Twitter

[scottish]

Section 230 can never be repealed. It would instantly obliterate every tech company subject to US jurisdiction.

You have a narrow view of tech companies.    It would obliterate facebook, youtube, and twitter, but there are lots of tech companies that aren't based on Web 2.0. 

[ChpBstrd]

Section 230 can never be repealed. It would instantly obliterate every tech company subject to US jurisdiction.

You have a narrow view of tech companies.    It would obliterate facebook, youtube, and twitter, but there are lots of tech companies that aren't based on Web 2.0.

I agree @scottish , it would obliterate the attention economy companies which arguably make people's lives worse rather than better. It would also accelerate AI R&D because scalable, free moderators would be the only way to run a social media platform.

[NorCal]

Section 230 can never be repealed. It would instantly obliterate every tech company subject to US jurisdiction.

You have a narrow view of tech companies.    It would obliterate facebook, youtube, and twitter, but there are lots of tech companies that aren't based on Web 2.0.

I agree @scottish , it would obliterate the attention economy companies which arguably make people's lives worse rather than better. It would also accelerate AI R&D because scalable, free moderators would be the only way to run a social media platform.

And it's been the Republican's making noise about repealing section 230 for the past few years.  Seems the Democrats are starting to lose their taste for it too.  I don't know the exact contours of what a compromise might look like, but there might be a rare bipartisan moment for it. 

[Paul der Krake]

Section 230 can never be repealed. It would instantly obliterate every tech company subject to US jurisdiction.

You have a narrow view of tech companies.    It would obliterate facebook, youtube, and twitter, but there are lots of tech companies that aren't based on Web 2.0.

I agree @scottish , it would obliterate the attention economy companies which arguably make people's lives worse rather than better. It would also accelerate AI R&D because scalable, free moderators would be the only way to run a social media platform.

It would obliterate every product that stores data from customers and publishes it in some fashion, which is basically all of them.

Dropbox. Tinder. Google docs. Goodreads. Substack. WordPress. The list goes on and on.

[LennStar]

Section 230 can never be repealed. It would instantly obliterate every tech company subject to US jurisdiction.

Not to let it get too US-centric, the EU has pushed for more responsibility. In very stupid ways (e.g. upload filter), since it is mostly pushed by conservatives, but the EU is still a very important market for all those companies, so they will adhere.

[maizefolk]

Meta is laying off 11,000 people today. 3x the side of the twitter layoffs although smaller ones as a proportion of their total employees.

[dividendman]

Meta is laying off 11,000 people today. 3x the side of the twitter layoffs although smaller ones as a proportion of their total employees.

I think a lot of tech is bloated with coasting employees and dumb investments by executives, lots of heads will roll in the downturn.

[jinga nation]

“"Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months," Musk wrote today. "We will keep what works & change what doesn't."”
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/11/musk-led-twitter-rolls-out-new-official-tags-removes-them-hours-later/

unstable platform coming, with A/B testing in production.

if Twitter is the main, or one of the important ways, for businesses and people for advertising/marketing, they better be working on alternatives. My thinking is that their Twitter budget dollars will flow to Instagram/Facebook, which most businesses use too.

Also, Mastodon interest seems to have picked up in the last month:
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%201-m&geo=US&q=mastodon

[LennStar]

“"Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months," Musk wrote today. "We will keep what works & change what doesn't."”
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/11/musk-led-twitter-rolls-out-new-official-tags-removes-them-hours-later/

unstable platform coming, with A/B testing in production.

At the moment it looks more like "can't decide if A or B" as people get officialed, unofficialed and back.

[lost_in_the_endless_aisle]

Meta is laying off 11,000 people today. 3x the side of the twitter layoffs although smaller ones as a proportion of their total employees.

I think a lot of tech is bloated with coasting employees and dumb investments by executives, lots of heads will roll in the downturn.

