• Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter has been chaotic, with employees chewed up and spat out along the way. A new cover story at New York magazine attempts to capture the chaos and the fallout that could take big chunks of Musk’s empire down with it.
• Government agencies rely on Twitter to share time-sensitive communications, but their dependence on the platform is becoming more tenuous under Musk’s ownership.
• The UK’s Online Safety Bill is expected to reduce user numbers for the big social platforms, impacting advertising revenue on platforms like TikTok and Instagram.
• Microsoft is likely to receive an antitrust warning from the European Union about its bid for Activision Blizzard.
• Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the company will move quickly to commercialize tools like ChatGPT and incorporate them into the company’s products.
• Apple announced the next-generation 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models, with faster M2 Pro and M2 Max chips, up to 96GB of RAM, an upgraded HDMI 2.1 port with support for an 8K external display, and faster Wi-Fi 6E.
• Bitcoin’s price has risen 26 percent in January, breaking $20,000 again and putting it in on course for its best month since October 2021.
• Scammers are gaming Amazon’s review system to sell fake 16 terabyte portable SSD drives for $100 or less.
• Discord acquired Gas, the app that allows teens to share compliments with each other anonymously.
Published January 18, 2023
Visit Platformer to read Casey Newton’s original post Extremely Hardcore: Our New York magazine cover story
