Social Media & Big Tech news and discussions

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wjfox
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weatheriscool wrote: Sun Apr 30, 2023 12:06 pm New York's subway will no longer post alerts on Twitter after Elon Musk demanded $50,000 per month
New York City’s mass-transit system is ending its real-time service alerts on Twitter for subway, train and bus riders as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority curbs its relationship with the platform owned by Elon Musk.


Twitter had asked the MTA to pay $50,000 a month to continue accessing the platform’s application programming interface, or API, an infrastructure tool that allows for multiple computer programs to work together, according to an MTA official. Twitter didn’t specifically respond to an emailed request for comment.

“I don’t think it would be the best use of resources, especially when we have these other features and functions that are internal and homegrown and that are reliable that we want our customers to use,” Shanifah Rieara, MTA’s acting chief customer officer and senior advisor, said in a telephone interview. “We want to communicate with our customers through all platforms, but we need a platform that is reliant and consistent and up to date.”
https://fortune.com/2023/04/27/new-york ... elon-musk/

Already posted -

https://www.futuretimeline.net/forum/vi ... 054#p36054
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A Twitter User Threatened To Kill Obama. Musk's Safety Team Let Him Keep Tweeting
Source: Forbes
In January and February this year, a Twitter user made some strange but clear threats against the life of President Barack Obama, according to a search warrant reviewed by Forbes. “I will kill Barack Hussein Obama until death in a field of battle,” he wrote in one tweet, according to the warrant, adding in another, “United States Secret Service are going to kill me.”

The threats were serious enough for a senior Secret Service agent to investigate. He contacted Twitter to get subscriber data on the user in February. After the investigator obtained the tweeter’s phone number, he spoke to the man, who admitted to making threats towards President Obama.

Despite the possible danger to a former president, and Twitter’s knowledge of the offending tweets, the user remains online today. Even though his tweets were worrisome enough for a Secret Service investigation, Twitter under Musk decided not to suspend him, indicating a chaotic approach to policing Twitter under Elon Musk.

Since announcing plans to make Twitter a safe “town hall” for the internet, Musk has publicly taken a hard line on calls to violence. “Death threats should result in immediate account suspension. Lmk if that’s not happening,” Musk wrote in a tweet this February. However, the account that issued the threats against Obama was not suspended, continuing to tweet the same day as the offending tweets, which were later removed from the platform. Indeed, a day after his account made the first threat in January, the suspect retweeted a Tesla-related tweet from Musk.
Read more: https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrew ... -tweet-on/
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WhatsApp could disappear from UK over privacy concerns, ministers told

Mon 8 May 2023 07.00 BST

The UK government risks sleepwalking into a confrontation with WhatsApp that could lead to the messaging app disappearing from Britain, ministers have been warned, with options for an amicable resolution fast running out.

At the centre of the row is the online safety bill, a vast piece of legislation that will touch on almost every aspect of online life in Britain. More than four years in the making, with eight secretaries of state and five prime ministers involved in its drafting, the bill, which is progressing through the House of Lords, is more than 250 pages long. The table of contents alone spans 10 pages.

The bill gives Ofcom the power to impose requirements for social networks to use technology to tackle terrorism or child sexual abuse content, with fines of up to 10% of global turnover for those services that do not comply. Companies must use “best endeavours” to develop or source technology to obey the notice.

But for messaging apps that secure their user data with “end-to-end encryption” (E2EE), it is technologically impossible to read user messages without fundamentally breaking their promises to users. That, they say, is a step they will not take.

“The bill provides no explicit protection for encryption,” said a coalition of providers, including the market leaders WhatsApp and Signal, in an open letter last month, “and if implemented as written, could empower Ofcom to try to force the proactive scanning of private messages on end-to-end encrypted communication services, nullifying the purpose of end-to-end encryption as a result and compromising the privacy of all users.”

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... sters-told
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Re: Social Media & Big Tech news and discussions

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wjfox wrote: Mon May 08, 2023 9:50 am WhatsApp could disappear from UK over privacy concerns, ministers told

Mon 8 May 2023 07.00 BST

The UK government risks sleepwalking into a confrontation with WhatsApp that could lead to the messaging app disappearing from Britain, ministers have been warned, with options for an amicable resolution fast running out.

At the centre of the row is the online safety bill, a vast piece of legislation that will touch on almost every aspect of online life in Britain. More than four years in the making, with eight secretaries of state and five prime ministers involved in its drafting, the bill, which is progressing through the House of Lords, is more than 250 pages long. The table of contents alone spans 10 pages.

The bill gives Ofcom the power to impose requirements for social networks to use technology to tackle terrorism or child sexual abuse content, with fines of up to 10% of global turnover for those services that do not comply. Companies must use “best endeavours” to develop or source technology to obey the notice.

But for messaging apps that secure their user data with “end-to-end encryption” (E2EE), it is technologically impossible to read user messages without fundamentally breaking their promises to users. That, they say, is a step they will not take.

“The bill provides no explicit protection for encryption,” said a coalition of providers, including the market leaders WhatsApp and Signal, in an open letter last month, “and if implemented as written, could empower Ofcom to try to force the proactive scanning of private messages on end-to-end encrypted communication services, nullifying the purpose of end-to-end encryption as a result and compromising the privacy of all users.”

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... sters-told
This I will have to keep an eye out for now as I have this app on my mobile to chat with my family, friends etc.
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Elon Musk says he's stepping down as Twitter CEO, will oversee product
Source: CNBC
Elon Musk said Thursday that Twitter is getting a new CEO and that he will move to a product and technical role. Musk said via Twitter that the new CEO, an unnamed woman, would start in about 6 weeks.He added that he would transition “to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & sysops.”