They can always #LearnToWeld

[jinga nation]

I think Lone Skum is trying to create the mother of all tax loss harvests with his latest missive.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/10/elon-musk-scraps-twitter-work-home-staff

Not giving much confidence to the big brands advertising via Twitter:

Big brands including General Motors, United Airlines, the cereal maker General Mills and others have paused buying ads on Twitter as they watch whether Musk‘s past comments that he is a “free speech absolutist” will lead to a rise in hate speech and divisive content on the platform.

Musk said during the call that he was still planning a moderation council that would tackle inappropriate content and consider account reinstatements, but it would take “a few months” to assemble. He said it would be advisory and “not a command council”.

Stepping over a dollar/pound to pick up a dime/penny. Keeping the big money players away while begging for $20 $8 $7.99 per month. $3.50 or $4.20 coming?

[jinga nation]

Meta is laying off 11,000 people today. 3x the side of the twitter layoffs although smaller ones as a proportion of their total employees.

I think a lot of tech is bloated with coasting employees and dumb investments by executives, lots of heads will roll in the downturn.

They can always #LearnToWeld

They'll find another tech gig faster before they learn to weld (which is a useful skill). Some may have waited to get all their monies and expecting the cull command, happily walking away with fat wallets.

[ChpBstrd]

I think Lone Skum is trying to create the mother of all tax loss harvests with his latest missive.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/10/elon-musk-scraps-twitter-work-home-staff

Not giving much confidence to the big brands advertising via Twitter:

Big brands including General Motors, United Airlines, the cereal maker General Mills and others have paused buying ads on Twitter as they watch whether Musk‘s past comments that he is a “free speech absolutist” will lead to a rise in hate speech and divisive content on the platform.

Musk said during the call that he was still planning a moderation council that would tackle inappropriate content and consider account reinstatements, but it would take “a few months” to assemble. He said it would be advisory and “not a command council”.

Stepping over a dollar/pound to pick up a dime/penny. Keeping the big money players away while begging for $20 $8 $7.99 per month. $3.50 or $4.20 coming?

If setting up a new moderation system was his plan, why did he lay off all the moderators? Perhaps he'll go all-in on AI and hope it works.

[NorCal]

I think Lone Skum is trying to create the mother of all tax loss harvests with his latest missive.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/10/elon-musk-scraps-twitter-work-home-staff

Not giving much confidence to the big brands advertising via Twitter:

Big brands including General Motors, United Airlines, the cereal maker General Mills and others have paused buying ads on Twitter as they watch whether Musk‘s past comments that he is a “free speech absolutist” will lead to a rise in hate speech and divisive content on the platform.

Musk said during the call that he was still planning a moderation council that would tackle inappropriate content and consider account reinstatements, but it would take “a few months” to assemble. He said it would be advisory and “not a command council”.

Stepping over a dollar/pound to pick up a dime/penny. Keeping the big money players away while begging for $20 $8 $7.99 per month. $3.50 or $4.20 coming?

If setting up a new moderation system was his plan, why did he lay off all the moderators? Perhaps he'll go all-in on AI and hope it works.

You're implying there's a plan.  That's a pretty bold assumption.

[maizefolk]

Stepping over a dollar/pound to pick up a dime/penny. Keeping the big money players away while begging for $20 $8 $7.99 per month. $3.50 or $4.20 coming?

I don't know that it's necessarily skipping dollars for pennies. LinkedIn shows it is possible to build a social media network with 11 figure annual revenue where conventional digital advertising of the kind twitter depends on for 90% of its revenue, is only a modest slice of the business model. The last time LinkedIn put out a detailed breakdown digital ads were less than 20% of their revenue.

The specific revenue solutions LinkedIn build probably won't translate to twitter. Tools that help recruiters/head hunters is their biggest money maker at 60% of revenue. But regular premium memberships were still 20% of revenue, so a 1:1 ratio of subscriptions to ads, which is what Musk says he's aiming for.

