Elon Musk's Starman - Is this shit real wtf

[GORDO]

It's honestly hilarious reading  a bunch of people freak out about Twitter as if they're having an actual breakdown.

Twitter's a toxic shit hole whenever people try to use it as other than a feed for stuff you might be interested in from people you wanna know about. I miss when it was described as 'microblogging'

I always found it bizarre that Twitter became the default communication channel for orgs and brands alike (get a website ffs), and disgusting how people aimed to be influencers through it.

Charge them $100 for a freaking blue tick for all I care. Clout chasing should have a cost.

Elon is clearly not the genius he brands himself as being but if something, he seems to have a superhuman ability to acquire and capitalize leverage, all his success can be attributed to that.

Owning Twitter is not much different than owning a tv station or a news paper, if you can influence the message that comes out that gives you leverage. Leverage to get more subsidies, get more government contracts for rockets, you name it. 

 

[Nebraska]

[Rubin Farr]

He’s going to kill the very thing he said he would save. Facebook about to lay off thousands of employees as well, starting to think this era is a social media bubble, that will collapse under the weight of an unsustainable advertising model. The hardware makers also have too much power, and they use it when they feel like it. I bet Rob Reiner gets banned soon, he’s got a sailor’s mouth.

[o00o]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-06/twitter-now-asks-some-fired-workers-to-please-come-back

Twitter Now Asks Some Fired Workers to Please Come Back
Twitter management trying to bring back dozens of workers
Some employees now needed or were laid off by mistake

 

[jaderpansen]

On 11/5/2022 at 10:45 AM, usagi said:

I am really enjoying this shitshow.

 

[iococoi]

[Nebraska]

lol @ the future

[Rubin Farr]

 

[ignatius]

 

[auxien]

will the real Pope Francis please stand up

[manmower]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/10/twitter-security-resignations/

 

Quote

Top privacy executives quit Twitter, raising questions about data security

SAN FRANCISCO — Several top privacy and security executives resigned from Twitter on Thursday, citing fears over the risks from Elon Musk’s leadership, a stunning exodus that prompted federal regulators to warn they might step in.

Chief Information Security Officer Lea Kissner tweeted Thursday morning that they had made the “hard decision” to resign, and the company’s chief privacy officer and chief compliance officer also quit, according to screenshots of an employee’s internal Slack message shared with The Washington Post.

One current Twitter employee said several other members of the site’s privacy and security unit also had resigned, while another said those remaining were trying to stop a wave of abuse in the company’s expanded paid service, Twitter Blue.

The Federal Trade Commission, which reached its latest consent decree with Twitter in May, said it was “tracking the developments at Twitter with deep concern.”

“No CEO or company is above the law, and companies must follow our consent decrees,” said Douglas Farrar, the FTC’s director of public affairs. “Our revised consent order gives us new tools to ensure compliance, and we are prepared to use them.”

The privacy staffers said they were most concerned by the rapid rollout of new features without the full security reviews that the FTC consent decree requires. They also objected to Musk’s order in an email Wednesday night, his first to the staff since taking control of the company, that all employees had to begin working in the office 40 hours a week, effective Thursday.

Musk’s email did not address Twitter’s long tradition of flexible and remote work. Instead, it cited a dire need to earn money from Twitter Blue. “Without significant subscription revenue, there is a good chance Twitter will not survive the upcoming economic downturn,” Musk warned. “We need roughly half our revenue to be subscriptions.”

Former FTC officials warned that the departures of key privacy and security officials, as well as some of Musk’s proposed changes to Twitter products, opened the company up to serious regulatory peril.

David C. Vladeck, who was director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection at the time of Twitter’s first settlement with the agency, said the departures and chaos raise questions about whether “compliance requirements are going to fall through the cracks.”

Vladeck said the penalties could be exponentially higher for Twitter if it is alleged to be in violation of its agreement with the FTC a second time. “There would be some very significant multiple of the last fine,” he said, referring to the May penalty that carried a $150 million fine. “You have to add a decimal point to that.”

Twitter entered into the consent decree with the FTC after allegations that it deceptively used email and phone numbers it said it was collecting for security purposes to target users with advertising. The FTC alleged that this violated a 2011 consent decree it had reached with the company.

The new decree required Twitter to start enhanced privacy and security programs, which were to be audited by a third party. Under that program, Twitter is required to conduct a privacy assessment of any new products it launches.

The employee Slack message said the quick release of products and changes without effective security reviews was “extremely dangerous” for users. It said engineers would have to take on the burden of certifying that the products complied with FTC agreements, putting them at substantial personal legal risk.

The meltdown of the security leadership is especially fraught because an FTC audit was expected by January, according to two people familiar with the schedule.

One said that Kissner and other executives had been hiring, despite a company-wide freeze, in a frantic effort to meet compliance rules before then.

“Desperately needed people,” said one of them, who was among the roughly half of the company laid off last week and spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal issues at Twitter.

