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☆ Another tech bubble bursts: 2022 has been brutal for Silicon Valley workers
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-27 | by ( David Ingram | David Ingram Covers Tech For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +28 min

Gem: 100A maker of recruiting software, the startup cut a third of its workforce Nov. 1, The Information reported. HealthCare.com: 149The health insurance marketplace announced the job cuts Aug. 3, Miami Inno reported, citing state regulatory filings. Fabric: 120The robotics startup said July 13 that it was layoffing off 40% of them, TechCrunch reported, citing company confirmation. It affected about 300 people, the Silicon Valley Business Journal reported, citing company confirmation. Policygenius: 170The online insurance company cut about 25% of its staff, Axios reported June 6, citing company confirmation.

☆ Twitter slipped on removing hate speech even before Elon Musk takeover, E.U. says
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-24 | by ( David Ingram | David Ingram Covers Tech For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

Twitter removed 45.4% of hate speech posts it was notified about in a sample this year, down from 49.8% in 2021, European Union officials wrote in their report. The data was collected from March to May, months before tech magnate Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion and began loosening the site's enforcement even more around hateful posts. law, the Digital Services Act, threatens tech companies with fines in the billions of dollars if they don't strictly police their platforms. Musk has said he's focused less on removing hateful posts and more on limiting how often people view such posts — keeping them from going viral. officials said that they worked with 33 civil society organizations and three public bodies to notify tech companies of violations and monitor takedowns.

☆ Elon Musk reinstates former President Donald Trump’s Twitter account
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-20 | by ( David Ingram | David Ingram Covers Tech For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +8 min

"The people have spoken," Musk tweeted Saturday evening. Trump's account returned shortly afterward. Previous tweets from Trump's account were viewable after its reinstatement, with the most recent from Jan. 8, 2021, when he posted that he would not be attending Joe Biden's inauguration. "Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints," Musk tweeted Oct. 28. Twitter, founded in 2006, had its first profitable quarter in late 2017 while Trump was president.

☆ Elon Musk says no decision yet on Trump's Twitter ban as he reinstates others
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-18 | by ( David Ingram | David Ingram Covers Tech For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

Twitter CEO Elon Musk said Friday he was bringing back three high-profile accounts that had been suspended for breaking the service's rules, but he said he hadn't made a decision about former President Donald Trump's account. "Trump decision has not yet been made," Musk said in a tweet, as Twitter users braced for sweeping changes on the service that Musk bought three weeks ago. It may be only a matter of time before Musk reinstates Trump. Twitter permanently suspended Trump's account in January 2021, citing his role in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol and the potential for more violence. It was not clear if Musk had made any changes to Twitter's policies that ban hate speech and harassment.

San Francisco-based Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the security situation at the company. He echoed a pessimistic view among some Twitter users this week: The service might go down entirely under Musk's ownership. Verification serviceOn Friday, Twitter paused the rollout of its Twitter Blue verification service, intended to let users pay $8 a month for a verification badge. “The debacle with the Twitter verification is a really strong indicator as to what can go wrong,” Roger said. “When the verified Twitter users got hacked a few months ago, it was only a bitcoin scam, right?” Rogers said.

☆ Biden says Elon Musk’s relationships with foreign countries 'worthy of being looked at'
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-09 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Lauren-Egan-Circle-Byline-Template.Jpg | Lauren Egan | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

WASHINGTON — Asked whether Elon Musk posed a threat to national security, President Joe Biden said Wednesday that the billionaire’s “relationships with other countries is worthy of being looked at.”“I think that Elon Musk’s cooperation and/or technical relationships with other countries is worthy of being looked at,” Biden told reporters at the White House. “Whether or not he is doing anything inappropriate — I’m not suggesting that — I’m suggesting it’s worth being looked at. Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and the new owner of Twitter, has significant business interests in China. That helped prompt Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., to call for an investigation into the national security implications of Saudi Arabia’s stake. But Musk has important relationships with the U.S. government, too, and those have continued under the Biden administration.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg offered words of appreciation and encouragement to outgoing employees as he eliminated their jobs Wednesday, according to a recording of a video call he held to explain his decision. NBC News obtained a portion of the call in which Zuckerberg praised their work and said it was difficult to cut so many jobs. The layoffs affected about 11,000 people, or 13% of the company that owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. A Meta employee affected by Wednesday’s mass layoffs provided the video to NBC News. Though he accepted responsibility for the layoffs, Zuckerberg’s authority over Meta has never been in question.