I don't know that people will be as willing to pay as much money to yell at each other about politics as they are to pay money they can mentally justify as investing in career advancement. But companies where users are the primary customers (e.g. Apple, Microsoft (which owns linkedin))  rather than the primary product (e.g. Meta, Google) tend to be marginally less evil.

And given how outsized a role twitter seems to play in politics, at least in the USA, I think it'd be a net positive for the world if twitter can get less dependent on ad revenue without dying in the process.

[GuitarStv]

Hmm.  No WFH for twitter employees, minimum 40 hrs a week in the office unless Musk personally OKs the request:  https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/10/elon-musk-scraps-twitter-work-home-staff

And, since the top three security officials have left the company employees are now being asked to figure out on their own if Twitter is meeting federal privacy regulations.  And if these regulations are not followed, will result in billions of dollars of fines for the company.  Yikes.

Musk must be a heck of a genius . . . because my own average intelligence brain can't see how he's doing anything but running this company right into the ground.

[dividendman]

Hmm.  No WFH for twitter employees, minimum 40 hrs a week in the office unless Musk personally OKs the request:  https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/10/elon-musk-scraps-twitter-work-home-staff

And, since the top three security officials have left the company employees are now being asked to figure out on their own if Twitter is meeting federal privacy regulations.  And if these regulations are not followed, will result in billions of dollars of fines for the company.  Yikes.

Musk must be a heck of a genius . . . because my own average intelligence brain can't see how he's doing anything but running this company right into the ground.

We're about to see how easy it is to lose $44 billion.

[Fru-Gal]

I’ve been enjoying the schadenfreude of the situation as much as anyone and I am 100% not an Elon fan (nor Tesla) and I’ve been shocked at the intellectual limits (stupidity) of his recent tweets. Not to mention the growing evidence that he is a lying liar who lies, a sexist, and a yeller/shamer who must be awful to work for.

That said… Today I find myself wondering if in fact he might succeed in turning the company around and relisting it as public in a few years. The only reason I say that is

1, look how fast he managed to get all those people to sign up for $8/month accounts (of course we don’t know how many that is).

And 2, look at how we’re all glued to the news about Twitter. He’s adept at making a spectacle and I don’t know if he explicitly knows it but the story arc of taking something from the brink of failure to massive success is irresistible to humans.

I’m wondering if someone knowledgeable about stock trades can put credence to this idea that he camouflaged his $4B Tesla stock exit* with this purchase of Twitter and then he’s using Twitter as collateral for the financing rather than his stock purchases, meaning his fortune is not at risk. Is that correct?

* I was under the impression that when executives make massive stock sales it’s scheduled well in advance due to various regulations. So headlines that interpret executive stock sales as being motivated by particular events or prices are false — but I could be very wrong about that.

[LennStar]

If I parse your sentence correct, than I would deem it very unlikely that enyone is taking Twitter as collateral for any credit. Banks are generally even more risk averse than advertisers.

Also: yeah, many sign up fast. But how many? The currently verified are less than half a million. Let's say they all pay AND ten times as many Musk fans come in and pay too. 5,5M*8*12= roughly half a billion in income per year in that optimistic scenario. Let's say Musk manages to halve (did such a thing ever happen?) the expenses.
That is still less than 1/3 of the expenses, and that while (my last info from a random tweet) half of the advertisers seem to have not booked ads for the next year.
In other words even in the realistic scenario he is still short several hundred millions next year.

If Twitter would still be public trading, I would have bought leveraged certificates for sinking prices of the twitter stock a few days ago, when he tweeted that "nuclear shame" tweet.

Hmm.  No WFH for twitter employees, minimum 40 hrs a week in the office unless Musk personally OKs the request: 

Why should he do other than with Tesla??

[Fru-Gal]

A leveraged buyout usually uses the purchased company as part of the collateral. Musk took on $13 billion in debt financing from banks.