The Slack message posted a link to Whistleblower Aid, a law firm that represented former security head Peiter Zatko when he filed a complaint this year with the Securities and Exchange Commission and other federal officials citing alleged violations related to the FTC, including what he described as inadequate logging of access to sensitive data and widespread use of out-of-date software.

The message warned that the FTC could fine Twitter “BILLIONS of dollars.” The author claimed to have heard Alex Spiro, Musk’s top lawyer, say Musk is “willing to take on a huge amount of risk in retaliation to this company and users, because ‘Elon puts rockets into space, he’s not afraid of the FTC.’” Spiro did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the memo.

Other employees said they were taking paid time off Thursday as a demonstration of disapproval.

Kissner, who had been brought in by Zatko, was admired inside Twitter and seen as a crucial backstop amid the recent chaos.

“Twitter has had several major security incidents over the last several years due to poor internal controls and a permissive data architecture,” said Alex Stamos, a former head of data security at Facebook and Yahoo. “The team led by Dr. Kissner made serious strides to closing these flaws, as Twitter is required to do by FTC consent decree.”

 

[ignatius]

 

[Nebraska]

4 hours ago, manmower said:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/10/twitter-security-resignations/

 

 

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/midterm-elections-2022/elon-musk-mayra-flores-midterms-b2221723.html

quite a few L's just today but i guess it goes with the territory of being the world's richest person

[auxien]

lol Twitter is falling apart from the inside and Elon wants to infuse it with PayPal energy because he's an idiot who thinks he can get away with fundamentally changing the entire value of the site while also wrecking any and all credit he might've had with the current employees he'd not fired. i hope the rest of the staff all quits on him, but that'd be too perfect.

bad thing is he's actually got (well he's echoing, at least...) some good ideas about Twitter that could've worked if he wasn't already tanking it in dozens of other ways. nice summary here: Inside the Twitter meltdown (platformer.news) but that TheVerge link transcript is interesting enough actually too.

 

[user]

At the beginning of this year I was looking forward to the demise of Twitter and Facebook but now that it's actually starting to happen I fear what might grow out of the rubble.

[ignatius]

1 hour ago, user said:

At the beginning of this year I was looking forward to the demise of Twitter and Facebook but now that it's actually starting to happen I fear what might grow out of the rubble.

 

Edited November 11, 2022 by ignatius

[zlemflolia]

i hope musk destroys twitter, it has no value.  i dont use the site, part of the reason is because it literally doesn't let me use it, without logging in.  and i can't log in to my existing account because it asks for my phone number.  no thanks muskrat

[ignatius]

1 hour ago, ilqx hermolia xpli said:

i hope musk destroys twitter, it has no value.  i dont use the site, part of the reason is because it literally doesn't let me use it, without logging in.  and i can't log in to my existing account because it asks for my phone number.  no thanks muskrat

he's probably going to break it completely and then write off the losses on his taxes forever.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/elon-musk-twitter-bankrupt-tesla-b2222680.html

“We just definitely need to bring in more cash than we spend. I we don’t do that and there’s a massive negative cash flow then bankruptcy is not out of the question,” Mr Musk said,

Edited November 11, 2022 by ignatius

[Squee]

Easy.

I also muted "elon" and "musk".

[Nebraska]

12 hours ago, ignatius said:

he's probably going to break it completely and then write off the losses on his taxes forever.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/elon-musk-twitter-bankrupt-tesla-b2222680.html

“We just definitely need to bring in more cash than we spend. I we don’t do that and there’s a massive negative cash flow then bankruptcy is not out of the question,” Mr Musk said,

that's because his interest per year for the loan he took out to purchase twitter is more than revenue twitter generates per year. and now it's bleeding "real" users. my guess is that his donors are pushing his subscription idea which, imo, isn't a good model for a social media platform who's main draw is "people"

[cern]

9 hours ago, Squee said:

Easy.

I also muted "elon" and "musk".

For what? You are still there. 

It's like going to Mcdonalds and buying a happy meal then throw it in the trash just to show no support for McDonalds. 

 

[Squee]

1 hour ago, cern said:

For what? You are still there. 

It's like going to Mcdonalds and buying a happy meal then throw it in the trash just to show no support for McDonalds. 

 

I use Twitter through Tweetdeck, so I only see posts from people I follow, I don't get ads, I don't see what other people like, I don't see trending posts. I can mute words, I can block users, I can shape my feed to my liking. I like Twitter because I use it to follow people working in industries I love. I don't want the only social media platform I use to be about social media. So I'm simply filtering out the noise.

[Squee]

[ignatius]

33 minutes ago, Squee said:

I use Twitter through Tweetdeck, so I only see posts from people I follow, I don't get ads, I don't see what other people like, I don't see trending posts. I can mute words, I can block users, I can shape my feed to my liking. I like Twitter because I use it to follow people working in industries I love. I don't want the only social media platform I use to be about social media. So I'm simply filtering out the noise.

same. no ads, no random likes and all that shit. tweetdeck is the only way to view twitter that doesn't make me want to rant about twitter on twitter

[Squee]