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Elon Musk publicly fires Twitter engineers who call him out online

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Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter Inc., has resorted to terminating company engineers who openly disagree with him on the social media platform.

elon musk
Image Source: fortune.com

The argument started when Elon Musk apologized for the Twitter Android app being “super slow in many countries.” He asserted that was the result of the app’s poor writing. He tweeted, “Btw, I’d like to apologize for Twitter being super slow in many countries. App is doing >1000 poorly batched RPCs just to render a home timeline!”

After that, Eric Frohnhoefer, a Twitter engineer, who worked on the Twitter Android app asserted that Mr. Musk’s statement was inaccurate in a quote tweet. Given that he has been working on Twitter’s Android app for about six years, Eric Fraunhoefer asserted that he “can say this is wrong.”

Although Mr. Frohnhoefer acknowledged that Android has “plenty of room for performance improvements,” he disagreed with Mr. Musk’s explanation for the origin of the speed issues.

Read More: Elon Musk fires thousands of contract workers without notice

He claimed that the features that few users utilize, the bloated nature of the app over time as a result of attempts to make additional upgrades, and the poor network communication were the real causes of the issues. Frohnhoefer recommended Twitter to prioritize streamlining the app by getting rid of unnecessary features and limiting the number of new ones.

The two then carried on arguing about Twitter in general, including talking about its lunches at headquarters, as well as the Android app particularly.

Frohnhoefer attempted to express his thoughts in a series of tweets, but one person questioned him as to why he hadn’t privately given his new boss his opinion. Frohnhoefer who has been an engineer at Twitter for over eight years, retorted, “Maybe he should ask questions privately. Maybe use Slack or email.”

Numerous others pointed out that Frohnhoefer was probably placing himself in danger by publicly correcting Twitter’s new owner, particularly given the fact that he has already laid off about half the company’s staff.  These warnings came true on Monday. Mr. Musk announced the engineer’s firing via Twitter.

While this was going on, one of the users tagged Musk and asked if he wanted “this kind of attitude” on his team. Musk spoke bluntly and responded, ” He’s Fired”. Frohnhoefer replied by tweeting a salute emoji.

Mr. Frohnhoefer had said he had a variety of opportunities if he was to leave Twitter. He stated that his LinkedIn has “never been more popular,” and a Reddit developer publicly messaged him to recommend that he apply there instead.

Ben Leib, another engineer, lost his job after criticizing Musk. He retweeted the same post from Musk and wrote, “As the former tech lead for timelines infrastructure at Twitter, I can confidently say that this man has no idea wtf he’s talking about.” Leib, who spent ten years working for Twitter, acknowledged his termination to Bloomberg on Sunday.

There has been a frenzy of changes ever since Twitter was acquired by entrepreneur Elon Musk. Musk has made several significant changes to Twitter, including the announcement of Twitter Blue, an $8 monthly membership service, and the firing of close to 50% of the staff.

Many employees are still angry with Musk’s decision to fire half of the company’s 7,000+ employees, including most of the senior management, just one week after his $44 billion acquisition. Additionally, the tycoon rapidly altered the organization’s workplace culture.

Although it was not common practice for Twitter employees to publicly criticize the company’s leadership in the past, before Musk arrived, many employees voiced their concerns or criticisms via email and internal Slack channels.

contract workers

Elon Musk fires thousands of contract workers without notice

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According to reports, Twitter has terminated thousands of contract workers as Elon Musk appears to be taking strong steps to revive the once-dominant social media platform. Platformer estimates that employment cuts have affected over 4400 out of 5500 contract workers.

contract workers
Image Source: pynr.in

The widespread firings, which affect both US-based and international staff working in real estate, marketing, content moderation, engineering, and other departments, were first reported on by Platformer on Saturday night.

According to Platformer’s Casey Newton, Twitter fired a sizable number of contract workers on Saturday, impacting anywhere between 4,400 and 5,500 individuals. Most contract workers didn’t get any notice that they were fired and only learned of their dismissal after being denied access to the company email and inner communications systems.