[lost_in_the_endless_aisle]

Meta is laying off 11,000 people today. 3x the side of the twitter layoffs although smaller ones as a proportion of their total employees.

I think a lot of tech is bloated with coasting employees and dumb investments by executives, lots of heads will roll in the downturn.

They can always #LearnToWeld

They'll find another tech gig faster before they learn to weld (which is a useful skill). Some may have waited to get all their monies and expecting the cull command, happily walking away with fat wallets.

Hopefully they will be doing something more productive than burning $5B/year trying to figure out how to put legs onto the Zuckerberg avatar

[maizefolk]

I’m wondering if someone knowledgeable about stock trades can put credence to this idea that he camouflaged his $4B Tesla stock exit* with this purchase of Twitter and then he’s using Twitter as collateral for the financing rather than his stock purchases, meaning his fortune is not at risk. Is that correct?

I believe it is a mix of both. $13B of the $44B purchase price was paid using loans against twitter itself. Another $5-7B of the purchase price came from other investors who either gave Musk money directly (e.g. Larry Ellison, Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund) or agreed to roll over their existing public shares into an equivalent ownership stake in the new private company (e.g. Jack Dorsey, Saudi Arabia).

The remaining ~$20B came from Musk with about $4B being his existing ~10% stake in twitter that he bought for less than $4B before making his offer to buy the company and the other $16B as new cash. In the original offer he was going to borrow against his Telsa shares to get that remaining, but it seems he just sold shares instead to raise the money.

So worst case scenario, if twitter goes to zero, he's out about $19B or roughly 10% of his current net worth. So painful. But 90% of the biggest personal fortune on the planet is still a really big personal fortune.

[Travis]

1, look how fast he managed to get all those people to sign up for $8/month accounts (of course we don’t know how many that is).

Whether paying $8 actually gets you verified and protected from imposters remains to be seen. Lots of fakes showing up this week testing the waters and the actual policy/process is still a work in progress which does not give advertisers or users much confidence. Musk saying in with one voice "free speech absolutely" and "but only if you send me some money" with another voice is going to get interesting when some folks get angry about feeling marginalized.  He may also run into problems down the road if after gutting his legal, moderation, and compliance departments Twitter starts doing things that run afoul of US or EU laws.

[nick663]

Meta is laying off 11,000 people today. 3x the side of the twitter layoffs although smaller ones as a proportion of their total employees.

I think a lot of tech is bloated with coasting employees and dumb investments by executives, lots of heads will roll in the downturn.

They can always #LearnToWeld

They'll find another tech gig faster before they learn to weld (which is a useful skill). Some may have waited to get all their monies and expecting the cull command, happily walking away with fat wallets.

There was a major stock vest that occurred on November 1st at Twitter.  A lot of employees walked away flush with cash:
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/01/twitter-reassures-employees-vested-shares-will-be-paid-out-this-month.html

[Travis]

https://www.twitter.com/mikeisaac/status/1590810660887461888

https://twitter.com/zoeschiffer/status/1590812793787518977

Musk just had an all-hands with the remaining staff. It's going to be a struggle.

https://twitter.com/oneunderscore__/status/1590781281037492224

https://twitter.com/Geoffbowser2/status/1590755641894744065
Engineers now having to become compliance officers.

https://twitter.com/kurtwagner8/status/1590828744104890369
The C-suite is basically empty now.

[jinga nation]

https://twitter.com/Geoffbowser2/status/1590755641894744065
Engineers now having to become compliance officers.

If there's one thing engineers hate, apart from useless meetings, is doing paperwork.
And compliance stuff where one has to sign off, hell fucking no!

(Speaking, of course, from my own engineering experience. When asked to do compliance work, all I do is state "I'll help by giving oral answers to the information system security officer or whoever is filling out the paperwork. But I don't own the task, I don't sign anything.)

This is a fascinating example that will be discussed in both business and engineering management classes.

