elon musk
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Another day, Elon Musk continues to make Twitter a very sh*tty experience for everyone.
If you open Twitter and see many people on your timeline, you don’t follow or care to follow. There is a good reason for that. There is this god-forsaken tab, “For You,” that shows you tweets from users that Twitter’s algorithm believes you will take an interest in.
It also hilariously is full of Elon Musk’s tweets after it was discovered that the Tesla chief had developers create a special system to flood our timelines with them after his Super Bowl tweet didn’t do the numbers President Biden’s tweet did.
Now, he’s desperately trying to ween the company off the ad-based revenue it heavenly relied on after his purchase of Twitter made everyone say I’m good beloved by introducing a subscription service nobody wants.
For either $8 a month or $84 annually, you will not only get a verification badge, which he is even making celebrities and notable people have to pay for, access to different features, and now have your tweets show up in the “For You” tab.
Musk made the announcement on his personal Twitter account, writing, “Starting April 15th, only verified accounts will be eligible to be in For You recommendations. The is the only realistic way to address advanced AI bot swarms taking over. It is otherwise a hopeless losing battle. Voting in polls will require verification for same reason.”
In the same breath, he also wrote, “That said, it’s ok to have verified bot accounts if they follow terms of service & don’t impersonate a human.”
Twitter Hates The For You Tab & Paying For Blue Checks
According to Musk, Twitter is worth half its value now at $20 billion. Musk acquired the social media company for $44 billion.
Twitter has been clowning the “For You” tab, and the idea of legacy verified accounts having to pay for the blue checks. In a back-and-forth with William Shatner, aka Captain Kirk, Musk told the iconic Star Trek actor, “It’s more about treating everyone equally. There shouldn’t be a different standard for celebrities.”
Riiiiiggght.
In the gallery below, you can see what Twitter thinks of Musk’s new stupid idea.
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Photo: NurPhoto / Getty
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Source: NurPhoto / Getty / Twitter
Elon Musk’s mission to make Twitter hot garbage continues.
Twitter, well, Elon Musk’s version of the app is now “winding down” its “legacy verified program and is giving people until April 1 to subscribe to Twitter Blue or risk losing their blue checkmark.
The announcement of this is not new because Musk has been threatening to do this since he took ownership of the social media platform, saying since November that in the “coming months,” he would be snatching away “legacy” verification badges given to users under company’s old ownership. After all, he feels they were given out in a “corrupt and nonsensical” way.
Keep in mind Phony Stark benefited from the old verification process because it told people on the platform and those who followed him on purpose that his account was legit.
This could be an elaborate troll job using Twitter’s Verified account because the new rule takes effect on April 1, also April Fool’s Day. Musk loves “own the libs” on Twitter, and many changes he said were coming have yet to happen.
But, another tweet sourcing a report from a website called boing boing claims Twitter Blue subscribers will be able to hide their blue checkmark to avoid ridicule because they dare to subscribe to the service.
We Are Watching These Social Media Platforms Suffer A Slow, Painful Death
Twitter Blue subscribers get other handy features outside the blue checkmark, like posting longer videos and editing tweets. It’s sad to see how one of the best social media experiences has quickly become a dumpster fire that you might have to pay $8 bucks to use to its full extent.
Musk is not the only social media platform CEO pushing a pay-for-verification plan. Mark Zuckerberg just recently began something similar on Facebook and Instagram, and, of course, no one cares for it.
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Elon Musk is facing heavy criticism on Twitter Tuesday morning (May 7) after an exchange with an employee took a turn that shocked many. Musk was seen questioning the person’s disability and dismissing them in what some viewed as insulting.
Elon Musk, 51, was called out by former Twitter designer Halli Thorleifsson in a tweet asking if he was fired from the company after losing access to his work computer.
Dear @elonmusk [waving emoji]. 9 days ago the access to my work computer was cut, along with about 200 other Twitter employees. However, your head of HR is not able to confirm if I am an employee or not. You’ve not answered my emails. Maybe if enough people retweet you’ll answer me here?” Thorleifsson tweeted on Monday (May 6).
Thorleifsson’s thread also contained a message for former Twitter CEO and founder Jack Dorsey.
“Hi @jack. I would really appreciate your help on this one. My company was acquired on your watch and I joined because I believed in what you were building,” Thorleifsson added.
