part of me thinks (or wants to think) that Elon isn't actually a bad guy, but he just is a guy with a shitload of money/resources and a god complex. He seems to geniunely want to "save the world", and who thinks that and doesn't have a bit of a screw loose?
He's got some clear social issues; chalk that up to his Asperger's...or don't, I don't know enough about it. But he himself has admitted that's part of his awkwardness.
Lots of people get idealistic and tend to worship people who seem like they are in the realm of possibility of "saving us all". I think that could be the atheist version of Jesus, to be honest. Many of us have it in us (I don't, I'm too jaded lol). I wouldn't necessarily call them fools or whatever. They just want better for the world and they seem to think he (or Bill Gates, or whomever) have "it".
And who among us don't have that little kid inside of us going "I played with toy rockets as a kid; he's fucking doing it for REAL"?
How many haters wanted to buy 3 Teslas just 2 years ago?
My neighbor has one and seems to like it.
Another tRumpster friend in the hood just bought one a few months ago and is having a lot of trouble with it. Serves her right.
You’re wishing car trouble on your friend because she voted for trump? She’s your friend, so I assume a good person?
This whole thing seems odd to me. I know nothing about Musk other than he’s the Tesla guy and just bought Twitter. I saw people upset when he wanted to buy Twitter, then they got upset when he backed out. Now he’s taking crap for it again and people are wishing bad luck on his company and cars? Even if he’s a douche, and maybe he isn’t or isn’t, I don’t follow anything about him, I’d still root for a reliable electric car company.
Because she voted for tRump (she proudly has a tRump flag on a pole in her yard...no US flag) and because she calls me (and people like me) stupid on her FB posts basically every day. So yeah, fuck her.
The Trump flag part always gets me.
You'll hang a Trump flag but not an American flag?
I’ll never fly the stars&stripes again the flag has been desecrated and taken over by MAGA cultist, I’ll fly a rainbow flag instead or a peace one.
I've asked a few on here if we could start a grass roots campaign to "take the flag back". I want it to represent the country again, not one group only.
I still want to start it. Maybe I will. #TakeItBack will be my call symbol.
same thing is happening here. every time I see some asshole on the road with a "defund the CBC" or "fuck trudeau" inevitibely they have a Canadian flag too. apparently being "classy" is on the ven diagram with patriotism.
Yep that’s what happened here in the states the kidnapped the Flag! I refuse to wave it or fly it from my house! I don’t ever want to be associated with the MAGA cult!
I recently bought a shirt of a canadian band I like, and they use their logo (below, with no writing) as the centre of the candian flag instead of the maple leaf (they've used this design since the 90's), and whenever I wear it I notice a lot of people stare pretty long at it. I'm not sure if they're trying to figure out what it is, or if they think I'm some "freedumb" nutjob.
How many haters wanted to buy 3 Teslas just 2 years ago?
My neighbor has one and seems to like it.
Another tRumpster friend in the hood just bought one a few months ago and is having a lot of trouble with it. Serves her right.
You’re wishing car trouble on your friend because she voted for trump? She’s your friend, so I assume a good person?
This whole thing seems odd to me. I know nothing about Musk other than he’s the Tesla guy and just bought Twitter. I saw people upset when he wanted to buy Twitter, then they got upset when he backed out. Now he’s taking crap for it again and people are wishing bad luck on his company and cars? Even if he’s a douche, and maybe he isn’t or isn’t, I don’t follow anything about him, I’d still root for a reliable electric car company.
Because she voted for tRump (she proudly has a tRump flag on a pole in her yard...no US flag) and because she calls me (and people like me) stupid on her FB posts basically every day. So yeah, fuck her.
The Trump flag part always gets me.
You'll hang a Trump flag but not an American flag?
I’ll never fly the stars&stripes again the flag has been desecrated and taken over by MAGA cultist, I’ll fly a rainbow flag instead or a peace one.