[Fru-Gal]

Thanks for the financing explanation!

Yeah I’m not saying eight dollars per verification is enough to save the company right now but in a matter of days he overcame a major hurdle which is nobody wanted to pay for it at all.

While I’m surprised at his reactive tweets offending advertisers (name and shame) he has always stated that he didn’t think advertisement should be the primary revenue source. I agree he’s all over the map with his ideas and responses and his directives to staff seem incredibly unprofessional. I would hate to work there — I know I wouldn’t react well.

But he’s also adept at overcharging for stuff and he’s also very good at getting government subsidies. So I wouldn’t be surprised if he was able to start to define higher tier pricing having overcome the initial barrier of eight dollars.

Another topic I have been thinking about a lot is that he’s clearly addicted to the service. And I don’t think that is a healthy position for a company leader to be in.

[LennStar]

This claims to be the transcript of the first "come in half an hour" all hands meeting at twitter by Musk:
https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/10/23452196/elon-musk-twitter-employee-meeting-q-and-a
I haven't read it so far. It's also long. But I guess it still interestes some people here ;)

[jinga nation]

This claims to be the transcript of the first "come in half an hour" all hands meeting at twitter by Musk:
https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/10/23452196/elon-musk-twitter-employee-meeting-q-and-a
I haven't read it so far. It's also long. But I guess it still interestes some people here ;)

it seems that he's talking a combo paypal 2.0, venmo, cashapp, wise (transferwise), etc.
providing financial services, ability to pay, purchase goods, debit cards, loans, move money, all via twitter.
And also each verified subscriber to fork out $8/month, with secure verification done using your iphone/android device.
And a better algorithm to show interesting tweets, etc.
All in all, get you glued in more to twitter, less to tiktok, youtube. And more screen time...

[Sibley]

This claims to be the transcript of the first "come in half an hour" all hands meeting at twitter by Musk:
https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/10/23452196/elon-musk-twitter-employee-meeting-q-and-a
I haven't read it so far. It's also long. But I guess it still interestes some people here ;)

it seems that he's talking a combo paypal 2.0, venmo, cashapp, wise (transferwise), etc.
providing financial services, ability to pay, purchase goods, debit cards, loans, move money, all via twitter.
And also each verified subscriber to fork out $8/month, with secure verification done using your iphone/android device.
And a better algorithm to show interesting tweets, etc.
All in all, get you glued in more to twitter, less to tiktok, youtube. And more screen time...

Facebook tried its payment feature. How'd that work out? I certainly don't hear about frequently.

[LennStar]

This claims to be the transcript of the first "come in half an hour" all hands meeting at twitter by Musk:
https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/10/23452196/elon-musk-twitter-employee-meeting-q-and-a
I haven't read it so far. It's also long. But I guess it still interestes some people here ;)

it seems that he's talking a combo paypal 2.0, venmo, cashapp, wise (transferwise), etc.
providing financial services, ability to pay, purchase goods, debit cards, loans, move money, all via twitter.
And also each verified subscriber to fork out $8/month, with secure verification done using your iphone/android device.
And a better algorithm to show interesting tweets, etc.
All in all, get you glued in more to twitter, less to tiktok, youtube. And more screen time...

Yes, sounds like he want to do a second Paypal, just without selling it this time.
It's really good for him that nobody tried that before. Except Applepay, Facebook, Alipay...

I mean it's not like it is impossible, but it would also mean Twitter is no longer Twitter. Even though he likes it so much? And what about Free Speech? I didn't find anything about that in there. Maybe because it is of no interst to him as long as it's free like free beer?