Tesla shares jumped more than 2% in a sign that investors were pleased about the move. Several Tesla investors were concerned that Musk was too distracted with running Twitter and that he should redirect his time to steering the electric vehicle company where he is also CEO. In April, a host of progressive Tesla shareholders publicly urged Tesla’s board to ensure that Musk would dedicate more time to the automobile company.

Musk, who is also CEO of the reusable rocket maker SpaceX, completed the $44 billion acquisition of Twitter last October and made his mark there immediately. He fired the company’s top executives and laid off hundreds of employees. Under his leadership, Twitter’s core advertising business has suffered as multiple companies halted their paid promotional campaigns as the social messaging service saw an increase in offensive speech and hateful rhetoric, several advocacy groups have documented.

He has also allowed previously banned users back on to the platform and courted political controversy with statements such as saying that the media was racist against white and Asian people.
Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/11/elon-mu ... oduct.html
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Elon Musk hires ex-NBCUniversal ad chief Linda Yaccarino to be Twitter's CEO

Source: CNBC
NBCUniversal global advertising chief Linda Yaccarino has resigned to join Twitter as its next chief executive. Twitter owner Elon Musk confirmed the hire in a tweet Friday.

The announcement comes a day after Musk said via Twitter there would be a new CEO of the social media website, although he didn't name the new person. Musk said in his tweet the person would start in about six weeks.

Yaccarino joined NBCUniversal in 2011 and had risen to the top of the company's global advertising business. On Monday, the ad chief was slated to take part in NBCUniversal's Upfront event at Radio City in New York - the sales presentation the company, along with its media peers, makes to the advertising industry every year in May.

The longtime ad executive brings a wealth of relationships with top chief marketing officers and other advertising executives to Twitter at a time when the platform has seen advertisers flee - therefore losing billions of dollars - after Musk's takeover last year. Musk completed his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter in October of last year. Soon after, he fired the company's top brass and laid off thousands of employees.
Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/12/nbcuniv ... r-ceo.html
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Re: Social Media & Big Tech news and discussions

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weatheriscool wrote: Fri May 12, 2023 6:27 pm Elon Musk hires ex-NBCUniversal ad chief Linda Yaccarino to be Twitter's CEO

Source: CNBC
NBCUniversal global advertising chief Linda Yaccarino has resigned to join Twitter as its next chief executive. Twitter owner Elon Musk confirmed the hire in a tweet Friday.

The announcement comes a day after Musk said via Twitter there would be a new CEO of the social media website, although he didn't name the new person. Musk said in his tweet the person would start in about six weeks.

Yaccarino joined NBCUniversal in 2011 and had risen to the top of the company's global advertising business. On Monday, the ad chief was slated to take part in NBCUniversal's Upfront event at Radio City in New York - the sales presentation the company, along with its media peers, makes to the advertising industry every year in May.

The longtime ad executive brings a wealth of relationships with top chief marketing officers and other advertising executives to Twitter at a time when the platform has seen advertisers flee - therefore losing billions of dollars - after Musk's takeover last year. Musk completed his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter in October of last year. Soon after, he fired the company's top brass and laid off thousands of employees.
Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/12/nbcuniv ... r-ceo.html
She'll just turn the bird into one big social media adboard. 😂😂
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Twitter plans to remove and archive inactive accounts
By Tom Gerken
Technology reporter
Elon Musk has announced plans to remove Twitter accounts left dormant for "several years".

Mr Musk, who took over the social-media platform in October, said it was "important to free up abandoned handles".

The move has been criticised online, as people feared losing access to accounts of relatives who had died.

But Mr Musk hinted this may be avoided, as old accounts would be archived rather than deleted.



One person asked about accounts of celebrities prominent on Twitter before they died, including chef Anthony Bourdain.

Another mentioned tweets that may hold historical value, such as those from victims of tragedies.

Some have called for a way to request accounts be memorialised.

But others suggested idle accounts should be automatically archived to free up the usernames.

Twitter's inactive-account policy says, users must log in at least every 30 days and accounts "may be permanently removed" if left dormant.

But as recently as April 2023 the policy said users only needed to log in every six months, according to the Internet Archive, which takes snapshots of web pages.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-65533014


https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-p ... r-accounts
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Climate crisis deniers target scientists for vicious abuse on Musk’s Twitter

Sun 14 May 2023 07.00 BST

Some of the UK’s top scientists are struggling to deal with what they describe as a huge rise in abuse from climate crisis deniers on Twitter since the social media platform was taken over by Elon Musk last year.

Since then, key figures who ensured “trusted” content was prioritised have been sacked, according to one scientist, and Twitter’s sustainability arm has vanished. At the same time several users with millions of followers who propagate false statements about the climate emergency, including Donald Trump and rightwing culture warrior Jordan Peterson, have had their accounts reinstated.

Climate scientists say the change has been stark, and they are fighting to make themselves heard over a “barrage” of often hostile comments.

“There’s been a massive change,” said Mark Maslin, professor of earth system science at University College London and the author of popular books including How to Save Our Planet. “I get so much abuse and rude comments now. It’s happening to all of us, but I challenge the climate deniers so I’ve been really targeted.”

Maslin says he used to have regular meetings with Sean Boyle, Twitter’s former head of sustainability, who was laid off in Musk’s mass cull of staff shortly after he took over in Aprll 2022. Maslin said Boyle discussed the platform’s work to develop ways of ensuring that trusted information was pushed to the top.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... sk-twitter
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