korn | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

Like Twitter, it offers a social feed of posts with 280-character limits. The list of newer entrants in the markets includes apps created by former Twitter employees, a startup backed by one of Musk’s Twitter investors, and a service from former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. The service launched publicly in June of last year, after Musk offered to buy Twitter. (As part of the acquisition, Musk took Twitter private and the company no longer reports user numbers in quarterly securities filings.) Though controversy remains, many Twitter users may feel less urgency to jump ship today than in late October.

Under Musk’s leadership, Twitter has slashed its staff, relaxed some of its content moderation policies and reinstated a number of incendiary accounts that were previously banned. Those moves raised concerns that Musk’s Twitter could contribute to a rise in public displays of hate and antisemitism offline. Musk, however, has repeatedly pushed back at claims that hate speech is rising on the platform. Twitter, which eliminated much of its public relations team during last year’s layoffs, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. “With this direct and heightened threat environment in mind, how will you work with other stakeholders to combat the rise of antisemitism on Twitter?,” Moskowitz concludes in his letter to Musk.

☆ EU Warns Twitter Over Incomplete Content-Moderation Report
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-09 | by ( Sam Schechner | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Twitter submitted the report as part of a code of conduct it voluntarily agreed to abide a few months ago. Elon Musk’s Twitter Inc. submitted an incomplete report to the European Union about how it is policing its online posts, EU officials said, drawing regulators’ ire just months before the bloc gets the power to fine companies for insufficient content moderation under a new social-media law. Twitter’s report, published Thursday as part of a voluntary code of conduct Twitter and other companies signed last year, lacked quantitative data about how it is tackling what the EU defines as intentionally false or misleading information, the officials said. Regulators plan to warn Twitter that it must do better to comply, one of the officials added.

☆ Elon Musk’s Twitter Tenure Draws Criticism From Jack Dorsey
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-09 | by ( Alexa Corse | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Jack Dorsey in recent weeks has been posting frequently on Nostr. Twitter Inc. co-founder Jack Dorsey has joined a new social network, and he is using it to take aim at Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk. Mr. Dorsey in recent weeks has been posting frequently on Nostr, a decentralized network that some have proposed as an alternative to Twitter. When Twitter suffered hourslong technical glitches Wednesday, Mr. Dorsey voiced frustrations on Nostr.

☆ Elon Musk’s Twitter Pushes to Win Back Advertisers During Super Bowl Weekend
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-03 | by ( Suzanne Vranica | Patience Haggin | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Several brands are considering a return to Twitter, partly because of the Super Bowl and cheaper ad rates, ad buyers said. Twitter Inc. is leveraging its most important night of the year to help it win back the long list of advertisers that ditched the social-media platform after Elon Musk‘s $44 billion takeover of the company. The San Francisco-based company has been ramping up its Super Bowl pitch to advertisers, offering a last-minute deal on one of its most high-profile, big-game ad packages, according to an email viewed by The Wall Street Journal. It is also telling advertisers that the number of conversations on its platform about the Super Bowl and the National Football League is up significantly from a year earlier, according to other emails sent to advertisers and ad agencies.

☆ Elon Musk’s Twitter Tries Super Bowl ‘Fire Sale’ to Win Back Advertisers
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-03 | by ( Suzanne Vranica | Patience Haggin | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

But Mr. Musk’s Twitter feed is often an echo chamber. 48 hours of Elon Musk’s tweets Circles representing Musk’s tweets are sized by the total retweets, likes, replies and quote tweets in response to what he posted. A chart of Mr. Musk’s original tweets, replies and quote tweets over a two-day period in November. A website tracking Mr. Musk’s private jet movement suggested that he traveled away from San Francisco around that time. Shareholders are now also seeking billions of dollars in damages in a lawsuit after Mr. Musk’s takeover proposal never materialized.