According to CNBC, the fired employees didn’t discover they had been fired until they lost access to Slack as well as other work networks over the weekend. Twitter states that the job losses are a result of a “reprioritization and savings exercise” in an internal message sent to contract employees that Business Insider was able to obtain.

Read More: Twitter To Let Users Post Long-Form Tweets and help creators monetize

Platformer’s Casey Newton noted, “Contractors aren’t being notified at all, they’re just losing access to Slack and email. Managers figured it out when their workers just disappeared from the system.”

A bunch of Twitter officials have either resigned or been dismissed since Musk took over, and more employees will probably be let go due to the company’s new in-person work requirement. Elon Musk sacked Twitter’s CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, and head of legal policy, trust, and safety Vijaya Gadde as soon as he took control of the platform.

Since that time, a number of high-profile employees have left Twitter. Only “exceptional people” are permitted to work remotely, according to a Q&A session between Elon and Twitter employees.  Musk remarked, “Basically if you can show up in an office and you do not show up at the office, resignation accepted.” The company’s communications division is no longer in operation.

Since taking over the Twitter business in the final week of October, Musk has been seeking to overhaul the entire system by firing top executives, cutting manpower by 50%, charging users for the “verified” tick, and other measures. The Tesla CEO has received harsh criticism for his handling of the crisis and for firing some employees without notifying them in advance. Twitter even barred access to its headquarters and instructed staff to wait in their homes for company communications.

Silicon Valley is reeling from a slump across the entire sector. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, just announced widespread layoffs, eliminating 11,000 positions, or around 13% of the workforce. The company overhired during the pandemic, but eventually realized the hyper boom isn’t sustainable, according to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who called the layoffs “some of the most difficult changes we’ve made in Meta’s history.”

In addition to Twitter and Meta, major tech giants like Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet have announced they will halt hiring or make job cuts due to inflation and recessionary fears. The companies are allegedly operating in a more risky environment, which is causing them to spend less on business expansion.

hate speech

After Elon Musk’s takeover, hate speech spiked on Twitter

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According to a new study, there has been an increase in hate speech on Twitter ever since Elon Musk officially acquired the social media platform last week.

hate speech
Image Source: ktvq.com

A study done by Montclair State University found that after Elon Musk acquired Twitter on October 27, hate speech tweets swamped the social media platform.

According to CBS News, the study indicated that “vulgar and hostile” speech immediately increased after Musk took control of Twitter. Prior to Musk’s ownership, the social media platform never reported more than 84 tweets containing hateful terms in a single hour, according to the study.

The Montclair State University study monitored the frequency of homophobic, antisemitic, and racial hate-related phrases used shortly following Musk’s takeover. Research revealed that, compared to the 84 tweets per hour in the week preceding Musk’s takeover, 398 hate tweets were sent out every hour in the first 12 hours following the acquisition’s conclusion. During that time, the average number of hateful tweets increased from 1,000 to 4,778.

The research also claimed that over 67% of the tweets after Musk’s acquisition had a negative tone to them, indicating a rise in negative sentiment. It noted, “In sum, the content and tone of Twitter posts became measurably more oriented towards hate speech on the day Elon Musk became CEO of the company with significant reach attained for this hate content.”

According to Forbes, research by the Network Contagion Research Institute reported that during the first 12 hours of Musk’s ownership, use of the N-word soared by 500%. The number of tweets using derogatory language toward LGBTQ people as well as anti-Semitic and racial derogatory terms also soared.

Although the research makes it clear that the Musk takeover resulted in an instant rise in hostile tone on the network, the precise cause of this is still unknown. Researchers said that it’s “speculative” to determine whether Musk’s possible changes in policy would have triggered the surge.

However, it’s possible that users turned to hostile language because they believed they would no more be suspended or barred from the network based on Musk’s previous statements on free speech. The Washington Post claims that his ownership appears to have led some accounts to believe that the previous rules against bigotry are no longer in effect.

As per Fortune, despite calling for greater speech freedom on Twitter, Musk told users in a Twitter post that he couldn’t allow the network to become a “free-for-all,” Another possibility, according to experts, is that having an “unmoderated platform was possibly a source of excitement.”