Gaining Musk’s attention, the Twitter boss asks, “What work have you been doing?” in the thread to which Thorleifsson fired back with, “I would need to break confidentiality to answer this question here. If you have your lawyers share in writing that I can do that then I’d be happy to discuss that openly!”
Another Twitter user, Alex Cohen, who tweets under @anothercohen, shared a screengrab of the exchange between Musk and Thorleifsson and got a response from Musk.
“The reality is that this guy (who is independently wealthy) did no actual work, claimed as his excuse that he had a disability that prevented him from typing, yet was simultaneously tweeting up a storm. Can’t say I have a lot of respect for that,” Musk wrote.
Truthfully, it appears that Elon Musk is determined to bring the once-mightly social media platform to its knees and there are even reports that he currently walks about Twitter headquarters with bodyguards in tow, according to a new piece from The Daily Beast.
On Twitter, folks are giving the Telsa founder the business. Keep scrolling for those reactions.
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Photo: Justin Sullivan / Getty
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Elon Musk is once more in the crosshairs of the public after Twitter users woke up Saturday morning to find that an essential security measure for their accounts was removed. Two-factor authentication via SMS, one of the more normalized security measures for online security, will now exist behind the Twitter Blue paywall and people are letting Musk have it.
While the mandate didn’t come from Elon Musk directly, fears were confirmed by a new post on Twitter’s blog explaining the new move and how two-factor authentication via SMS will change going forward.
From the Twitter blog:
While historically a popular form of 2FA, unfortunately we have seen phone-number based 2FA be used – and abused – by bad actors. So starting today, we will no longer allow accounts to enroll in the text message/SMS method of 2FA unless they are Twitter Blue subscribers. The availability of text message 2FA for Twitter Blue may vary by country and carrier.
Non-Twitter Blue subscribers that are already enrolled will have 30 days to disable this method and enroll in another. After 20 March 2023, we will no longer permit non-Twitter Blue subscribers to use text messages as a 2FA method. At that time, accounts with text message 2FA still enabled will have it disabled. Disabling text message 2FA does not automatically disassociate your phone number from your Twitter account. If you would like to do so, instructions to update your account phone number are available on our Help Center.
Twitter’s explanation did not seem to calm the fears or criticism from the platform’s massive pool of users and many are lashing out saying that this is another tactic from Musk to tear down the once-mighty space.
Keep scrolling to see the reactions to Twitter’s new two-factor authentication via SMS rules and Elon Musk below.
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Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk publicly ventured that he may tab someone else to run Twitter before year’s end.
According to reports, Musk told an assembled group at the World Government Summit on Wednesday (Feb. 15th) that he is aiming to pick someone to replace him as CEO of Twitter. Musk officially acquired the social media company for $44 billion last October.
“I’m guessing probably towards the end of this year should be good timing to find someone else to run the company,” he said via video, as he was joining the conference from Dubai. Remarking that “it has been a rollercoaster” in terms of his management of Twitter since last fall, Musk expressed a general idea of how he’d go about the change.
“I need to stabilise the organisation and make sure it’s in a healthy place and that the product roadmap is clearly laid out… I think it should be in a stable position around the end of this year,” he stated.
The South African-born billionaire first mentioned his desire to hand off the position on December 21st, saying that he would focus on software and server engineering the moment “someone foolish enough” took over the role.
Musk has remained under constant criticism for his handling of Twitter since his acquisition. Right-wing trolls, neo-Nazis and other controversial figures who have had their accounts suspended for their actions reinstated by the Tesla founder.
Others have complained about layoffs of personnel that have been important in terms of platform safety and malfunctions in usage. Last week, a rollout of a feature where users who signed up to Twitter Blue (for $8 a month) could post tweets with 4,000 characters caused major glitches.
Another issue for Musk is related to his Tesla company. Since buying Twitter, critics have expressed that he has been neglecting the affairs of that company as well as others. The result has seen Tesla shares drop significantly since last October.
Elon Musk said Wednesday that he anticipates finding a CEO for Twitter “probably toward the end of this year.”
Speaking via a video call to the World Government Summit in Dubai, Musk said making sure the platform can function remained the most important thing for him.
