[Platformer] - Page 2 of 2

November 28, 2022

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Elon Musk’s radical remaking of Twitter is getting largely positive reception from tech CEOs.
CEOs are inspired by Musk’s leadership and tactics, which could have ramifications across the tech industry.
Musk’s sledgehammer tactics have given executives an excuse to begin unwinding some of the leverage that their workforce gained in the roaring 2010s.
Musk’s project to reinstate banned users and picking a fight with Apple is making it harder on himself.
Internally, employees have referred to the project as “the Big Bang”.
Advertisers remain deeply skeptical and Apple has threatened to remove Twitter from the App Store.
Musk is planning to lay off most of the remaining engineering managers this week.
It’s clear that the person in most need of a late-night performance review is Musk himself.

Published November 28, 2022

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Trump is restored to Twitter [Casey Newton & Zoë Schiffer, Platformer]

November 21, 2022

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Trump is back (sort of) on Twitter, but he has said he won’t use it. Elon Musk restored his account based on a poll, without forming a content moderation council as he had promised.
Late-night code reviews: After offices were closed and employees were asked to sign loyalty pledges, Musk asked engineers to fly to San Francisco for brief code reviews.
The shrinking sales team: After two meetings with the global sales team, Musk laid off more employees.
Uncertainty: Security certificates are set to expire, raising concerns that Twitter could go down without the people on hand to bring it back.
Elsewhere in Twitter: Engineers must email Musk what they’re working on, blue verification might not re-launch, and Musk says layoffs are over for now.

Published November 21, 2022

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November 14, 2022

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Elon Musk’s Twitter halted new enrollment into its $8-a-month Blue subscription offering after it led to widespread impersonation of government officials, corporations, and celebrities.
Days before the launch, the company’s trust and safety team had prepared a seven-page list of recommendations intended to help Musk avoid the most obvious and damaging consequences of his plans for Blue.
On Saturday afternoon, a week after an initial round of layoffs had cut Twitter in half, a second massive wave of cuts hit the company, targeting contractors.
On Monday morning, at around 1:45 AM, Twitter engineers were called into an emergency meeting and told they couldn’t even write any code — “until further notice.”
Eli Lilly, Volkswagen, Pfizer, IPG’s Mediabrands, and Omnicom Media Group have all paused their ad campaigns on Twitter, potentially costing the company millions of dollars in revenue.
GroupM has told its clients that Twitter is a high-risk media buy, and mid-afternoon on Monday, after Musk announced he would begin disconnecting up to 80 percent of unspecified microservices, two-factor authentication temporarily stopped working via SMS.

Published November 14, 2022

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November 10, 2022

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Elon Musk held an hour-long Spaces call to reassure advertisers, but VPs Yoel Roth, Robin Wheeler, Damien Kieran, Lea Kissner, and Marianne Fogarty all resigned the next day.
Musk sent an email to the team demanding they return to the office and prioritize finding and suspending verified bots/trolls/spam.
A lawyer on Twitter’s privacy team posted a rebuttal to Musk on the company’s Slack, warning of potential legal risks and violations of the FTC consent decree.
Musk held an unannounced all-hands meeting with staff, where he said bankruptcy was not out of the question and threatened to accept resignations from those who did not return to the office.
Musk’s plan to make verification checkmarks available to anyone willing to pay $8 for a subscription to Twitter Blue was abused, and he is also working to make Twitter a payments company.
There is a real sense of doom that Twitter could become a shadow of its former self, and Musk and his team were unable to access the @twitter account until Wednesday.

Published November 10, 2022

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