On October 27, billionaire tycoon Elon Musk, who also serves as the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, assumed control of the social media network and pledged to relax its content regulations. In a statement last week, Musk stated that “free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.”

The creation of a “content moderation council” to update and improve company standards under Musk was also announced by Twitter last week. Musk intends to create a moderation council with a range of viewpoints to oversee rules over content and accounts.

Kathy Griffin

Musk suspends comic Kathy Griffin’s account for impersonation

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The comedian Kathy Griffin is the most recent Twitter casualty after CEO Elon Musk announced that accounts that participate in “impersonation” without explicitly stating “parody” will be permanently suspended.

Kathy Griffin
Image Source: people.com

The actor and comedian Kathy Griffin’s account has been permanently suspended by Twitter for “engaging in impersonation” after she altered her Twitter display name to Elon Musk and urged people to vote for Democrats in the US midterm elections.

According to reports from Fox News, Kathy had changed her Twitter profile name to Musk after which she appeared to have been immediately removed from the social networking platform. However, her handle displays her own username, @kathygriffin, the name by the blue tick.

According to Elon Musk, this violates the company’s anti-impersonation policy. Kathy Griffin account being suspended caused controversy, and many people accused Musk of repressing free speech. Elon Musk responded to a post by stating, “Actually, she was suspended for impersonating a comedian.”

Elon Musk stated via several tweets on Sunday that any Twitter account discovered engaging in “impersonation” without explicitly stating “parody” will be permanently suspended. He said, “Going forward, any Twitter handles engaging in impersonation without clearly specifying “parody” will be permanently suspended.”

He said that the verified checkmarks would temporarily disappear if any names were changed. He also noted, “Previously, we issued a warning before the suspension, but now that we are rolling out widespread verification, there will be no warning. This will be clearly identified as a condition for signing up to Twitter Blue.”

Musk recently disclosed that the platform would charge 8$ per month for a subscription service on Twitter that would grant users priority in mentions searches, and replies. Musk noted in a tweet, “Twitter’s current lords and peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bullshit. Power to the people! Blue for USD 8$/month.”

Musk believes that the $8 verified Twitter accounts are his strategy for making the service more accessible. Users who “sign up now” for the new “Twitter Blue with verification” can obtain the blue checkmark next to their names exactly like the celebrities, companies, and politicians.

It was stated that the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the U.K. would be the first countries to offer the service.

Musk’s choice to impose the blue tick fee, however, did not sit well with everyone. Even some advertisers retracted their advertisements from the website.

The Twitter Blue membership became publicly available over a year ago as a means of accessing articles from some authors without ads and making other changes to the app, such as changing the color of the app’s icon on the home screen. Along with the “blue tick fee,” Musk has been facing a lot of backlash on Twitter for firing staff members.

Musk defended his decision to remove employees by claiming that Twitter was losing over 4$ million every day and the firings were necessary. He said employees were granted three months’ pay as severance when they lost their jobs, but he did not go into specifics about Twitter’s daily losses.

Long-Form Tweets

Twitter To Let Users Post Long-Form Tweets and help creators monetize

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Elon Musk intends to allow Twitter users to earn more money from all types of content, potentially providing a more favorable deal than YouTube’s monetization model, as well as allowing people to make Long-Form Tweets, lengthier posts and videos.

Long-Form Tweets
Image Source: theinformation.com

This weekend, Twitter’s new buyer, Musk, hinted about the latest features in tweets. Musk responded to influencer Quinn Nelson’s tweet that YouTube “gives creators 55% of ad revenue,” saying, “We can beat that.”

Previously, a content creator stated that if given the right incentives, he would consider posting his full-length and long videos to Twitter.

“If twitter could handle the full length feature videos that I produce and can offer a similar monetization system like YouTube does, I would consider uploading my full videos here too for sure,” wrote user @Erdayastronaut, whose Twitter profile reads: “Professional rocket orientation specialist, explainer of flamey stuff and rocket chaser.”