“I think I need to stabilize the organization and just make sure it’s in a financial healthy place,” Musk said when asked about when he’d name a CEO. “I’m guessing probably toward the end of this year would be good timing to find someone else to run the company.”
It remains unclear how seriously Musk will take that timeline. His comment came only hours after he posted images of his shiba inu dog, Floki, on Twitter as the company’s “CEO.”
“So much better than that other guy!” wrote Musk, who often posts memes. After making the posts, a cryptocurrency known as Dogecoin, based around the image of a shiba inu meme, rose in value by around 5%. Musk previously has suggested Twitter accept Dogecoin in transactions.
Musk, 51, made his wealth initially on the finance website PayPal, then created the spacecraft company SpaceX and invested in the electric car company Tesla. In recent months, however, more attention has been focused on the chaos surrounding his $44 billion purchase of the microblogging site Twitter.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military’s use of Musk’s satellite internet service Starlink as it defends itself against Russia’s ongoing invasion has put Musk off and on at the center of the war.
Musk offered a wide-ranging 35-minute discussion that touched on the billionaire’s fears about artificial intelligence, the collapse of civilization and the possibility of space aliens. But questions about Twitter kept coming back up as Musk described both Tesla and SpaceX as able to function without his direct, day-to-day involvement.
“Twitter is still somewhat a startup in reverse,” he said. “There’s work required here to get Twitter to sort of a stable position and to really build the engine of software engineering.”
Musk also sought to portray his takeover of San Francisco-based Twitter as a cultural correction. Since taking over the company, he’s restored Donald Trump’s access to the platform after the then-president lost access to the website after a pro-Trump mob attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Musk also reinstated the accounts of several people who spread misinformation about the coronavirus, including that of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.
“I think that the general idea is just to reflect the values of the people as opposed to imposing the values of essentially San Francisco and Berkeley, which are so somewhat of a niche ideology as compared to the rest of the world,” Musk said. “And, you know, Twitter was, I think, doing a little too much to impose a niche.”
Musk’s takeover at Twitter has seen mass firings and other cost-cutting measures. Musk, who is on the hook for about $1 billion in yearly interest payments for his purchase, has been trying to find way to maximize profits at the company.
However, some of Musk’s decisions have conflicted with the reasons that journalists, governments and others rely on Twitter as an information-sharing platform.
Musk on Wednesday described the need for users to rely on Twitter for trusted information from verified accounts. However, a confused rollout to a paid verified account system saw some impersonate famous companies, leading to a further withdrawal of needed advertising cash to the site.
“Twitter is certainly quite the rollercoaster,” Musk acknowledged.
Forbes estimates Musk’s wealth at just under $200 billion. The Forbes analysis ranks Musk as the second-wealthiest person on Earth, just behind French luxury brand magnate Bernard Arnault.
But Musk also has become a thought leader for some as well, albeit an oracle that is trying to get six hours of sleep a night despite the challenges at Twitter.
Musk described his children as being “programmed by Reddit and YouTube.” However, he criticized the Chinese-made social media app TikTok.
‘“TikTok has a lot of very high usage (but) I often hear people say, ‘Well, I spent two hours on TikTok, but I regret those two hours,’” Musk said. “We don’t want that to be the case with Twitter.”
TikTok, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Musk warned that artificial intelligence should be regulated “very carefully,” describing it as akin to the promise of nuclear power but the danger of atomic bombs. He also cautioned against having a single civilization or “too much cooperation” on Earth, saying it could “collapse” a society that’s like a “tiny candle in a vast darkness.”
And when asked about the existence of aliens, Musk had a firm response.
“The crazy thing is, I’ve seen no evidence of alien technology or alien life whatsoever. And I think I’d know because of SpaceX,” he said. “I don’t think anybody knows more about space, you know, than me.”
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Source: NurPhoto / Getty / Twitter
Many Twitter users were experiencing bizarre issues that made the social media platform unusable.
Elon Musk’s Twitter is an absolute mess, and users let bootleg Tony Stark know it. Wednesday afternoon, around 4:45 pm, per the New York Times reporting, Twitter’s core features, like direct messages and tweets, were not working for many users for several hours.
Around 6:30 pm, Twitter acknowledged the issues and said it was working to fix the issues in a tweet. “Twitter may not be working as expected for some of you. Sorry for the trouble. We’re aware and working to get this fixed,” the company’s support account said.