I've asked a few on here if we could start a grass roots campaign to "take the flag back". I want it to represent the country again, not one group only.
I still want to start it. Maybe I will. #TakeItBack will be my call symbol.
same thing is happening here. every time I see some asshole on the road with a "defund the CBC" or "fuck trudeau" inevitibely they have a Canadian flag too. apparently being "classy" is on the ven diagram with patriotism.
Yep that’s what happened here in the states the kidnapped the Flag! I refuse to wave it or fly it from my house! I don’t ever want to be associated with the MAGA cult!
I recently bought a shirt of a canadian band I like, and they use their logo (below, with no writing) as the centre of the candian flag instead of the maple leaf (they've used this design since the 90's), and whenever I wear it I notice a lot of people stare pretty long at it. I'm not sure if they're trying to figure out what it is, or if they think I'm some "freedumb" nutjob.
Cool shirt!
I love their tune Summertime in the Void , think I am gonna crank it up next time wifey is out.
Makes me wish I was from Canada, so many great Canadian bands…
How many haters wanted to buy 3 Teslas just 2 years ago?
My neighbor has one and seems to like it.
Another tRumpster friend in the hood just bought one a few months ago and is having a lot of trouble with it. Serves her right.
You’re wishing car trouble on your friend because she voted for trump? She’s your friend, so I assume a good person?
This whole thing seems odd to me. I know nothing about Musk other than he’s the Tesla guy and just bought Twitter. I saw people upset when he wanted to buy Twitter, then they got upset when he backed out. Now he’s taking crap for it again and people are wishing bad luck on his company and cars? Even if he’s a douche, and maybe he isn’t or isn’t, I don’t follow anything about him, I’d still root for a reliable electric car company.
Because she voted for tRump (she proudly has a tRump flag on a pole in her yard...no US flag) and because she calls me (and people like me) stupid on her FB posts basically every day. So yeah, fuck her.
The Trump flag part always gets me.
You'll hang a Trump flag but not an American flag?
I’ll never fly the stars&stripes again the flag has been desecrated and taken over by MAGA cultist, I’ll fly a rainbow flag instead or a peace one.
I've asked a few on here if we could start a grass roots campaign to "take the flag back". I want it to represent the country again, not one group only.
I still want to start it. Maybe I will. #TakeItBack will be my call symbol.
same thing is happening here. every time I see some asshole on the road with a "defund the CBC" or "fuck trudeau" inevitibely they have a Canadian flag too. apparently being "classy" is on the ven diagram with patriotism.
Yep that’s what happened here in the states the kidnapped the Flag! I refuse to wave it or fly it from my house! I don’t ever want to be associated with the MAGA cult!
I recently bought a shirt of a canadian band I like, and they use their logo (below, with no writing) as the centre of the candian flag instead of the maple leaf (they've used this design since the 90's), and whenever I wear it I notice a lot of people stare pretty long at it. I'm not sure if they're trying to figure out what it is, or if they think I'm some "freedumb" nutjob.
Cool shirt!
I love their tune Summertime in the Void , think I am gonna crank it up next time wifey is out.
Makes me wish I was from Canada, so many great Canadian bands…
and that's with Brian Byrne on vocals. Edwin was with them, then quit, then Brian was hired, then Edwin is back.
They are releasing a new album next year and going on tour. Jag (guitarist) said they had some 60 tour dates lined up, so there must be some in the states with that many. You can't play Brandon Manitoba 4 times.
How many haters wanted to buy 3 Teslas just 2 years ago?
My neighbor has one and seems to like it.
Another tRumpster friend in the hood just bought one a few months ago and is having a lot of trouble with it. Serves her right.
You’re wishing car trouble on your friend because she voted for trump? She’s your friend, so I assume a good person?