[Metalcat]

This claims to be the transcript of the first "come in half an hour" all hands meeting at twitter by Musk:
https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/10/23452196/elon-musk-twitter-employee-meeting-q-and-a
I haven't read it so far. It's also long. But I guess it still interestes some people here ;)

it seems that he's talking a combo paypal 2.0, venmo, cashapp, wise (transferwise), etc.
providing financial services, ability to pay, purchase goods, debit cards, loans, move money, all via twitter.
And also each verified subscriber to fork out $8/month, with secure verification done using your iphone/android device.
And a better algorithm to show interesting tweets, etc.
All in all, get you glued in more to twitter, less to tiktok, youtube. And more screen time...

Yes, sounds like he want to do a second Paypal, just without selling it this time.
It's really good for him that nobody tried that before. Except Applepay, Facebook, Alipay...

I mean it's not like it is impossible, but it would also mean Twitter is no longer Twitter. Even though he likes it so much? And what about Free Speech? I didn't find anything about that in there. Maybe because it is of no interst to him as long as it's free like free beer?

I sounds like he's scrambling to figure out what to do, and PayPal is what he knows, so why not try that??

It seems to be that the strategy is to raze whatever Twitter currently is, then ????, then profit.

The gamble seems to be that from the wreckage, he's supposed to manifest something brilliant. Which...okay, sure...we'll see how that goes.

[Moonwaves]

He may also run into problems down the road if after gutting his legal, moderation, and compliance departments Twitter starts doing things that run afoul of US or EU laws.

Not so far down the road, though. The Irish Data Protection Office (DPO) is already asking questions. See bottom half of this article

[Tigerpine]

This claims to be the transcript of the first "come in half an hour" all hands meeting at twitter by Musk:
https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/10/23452196/elon-musk-twitter-employee-meeting-q-and-a
I haven't read it so far. It's also long. But I guess it still interestes some people here ;)

it seems that he's talking a combo paypal 2.0, venmo, cashapp, wise (transferwise), etc.
providing financial services, ability to pay, purchase goods, debit cards, loans, move money, all via twitter.
And also each verified subscriber to fork out $8/month, with secure verification done using your iphone/android device.
And a better algorithm to show interesting tweets, etc.
All in all, get you glued in more to twitter, less to tiktok, youtube. And more screen time...

Yes, sounds like he want to do a second Paypal, just without selling it this time.
It's really good for him that nobody tried that before. Except Applepay, Facebook, Alipay...

I mean it's not like it is impossible, but it would also mean Twitter is no longer Twitter. Even though he likes it so much? And what about Free Speech? I didn't find anything about that in there. Maybe because it is of no interst to him as long as it's free like free beer?

Sounds to me like he's trying to make the next WeChat.

[Sibley]

Well, I can definitively state that being on Twitter, at least if you're paying attention to and looking for this stuff and have the mindset for it, is absolutely hilarious right now. There's a number of hilarious troll accounts. Yes, it could cause real problems, but for right now, the absurdness is spectacular.

Eli Lily is not pleased with the "verified" account that posted that insulin was now please.

and then there's this one (sorry, can't post the link, it's on my phone):

Chiquita (@ChiquitaBrands) tweeted "We've just overthrown the government of Brazil."
and then...
Chiquita (@Chiquita) tweeted "We apologize to those who have been served a misleading message from a fake Chiquita account. We have not overthrown a government since 1954."

then the Tesla parody account, Tesla (@TeslaReal) tweeted "electric cars will solve the problem that our CEO created by sabotaging the california high speed rail"

It's chaos. But very funny chaos in some cases.

[DeepEllumStache]

Yes, sounds like he want to do a second Paypal, just without selling it this time.
It's really good for him that nobody tried that before. Except Applepay, Facebook, Alipay...

I mean it's not like it is impossible, but it would also mean Twitter is no longer Twitter. Even though he likes it so much? And what about Free Speech? I didn't find anything about that in there. Maybe because it is of no interst to him as long as it's free like free beer?

Just what consumers want - to trust their banking info to a company that just canned half their coders (probably hitting the security team) and their compliance people.