☆ Musk’s Twitter Reinstates Hindu Nationalist Accounts That Disparage Muslims
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( Newley Purnell | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Twitter Inc. under Elon Musk has reinstated several previously suspended Hindu nationalist accounts that were popular in India, one of its largest markets by users, with human-rights groups saying the move has spurred a resurgence of divisive religious material on the platform. Some of the accounts that were suspended had been reported for posting hate speech aimed at religious minorities in India, according to groups that reported them. Upon their return in recent weeks, some have tweeted material denigrating Muslims and others.

☆ Elon Musk returns to the stand in class-action lawsuit over controversial tweet
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-23 | by ( Matt Mcfarland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

Washington, DC CNN —Tesla CEO Elon Musk took the stand again on Monday morning in a California courtroom to testify for a second day in the lawsuit over his controversial “funding secured” tweet from 2018. Musk had spoken to executives of the Saudi sovereign wealth fund about the funding he would need to take Tesla private. However, it was anything but “secured.” Musk shared his recollection of the incident in his testimony Monday. He pointed to an incident in May of 2020 when he tweeted that “Tesla stock price is too high.” The stock price dropped the day of his tweet but recovered and closed the year higher than it had opened. Musk testified Friday that no one at Tesla reviewed his tweets in 2018 before he published them.

☆ There’s No Quick Fix for Social Media
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-20 | by ( Suzanne Nossel | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Social media is in crisis. Elon Musk’s Twitter is still afloat, but the engine is sputtering as users and advertisers consider jumping ship. Many view this moment of reckoning over social media with grim satisfaction. Advocates, politicians and activists have railed for years against the dark sides of online platforms—hate speech, vicious trolling, disinformation, bias against certain views and the incubation of extremist ideas. Social media has been blamed for everything from the demise of local news to the rise of autocracy worldwide.

☆ Elon Musk takes the stand in his ‘funding secured’ tweet trial
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-20 | by ( Matt Mcfarland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +1 min

CNN —Tesla CEO Elon Musk took the stand in a California court room Friday to testify in the class-action lawsuit over his controversial “funding secured” tweet in 2018. Musk has said at the time that he was thinking about taking Tesla private at $420 a share. Musk argued that his tweets do not cause Tesla’s stock price to move higher or lower. He pointed to an incident in May of 2020 when he tweeted that “Tesla stock price is too high.”The stock price dropped immediately after his tweet but recovered and closed the day higher than it had opened the day. “To have no guardrails is very troubling,” Subramanian said of Musk’s Twitter account.

☆ Elon Musk’s Twitter Auctions Off Kegerators, Office Supplies, Neon Bird Sign From San Francisco Headquarters
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-19 | by ( Alyssa Lukpat | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Twitter Inc. auctioned off kegerators, pizza ovens and other supplies from its San Francisco headquarters in what appeared to be its latest cost-cutting move. More than 600 items were being sold online through Wednesday afternoon, according to an auction page run by Heritage Global Partners Inc. The items were described on the page as surplus corporate office assets.

☆ Elon Musk’s Twitter Is Auctioning Off Kegerators, Office Supplies, Neon Bird Sign From San Francisco Headquarters
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( Alyssa Lukpat | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Twitter Inc. is auctioning kegerators, pizza ovens and other supplies from its San Francisco headquarters in what appears to be its latest cost-cutting move. More than 600 items are being sold online through Wednesday afternoon, according to an auction page run by Heritage Global Partners, Inc. The items were described on the page as surplus corporate office assets.

For users with a lot of followers, Twitter has been a place to network with professionals in their chosen field, build successful businesses and share breaking news. In October 2022 the account hit 550,000 Twitter followers, she said. Before Musk, Nelson said he communicated with Twitter staff, who engaged with the platform’s top creators to share new features and get insight. Prominent Twitter users said they have also noticed the quality of discourse on the platform declining, including more hateful messages being sent to them in direct messages and replies. It catalogs tweets from and about Musk, including reporting on the disruption to Twitter’s staff, previously suspended accounts that Musk restored and major moments on Musk’s Twitter.

Search resuls for: "Musk’s Twitter"

25 mentions found