This whole thing seems odd to me. I know nothing about Musk other than he’s the Tesla guy and just bought Twitter. I saw people upset when he wanted to buy Twitter, then they got upset when he backed out. Now he’s taking crap for it again and people are wishing bad luck on his company and cars? Even if he’s a douche, and maybe he isn’t or isn’t, I don’t follow anything about him, I’d still root for a reliable electric car company.
Because she voted for tRump (she proudly has a tRump flag on a pole in her yard...no US flag) and because she calls me (and people like me) stupid on her FB posts basically every day. So yeah, fuck her.
The Trump flag part always gets me.
You'll hang a Trump flag but not an American flag?
I’ll never fly the stars&stripes again the flag has been desecrated and taken over by MAGA cultist, I’ll fly a rainbow flag instead or a peace one.
I've asked a few on here if we could start a grass roots campaign to "take the flag back". I want it to represent the country again, not one group only.
I still want to start it. Maybe I will. #TakeItBack will be my call symbol.
same thing is happening here. every time I see some asshole on the road with a "defund the CBC" or "fuck trudeau" inevitibely they have a Canadian flag too. apparently being "classy" is on the ven diagram with patriotism.
Yep that’s what happened here in the states the kidnapped the Flag! I refuse to wave it or fly it from my house! I don’t ever want to be associated with the MAGA cult!
No they didn't. The flag is still ours. Fly it with pride, Jose. Those frauds either fly bastardized versions of the flag or some maga nonsense on it. I feel like it's rare to see an actual, unaltered, American flag on those people's yards. Maga flags are essentially today's version of the Confederate flag.
How many haters wanted to buy 3 Teslas just 2 years ago?
My neighbor has one and seems to like it.
Another tRumpster friend in the hood just bought one a few months ago and is having a lot of trouble with it. Serves her right.
You’re wishing car trouble on your friend because she voted for trump? She’s your friend, so I assume a good person?
This whole thing seems odd to me. I know nothing about Musk other than he’s the Tesla guy and just bought Twitter. I saw people upset when he wanted to buy Twitter, then they got upset when he backed out. Now he’s taking crap for it again and people are wishing bad luck on his company and cars? Even if he’s a douche, and maybe he isn’t or isn’t, I don’t follow anything about him, I’d still root for a reliable electric car company.
Because she voted for tRump (she proudly has a tRump flag on a pole in her yard...no US flag) and because she calls me (and people like me) stupid on her FB posts basically every day. So yeah, fuck her.
The Trump flag part always gets me.
You'll hang a Trump flag but not an American flag?
I’ll never fly the stars&stripes again the flag has been desecrated and taken over by MAGA cultist, I’ll fly a rainbow flag instead or a peace one.
I've asked a few on here if we could start a grass roots campaign to "take the flag back". I want it to represent the country again, not one group only.
I still want to start it. Maybe I will. #TakeItBack will be my call symbol.
same thing is happening here. every time I see some asshole on the road with a "defund the CBC" or "fuck trudeau" inevitibely they have a Canadian flag too. apparently being "classy" is on the ven diagram with patriotism.
Yep that’s what happened here in the states the kidnapped the Flag! I refuse to wave it or fly it from my house! I don’t ever want to be associated with the MAGA cult!
I recently bought a shirt of a canadian band I like, and they use their logo (below, with no writing) as the centre of the candian flag instead of the maple leaf (they've used this design since the 90's), and whenever I wear it I notice a lot of people stare pretty long at it. I'm not sure if they're trying to figure out what it is, or if they think I'm some "freedumb" nutjob.
Cool shirt!
I love their tune Summertime in the Void , think I am gonna crank it up next time wifey is out.
Makes me wish I was from Canada, so many great Canadian bands…
and that's with Brian Byrne on vocals. Edwin was with them, then quit, then Brian was hired, then Edwin is back.
They are releasing a new album next year and going on tour. Jag (guitarist) said they had some 60 tour dates lined up, so there must be some in the states with that many. You can't play Brandon Manitoba 4 times.
Very cool they are back on the road, thanks for the info!