[Fru-Gal]

Well, I can definitively state that being on Twitter, at least if you're paying attention to and looking for this stuff and have the mindset for it, is absolutely hilarious right now. There's a number of hilarious troll accounts. Yes, it could cause real problems, but for right now, the absurdness is spectacular.

OMG these are all gems! I have to be careful because I was addicted to Twitter, had an account for a decade, always wanted to get out. Had deleted in 2016 one account that I growth hacked to be very large, but then bit by bit got sucked back in a year later for all the usual reasons (it put me in contact with colleagues, used it for research, entertainment, news, outrage, my own Trump derangement syndrome, etc). Anyway when Musk said he was buying a few months ago I used that as my excuse to delete.

It's crazy how much a simple microblogging website becomes a "place". The good thing is now if you want to read tweets you can easily see them in all news media. But yeah I have to remain vigilant.

[GuitarStv]

then the Tesla parody account, Tesla (@TeslaReal) tweeted "electric cars will solve the problem that our CEO created by sabotaging the california high speed rail"

So many levels that joke works on . . .

[Tigerpine]

Looks like the verified check mark system is on hold.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/11/twitter-fake-verified-accounts/

[dividendman]

Any bets on when Twitter files for bankruptcy?

[dividendman]

Well, I can definitively state that being on Twitter, at least if you're paying attention to and looking for this stuff and have the mindset for it, is absolutely hilarious right now. There's a number of hilarious troll accounts. Yes, it could cause real problems, but for right now, the absurdness is spectacular.

Eli Lily is not pleased with the "verified" account that posted that insulin was now please.

and then there's this one (sorry, can't post the link, it's on my phone):

Chiquita (@ChiquitaBrands) tweeted "We've just overthrown the government of Brazil."
and then...
Chiquita (@Chiquita) tweeted "We apologize to those who have been served a misleading message from a fake Chiquita account. We have not overthrown a government since 1954."

then the Tesla parody account, Tesla (@TeslaReal) tweeted "electric cars will solve the problem that our CEO created by sabotaging the california high speed rail"

It's chaos. But very funny chaos in some cases.

Hahaha... the @ TeslaReal account is suspended now but it had some amazing ones:
"honestly the 53% drop in stock price doesn't phase us. if there's anyone who knows about Crashing it's us"
"everyone's talking about twitter going up in flames but our cars did that before it was cool ;/"
"We will be offering 10 thousand vehicles to support the Ukrainian military. Our cars are the most advanced explosive devices on the market."

and there are others. Hilarious.

[LennStar]

Damn, there is someone with a humor so dark many won't drink a coffee of that color. Or employ someone.

He may also run into problems down the road if after gutting his legal, moderation, and compliance departments Twitter starts doing things that run afoul of US or EU laws.

Not so far down the road, though. The Irish Data Protection Office (DPO) is already asking questions. See bottom half of this article

PSA: The Irish Data Protection Office is a big reason why all those companies are there. Not that long ago it consisted of one office, with one worker. Half-day.

Chiquita (@Chiquita) tweeted "We apologize to those who have been served a misleading message from a fake Chiquita account. We have not overthrown a government since 1954."

Oh, now I am tempted to do a fake CIA account and write stuff like "No, we didn't fake Biden's election win. We only do that in other countries. The NSA is responsible for the US."
It's probably good I am busy with NaNoWriMo.

---
I just saw this tweet:

City Beautiful is on Mastodon now!
If you follow me [NotJustBikes], you should be following him, too:
@citybeautiful@masto.ai

I think that makes all bike-promoting urbanists I know of except one having at least opened a mastodon account in not even 2 weeks.
I don't think potential advertisers will like "yeah, there are a lot more users now. But they all only cross-post on twitter and never look at your ads there".
But then, Musk wants ad income to be the smallest part, so it's probably not important.

[jinga nation]

Stepping over a dollar/pound to pick up a dime/penny. Keeping the big money players away while begging for $20 $8 $7.99 per month. $3.50 or $4.20 coming?