While some users could send tweets, others got a message incorrectly telling them they were “over the daily limit for sending Tweets.” Even retweets were not working when users attempted to send one, and they would get this “Sorry! You’ve have exceeded your Tweet limit. Try retweet again tomorrow” message.
The ability to follow accounts was also not working for many. Rex Chapman and many others shared the issue on their timelines.
Was This Done On Purpose?
The Hollywood Reporter reports the company is limiting users to 2,400 tweets a day, significantly impacting businesses and individual accounts.
Per THR:
The company, under Elon Musk, is now placing limits to the number of direct messages and tweets that a user can send per day, according to a page on Twitter’s Help Center site. The daily tweet limit is 2,400, but the site notes, “the daily update limit is further broken down into smaller limits for semi-hourly intervals.” Retweets also count toward that limit.
In response to the THR report, the company claims, “The “limits” mentioned in the article are not new, and were not just implemented today. They have been the policy since 2019 on Twitter.”
Regardless of what they say, there is no denying after Elon Musk reluctantly acquired the platform for $44 billion, it’s been a hot mess, and users are letting him know that.
You can see the reactions in the gallery below.
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Photo: NurPhoto / Getty
2. Accurate
5. Another interesting problem
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Source: NurPhoto / Getty / Twitter
Elon Musk continues to make Twitter unbearable and annoying to use.
Twitter will begin relaxing its ban on political ads, a policy it has upheld for a long time, the company announced Tuesday, Jan. 3.
“We believe that cause-based advertising can facilitate public conversation around important topics,” the company tweeted. “Moving forward, we will align our advertising policy with that of TV and other media outlets.”
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What that now means is that lobby groups and elected officials will once again be able to flood your feeds with political ads. Twitter banned the practice in 2019, before Musk, unfortunately, took over the country.
The 2019 policy insists candidates earn political influence and do not buy it, gaining support by going on the campaign trail and genuinely gaining interest in what they had to say instead of dumping money into the platform to push their messaging.
Upon taking over Twitter, Elon Musk said his mission was to loosen the rules on what could be shared on Twitter.
So far, he has successfully unbanned problematic accounts belonging to white supremacists and sexist trolls.
At the same time, Musk has also been successful in scaring away companies using advertising dollars on the platform in fears their ads will be alongside controversial tweets.
Because of that, the company’s revenue has significantly fallen.
Twitter hopes the return of what it calls “cause-based advertising” will bring in more revenue and attract advertising.
Republicans and Democrats did not care for the policy and felt the policy affects political campaigns while blocking advocacy organizations from getting out important messaging.
It has been nothing but bad news about the social media platform since Elon Musk has taken over.
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Source: NurPhoto / Getty / Elon Musk
It looks like Elon Musk will honor the results of his Twitter poll, well, sort of.
The Chief Twit, Elon Musk, announced on his Twitter account Tuesday, Dec.20, that he would “step down” as CEO as soon as he finds “someone foolish enough to take the job.”
Musk’s announcement comes two days after a poll he posted on his Twitter account asking his 122 million followers if he should step down as the chief operating officer of the social media company he spent $44 billion on.
As expected, a majority of the people who cast a vote in the poll voted yes and wanted him out of the position.
Bootleg Tony Stark, oops, Elon Musk decided to ask the question after Twitter announced a dumb content moderation policy forbidding users from sharing links to other social media platforms and using services like Linktree.
The new policy was met with intense backlash, and Musk and Twitter scrapped the whole idea. It was so bad that even some of Musk’s biggest supporters thought he went too far this time.
After sharing the poll that 17.5 million people partook in, with a whopping 57 percent agreeing he needs to step down, the very socially active Musk was eerily silent after finding out people don’t f*ck with him like that.
When he broke his silence, as expected, he only spoke to people who didn’t believe the poll results and entertained the idea that only “verified users” should be able to vote.
Tuesday, he finally seemed to abide by the poll results, saying he’s planning on stepping down as CEO but “will just run the software & servers teams.”
Elon Musk Has No Idea What He Is Doing
Musk “running the software and servers teams” has also come into question after his knowledge of running the platform after a Twitter user had some basic engineering questions for Musk, and the struggle was apparent.
We want Elon Musk to remove himself from Twitter altogether. Just saying.
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