How many haters wanted to buy 3 Teslas just 2 years ago?
My neighbor has one and seems to like it.
Another tRumpster friend in the hood just bought one a few months ago and is having a lot of trouble with it. Serves her right.
You’re wishing car trouble on your friend because she voted for trump? She’s your friend, so I assume a good person?
This whole thing seems odd to me. I know nothing about Musk other than he’s the Tesla guy and just bought Twitter. I saw people upset when he wanted to buy Twitter, then they got upset when he backed out. Now he’s taking crap for it again and people are wishing bad luck on his company and cars? Even if he’s a douche, and maybe he isn’t or isn’t, I don’t follow anything about him, I’d still root for a reliable electric car company.
Because she voted for tRump (she proudly has a tRump flag on a pole in her yard...no US flag) and because she calls me (and people like me) stupid on her FB posts basically every day. So yeah, fuck her.
The Trump flag part always gets me.
You'll hang a Trump flag but not an American flag?
I’ll never fly the stars&stripes again the flag has been desecrated and taken over by MAGA cultist, I’ll fly a rainbow flag instead or a peace one.
I've asked a few on here if we could start a grass roots campaign to "take the flag back". I want it to represent the country again, not one group only.
I still want to start it. Maybe I will. #TakeItBack will be my call symbol.
what country? we are pretty much balkanized at the moment. the divided tribes of america.
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
How many haters wanted to buy 3 Teslas just 2 years ago?
My neighbor has one and seems to like it.
Another tRumpster friend in the hood just bought one a few months ago and is having a lot of trouble with it. Serves her right.
You’re wishing car trouble on your friend because she voted for trump? She’s your friend, so I assume a good person?
This whole thing seems odd to me. I know nothing about Musk other than he’s the Tesla guy and just bought Twitter. I saw people upset when he wanted to buy Twitter, then they got upset when he backed out. Now he’s taking crap for it again and people are wishing bad luck on his company and cars? Even if he’s a douche, and maybe he isn’t or isn’t, I don’t follow anything about him, I’d still root for a reliable electric car company.
Because she voted for tRump (she proudly has a tRump flag on a pole in her yard...no US flag) and because she calls me (and people like me) stupid on her FB posts basically every day. So yeah, fuck her.
The Trump flag part always gets me.
You'll hang a Trump flag but not an American flag?
I’ll never fly the stars&stripes again the flag has been desecrated and taken over by MAGA cultist, I’ll fly a rainbow flag instead or a peace one.
I've asked a few on here if we could start a grass roots campaign to "take the flag back". I want it to represent the country again, not one group only.
I still want to start it. Maybe I will. #TakeItBack will be my call symbol.
what country? we are pretty much balkanized at the moment. the divided tribes of america.
Which country? Seriously?
The good ol US of A. We just had a whole conversation about how Rep control the flag and it's meaning. i want everyone to fly a flag so they don't get to claim it or you get pigeonholed into a group.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
part of me thinks (or wants to think) that Elon isn't actually a bad guy, but he just is a guy with a shitload of money/resources and a god complex. He seems to geniunely want to "save the world", and who thinks that and doesn't have a bit of a screw loose?
He's got some clear social issues; chalk that up to his Asperger's...or don't, I don't know enough about it. But he himself has admitted that's part of his awkwardness.
Lots of people get idealistic and tend to worship people who seem like they are in the realm of possibility of "saving us all". I think that could be the atheist version of Jesus, to be honest. Many of us have it in us (I don't, I'm too jaded lol). I wouldn't necessarily call them fools or whatever. They just want better for the world and they seem to think he (or Bill Gates, or whomever) have "it".
And who among us don't have that little kid inside of us going "I played with toy rockets as a kid; he's fucking doing it for REAL"?