NBC News reviewed 28 posts about the layoffs that appeared to be from former employees of Meta. The outgoing employees announced some of their plans within hours of the job cuts at Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and other divisions of Meta. Alex Leavitt, a senior researcher at Meta who uses plural pronouns, said they might write a book after a trip overseas. Former Meta employees will face at least some competition. The latest U.S. jobs report, released last week, showed the unemployment rate at 3.7% as payrolls surged 261,000 in October.

☆ Movement to ban TikTok: What midterms could mean for future of app
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-05 | by ( David Ingram | David Ingram Covers Tech For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +8 min

The effort to ban TikTok is back, and it could gain more strength after the midterm elections. Alex Brandon / AP fileExperts said there’s a steep hill to climb for those who want a total TikTok ban, but the midterms could provide a push. The renewed push for a TikTok ban or forced sale is taking place while the company is in negotiations with the Biden administration on a potential written security agreement. TikTok says it believes the agreement would address not only privacy concerns but how the app moderates content. Rubio is co-sponsoring legislation to ban TikTok from all U.S. government devices.

☆ Days before the midterms, Twitter lays off employees who fight misinformation
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-04 | by ( Ben Collins | Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Brandy-Zadrozny-Circle-Byline-Template.Jpg | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +8 min

Musk has said the company won’t allow anyone back on Twitter who was previously banned for at least a few more weeks. One current and two former employees were also concerned about a planned product that would allow Twitter users to buy verification badges. “Twitter isn’t prepared for that scale,” said one Twitter employee who survived Friday’s layoffs and asked to remain nameless because they were not authorized to speak publicly about internal company projects. The Twitter employee said that, as of the layoffs, the plan was that “there’s not going to be any verification of ID” to acquire a verification badge. “Now they’ve taken the brakes off the car.”One laid-off Twitter employee told NBC News that “the only saving grace is that he changes his mind on things all the time.”“There were some incredibly talented people who didn’t deserve this,” said a current Twitter employee.

Elon Musk seems determined to remake Twitter in his own image — with some help from the men in his trusted inner circle. They are joined in Musk’s orbit by Alex Spiro, a trial attorney with a roster of celebrity clients who reportedly led the first round of Twitter layoffs. Bloomberg reported Wednesday night that Twitter is preparing to eliminate about 3,700 jobs, or roughly half its workforce. Musk's personnel decisions suggest a possible road map for the future of Twitter, one in which policies and internal rules are drawn at least in part from the views of Musk’s consiglieres. Sacks, Calacanis, Spiro and Birchall did not immediately respond to questions about the company’s future and the nature of their roles there.

☆ Elon Musk might bring back Vine, a predecessor of TikTok shut down by Twitter
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-01 | by ( David Ingram | David Ingram Covers Tech For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

The possible Vine revival shows the breadth of product ideas — including old ones — that Musk is toying with in his first week heading up Twitter. A person who works for Twitter said exploratory discussions are happening within the social network about a possible Vine revival, which was first reported by Axios. Musk also solicited ideas about how to make a revived Vine better than TikTok. But some said it wouldn't necessarily be easy to bring Vine back after Twitter shut it down in 2016. When Vine didn't take off, Twitter shut it down in 2016, prompting Pornhub to make a joke bid and one of Vine's founders to express regret he ever sold it.