Musk replied, “We can do 42 min chunks at 1080 resolution now for new Blue, so you could break up a longer video. The 42 min limit should be fixed next month.”

Source: fortune.com

Further details on monetization will be revealed in the coming weeks, according to Musk.

He also stated that Twitter will soon allow users to post long-form tweets which will put an end to the idiocy of notepad screenshots which will be followed by composer monetization for every type of content including videos and paragraphs, he further added.

On Saturday, he promised to offer an improved search function on Twitter saying that the search function reminds him of Infoseek in 1998.

When another user complained, “I have hundreds of videos…. But I’d need to reencode them since twitter is extraordinarily picky about formats,” Musk replied, “Noted to fix.” Then He set his Twitter bio as “Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator.”

Source: fortune.com

Twitter declared plans for a monthly $7.99 subscription service on Saturday, allowing anyone on Twitter to get a checkmark similar to the celebrities, industries, and political elites you already follow. According to the New York Times, Twitter is postponing this offer due to concerns that it will be abused.

Twitter also announced an impending premium feature that will allow users to have their tweets prioritized over those from accounts that do not have the blue check.

free speech

Supporting Free Speech, Binance CEO invests $500 mn in Twitter

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Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao recently stated that his company had made an investment of $500 million in Twitter because he is “extremely supportive” of free speech.

free speech
Image Source: ibtimes.com

Changpeng stated that there were “very strong reasons” for investing in Twitter. With over 7 million follower count, Zhao is active on the social networking platform.

Zhao, aka CZ, revealed to a crowd at the Web Summit in Lisbon, “When we invest in a deal, we’re very comfortable if the deal goes through. We’re very comfortable if the deal doesn’t go through. We always want to get to a point where we’re in that position. Number one is that we want to be extremely supportive of free speech. Twitter is an important free speech platform.”

“I am a heavy Twitter user. I want to invest in products that are important for our industry”, said Zhao, adding that Binance intended to be a long-term investment in the company.

After months of twists and turns within and outside the courtroom, the deal to acquire Twitter was finally finalized on Thursday. After acquisition. Elon Musk fired the platform’s top executives. Zhao said that because Musk is “a pretty hard guy for me to predict,” he was “honestly” a “little bit surprised” when the deal finally closed.

Since Musk completely controls the board and decision-making in the now-private Twitter, it is unknown how actively involved minority investors like Binance might be. In the $44 billion acquisition, the majority of his co-investors include funds like Sequoia Capital, Fidelity Management, Andreessen Horowitz, and Brookfield.

In an effort to monetize the service and reduce Twitter’s reliance on advertisements, Musk announced on Tuesday that the social media network would charge $8 for its Blue service, which includes the highly desired “verified” badge. Zhao stated he agreed with the approach.

Musk appeared to have second thoughts about his dedication to cryptocurrencies as he put the Twitter deal together. The largest digital asset exchange in the world, Binance Holdings Ltd., contributed $500 million to Musk’s financing for the transaction in May and is reportedly putting together a team to investigate how cryptocurrency might benefit the social media giant.

In a string of text conversations made public as part of the dispute around the Twitter transaction, Musk initially suggested utilizing blockchain to support free expression and decrease spam on social media, only to respond later that “blockchain Twitter isn’t possible.”

Musk has a lot of issues with Twitter bots and spam, which led to a protracted court spat that placed his plans to buy the company at risk. The problem is especially crucial in the cryptocurrency industry, where spam accounts impersonate well-known individuals like Musk to spread the word about frauds involving bogus cryptocurrency giveaways.

However, some proponents of digital assets think that Twitter bots might be decreased by adopting blockchain. Musk’s desire to “authenticate all real humans” on Twitter may be promoted through an NFT passport or a blockchain-based identity verification tool.

When it comes to daily cryptocurrency trading volume, Binance is the largest crypto exchange in the world. It was established in 2017 by d developer Changpeng Zhao, who had previously built high-frequency trading software. After the Chinese government began to regulate cryptocurrencies more strictly, Binance eventually transferred its headquarters outside China.