I think Elon is valuable in his role in SpaceX, Tesla, and the Boring Company. While I HATE his attitude about workers' rights (which seems more about principle than money), he is a visionary who has and will advance tech and science exploration, space exploration, and transportation innovation. He should STAY IN HIS LANE, lol. This whole Twitter thing is ridiculous, and I think he knows it as well as any of us. That's why he tried so hard to back out. He fucked up, got himself stuck in a bad deal, and now has to own it, so he's letting his ego drive that train now, and is trying not to lose as much money as it looks like he's going to lose. And it sucks for everyone else. This buying blue checks thing is LUDICROUS. I really wish he'd just kept his erratic mouth shut the day he decided to say he was going to buy Twitter, lol. I don't even really use Twitter, so am not invested like some others... but he doesn't belong in the social media game. His own social media game has proved that for years.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy. ~ Desiderata
part of me thinks (or wants to think) that Elon isn't actually a bad guy, but he just is a guy with a shitload of money/resources and a god complex. He seems to geniunely want to "save the world", and who thinks that and doesn't have a bit of a screw loose?
He's got some clear social issues; chalk that up to his Asperger's...or don't, I don't know enough about it. But he himself has admitted that's part of his awkwardness.
Lots of people get idealistic and tend to worship people who seem like they are in the realm of possibility of "saving us all". I think that could be the atheist version of Jesus, to be honest. Many of us have it in us (I don't, I'm too jaded lol). I wouldn't necessarily call them fools or whatever. They just want better for the world and they seem to think he (or Bill Gates, or whomever) have "it".
And who among us don't have that little kid inside of us going "I played with toy rockets as a kid; he's fucking doing it for REAL"?
I think Elon is valuable in his role in SpaceX, Tesla, and the Boring Company. While I HATE his attitude about workers' rights (which seems more about principle than money), he is a visionary who has and will advance tech and science exploration, space exploration, and transportation innovation. He should STAY IN HIS LANE, lol. This whole Twitter thing is ridiculous, and I think he knows it as well as any of us. That's why he tried so hard to back out. He fucked up, got himself stuck in a bad deal, and now has to own it, so he's letting his ego drive that train now, and is trying not to lose as much money as it looks like he's going to lose. And it sucks for everyone else. This buying blue checks thing is LUDICROUS. I really wish he'd just kept his erratic mouth shut the day he decided to say he was going to buy Twitter, lol. I don't even really use Twitter, so am not invested like some others... but he doesn't belong in the social media game. His own social media game has proved that for years.
True but his lane requires climate concerned citizens to buy his cars and huge govt contracts to support his space exploration and tunneling companies. He sh!t posts against progressive concerns yet needs liberals in most of his endeavors to be successful. Can’t think of a bigger hypocrite.
I understand wanting to support an electric car company, but I've never understood the appeal in him as a person. The limited knowledge I have of him always left me with the impression he was just another self absorbed uber rich d bag and the twitter takeover isn't doing much to dispel that notion.
These two are incredible. Who’d ever figure you’d need actual competent employees to comply with laws, that are set up to protect the integrity of the information.
looks like musk has a typical Republican mind, regulation shmegulation. As a young man, perhaps he had good vision. But once he became successful, apparently he has forgotten his roots and become a typical GOP rich man douche. Fire half your employees literally on day one before gaining a basic understanding of the business. Arse hole, and people suffer as a result.
Musk ends remote work at Twitter, warns of troubles ahead
By MATT O'BRIEN
1 hour ago
Elon Musk has emailed Twitter employees, most working remotely, ordering them to return to the office immediately for at least 40 hours a week and warning of “difficult times ahead.”
A pair of Wednesday night missives seen by The Associated Press marked Musk's first companywide message to employees who survived last week's mass layoffs. He followed that Thursday with his first “all-hands" meeting answering workers' concerns. Before that, many were relying on the billionaire Tesla CEO's public tweets for clues about Twitter's future.
“Sorry that this is my first email to the whole company, but there is no way to sugarcoat the message," wrote Musk, before he described a dire economic climate for businesses like Twitter that rely almost entirely on advertising to make money.