Elon Musk is now leading Twitter, according to CNBC. Twitter ultimately sued Musk for breaching the original agreement, and Musk countersued, alleging fraud. What happens after Musk gets the keysThe deal promises to reshape a major forum for speech online just before the Nov. 8 midterm elections. Musk, from the start of his takeover bid, sketched out a vision for Twitter that includes looser rules for what people can say. The next month, Musk said he would reverse Donald Trump's permanent ban from the platform.

☆ Facebook’s rules ban promoting weapons. Some gun sellers are running ads anyway.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-26 | by ( David Ingram | David Ingram Covers Tech For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +6 min

Gun retailers are running ads promoting firearms for sale on Facebook and Instagram, a tech industry watchdog said Wednesday in a report that shows apparent holes in how the apps enforce their own rules against ads that promote the use or sale of weapons. The company declined to comment on specific ads until it had seen the full report, which the Tech Transparency Project provided to NBC News ahead of releasing it. Tech Transparency ProjectMeta relies largely on automated systems to review ads, and it has some human reviewers. Tech Transparency ProjectGun ads have tripped up Facebook and Instagram for years, according to outside investigations. Facebook lets buyers and sellers violate its rules 10 times before they’re kicked off, The Washington Post reported in June.

☆ Some Democrats dip a toe in TikTok as most Republicans stay away
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-25 | by ( David Ingram | David Ingram Covers Tech For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +7 min

NBC News found that nine Democratic candidates in this year’s 35 Senate races are posting to TikTok, while three Republican Senate candidates are using it. In the most competitive Senate races, four of the Democrats are using TikTok: Sen. Raphael Warnock in Georgia, former state Chief Justice Cheri Beasley in North Carolina, Lt. Gov. The only Republican in a competitive Senate race using TikTok is Oz, who began posting there in 2019 before he left his television show for politics. “TikTok does have such widespread use,” Madison Horn, the Democratic nominee for one of two Senate races in Oklahoma, said in a phone interview. Bob Ellsworth, a Republican advertising consultant, said TikTok has certainly changed how Republicans campaign even if they’re not on the app itself.

SAN FRANCISCO — Twitter is telling employees not to believe “rumors” that nearly 75% of them could lose their jobs if Elon Musk eventually takes over the company's owner. “Please know, as we get closer to deal close, there will continue to be tons of public rumors and speculation,” Edgett wrote. There have been no plans for company-wide layoffs since then, he said. A Twitter spokesperson confirmed that the content of the email is accurate. It’s unclear when Musk’s purchase of Twitter might be finalized.

☆ Democrats are getting a boost from an unlikely source: Laid-off tech workers with more free time
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-13 | by ( David Ingram | David Ingram Covers Tech For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +8 min

Like many tech workers and investors, she moved to San Francisco from elsewhere — Michigan, in her case — and still feels invested in the politics of her home state. Whether there’s a tech expertise gap between Democrats and Republicans is difficult to measure. The Republican State Leadership Committee, which works to elect Republicans at the state level, didn’t respond to requests for comment. Some tech workers are in their third election cycles as volunteers, giving them a base of experience to work from. Given its size, Tech for Campaigns can test different messages and tactics across states.

☆ What’s that bag of white stuff? Some Uber drivers worry they’re drug mules
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-26 | by ( David Ingram | David Ingram Covers Tech For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +15 min

And a sheriff’s office in Tampa sent a crystalized substance to a Florida state lab for testing after an Uber Connect driver turned it over in April. Uber said that using its services for illegal activity is expressly prohibited, and that it takes reports of drug deliveries via Uber Connect very seriously. Some Uber Connect drivers have gone to the police with suspicions about packages they are assigned to deliver. “You’re almost certainly getting arrested in that situation.”Richman said it’s difficult to generalize about how much trouble an Uber Connect driver could get in. Uber said it was always looking for ways to improve Uber Connect, and drivers said they have several suggestions for changes.

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