TBH I didn't see this coming, watching this dumpster fire with 50 gal drums of popcorn.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/11/twitter-quietly-drops-8-paid-verification-tricking-people-not-ok-musk-says/

The only way to end the spiral was to revoke paid verification, it seems, but it's hard to imagine Musk has regained control of the platform by rolling back his first big idea to monetize Twitter.

Hard to get all the tweety birds back into the cage once they've been let out. The only solution is to burn it all down.

[Travis]

Stepping over a dollar/pound to pick up a dime/penny. Keeping the big money players away while begging for $20 $8 $7.99 per month. $3.50 or $4.20 coming?

TBH I didn't see this coming, watching this dumpster fire with 50 gal drums of popcorn.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/11/twitter-quietly-drops-8-paid-verification-tricking-people-not-ok-musk-says/

The only way to end the spiral was to revoke paid verification, it seems, but it's hard to imagine Musk has regained control of the platform by rolling back his first big idea to monetize Twitter.

Hard to get all the tweety birds back into the cage once they've been let out. The only solution is to burn it all down.

Scrapping the new verification system also included removing existing blue checks.

[Travis]

https://twitter.com/zoeschiffer/status/1591152301817102336

https://twitter.com/mmasnick/status/1591127924497076224

The layoffs continue without any side effects whatsoever.

[Moonwaves]

He may also run into problems down the road if after gutting his legal, moderation, and compliance departments Twitter starts doing things that run afoul of US or EU laws.

Not so far down the road, though. The Irish Data Protection Office (DPO) is already asking questions. See bottom half of this article

PSA: The Irish Data Protection Office is a big reason why all those companies are there. Not that long ago it consisted of one office, with one worker. Half-day.

That's part of why it was so important to have a full managment team and staff there. If that isn't the case anymore then each individual EU country might be in a position to follow up on GDPR issues.

[Sibley]

Stepping over a dollar/pound to pick up a dime/penny. Keeping the big money players away while begging for $20 $8 $7.99 per month. $3.50 or $4.20 coming?

TBH I didn't see this coming, watching this dumpster fire with 50 gal drums of popcorn.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/11/twitter-quietly-drops-8-paid-verification-tricking-people-not-ok-musk-says/

The only way to end the spiral was to revoke paid verification, it seems, but it's hard to imagine Musk has regained control of the platform by rolling back his first big idea to monetize Twitter.

Hard to get all the tweety birds back into the cage once they've been let out. The only solution is to burn it all down.

Scrapping the new verification system also included removing existing blue checks.

Maybe, but then they put them back. I just checked a couple of accounts that I know were verified, and they still are. If you click on the blue check, it tells you "This account is verified because it’s notable in government, news, entertainment, or another designated category."

So darn, I guess the entertainment is over.

Edit:
Pretty sure Eli Lilly and Lockheed had their lawyers make a few calls.
https://fortune.com/2022/11/11/no-free-insulin-eli-lilly-casualty-of-elon-musk-twitter-blue-verification-mess/

[Sibley]

If anyone wants to easily scroll some of the fake twitter posts, there's a subreddit just for this (of course). r/RealTwitterAccounts on Reddit.

[MrGreen]

Apparently Musk is floating the idea of turning Twitter into an online payment processing service as a means to generate revenue from a source that isn't ads. This guy is all over the map. At this point it's hard to imagine a scenario where this doesn't end poorly. Part of me wonders if there could be some Plan B strategy in Musk being able to write off billions in losses against future personal income if the company is forced to declare bankruptcy.

[bacchi]

https://twitter.com/zoeschiffer/status/1591152301817102336

https://twitter.com/mmasnick/status/1591127924497076224

The layoffs continue without any side effects whatsoever.

"Ghost employees"? Has Elon jumped the shark? Is he listening too much to his conspiracy minded sycophants?