“Without significant subscription revenue, there is a good chance Twitter will not survive the upcoming economic downturn,” Musk said. “We need roughly half of our revenue to be subscription.”
Musk addressed employees again during a staff meeting Thursday afternoon, telling them that some “exceptional” employees could seek an exemption from his return-to-work order but that others who didn’t like it could quit, according to an employee at the meeting who spoke on condition of anonymity out of a concern for job security.
The employee also said Musk appeared to downplay employee concerns about how a pared-back Twitter workforce was handling its obligations to maintain privacy and data security standards, saying as CEO of Tesla he knew how that worked.
Musk’s memo and staff meeting echoed a livestreamed conversation trying to assuage major advertisers Wednesday, his most expansive public comments about Twitter’s direction since he closed a $44 billion deal to buy the social media platform late last month and dismissed its top executives. A number of well-known brands have paused advertising on Twitter as they wait to see how Musk's proposals to relax content rules against hate and misinformation affect the tenor of the platform.
Musk told employees the “priority over the past 10 days" was to develop and launch Twitter's new subscription service for $7.99 a month that includes a blue check mark next to the name of paid members — the mark was previously only for verified accounts. Musk's project has had a rocky rollout with an onslaught of newly bought fake accounts this week impersonating high-profile figures such as basketball star LeBron James, former U.S. President George W. Bush and the drug company Eli Lilly to post false information or offensive jokes.
In a second email to employees, Musk said the “absolute top priority" over the coming days is to suspend “bots/trolls/spam” exploiting the verified accounts. But Twitter now employs far fewer people to help him do that.
An executive last week said Twitter was cutting roughly 50% of its workforce, which numbered 7,500 earlier this year.
Musk had previously expressed distaste for Twitter's pandemic-era remote work policies that enabled team leaders to decide if employees had to show up in the office. On Wednesday, he ordered all employees to return to the office Thursday.
Musk told employees in the email that “remote work is no longer allowed" and the road ahead is “arduous and will require intense work to succeed." He said he would personally review any request for an exception.
Twitter hasn’t disclosed the total number of layoffs across its global workforce but told local and state officials in the U.S. that it was cutting 784 workers at its San Francisco headquarters, about 200 elsewhere in California, more than 400 in New York City, more than 200 in Seattle and about 80 in Atlanta.
The exodus at Twitter is ongoing, including the company's chief information security officer Lea Kissner, who tweeted Thursday that “I’ve made the hard decision to leave Twitter.”
Cybersecurity expert Alex Stamos, a former Facebook security chief, tweeted Thursday that there is a “serious risk of a breach with drastically reduced staff” that could also put Twitter at odds with a 2011 order from the Federal Trade Commission that required it to address serious data security lapses.
“Twitter made huge strides towards a more rational internal security model and backsliding will put them in trouble with the FTC” and other regulators in the U.S. and Europe, Stamos said.
The FTC said in a statement Thursday that it is “tracking recent developments at Twitter with deep concern."
“No CEO or company is above the law, and companies must follow our consent decrees," said the agency's statement. “Our revised consent order gives us new tools to ensure compliance, and we are prepared to use them.”
The FTC would not say whether it was investigating Twitter for potential violations. If it were, it is empowered to demand documents and depose employees.
Twitter paid a $150 million penalty in May for violating the 2011 consent order and its updated version established new procedures requiring the company to implement an enhanced privacy protection program as well as beefing up info security.
Those new procedures include an exhaustive list of disclosures Twitter must make to the FTC when introducing new products and services — particularly when they affect personal data collected on users.
Musk is, of course, fundamentally overhauling platform offerings, and it's not known if he is telling the FTC about it. Twitter, which gutted its communications department, didn't respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Musk has a history of tangling with regulators. “I do not respect the SEC,” Musk declared in a 2018 tweet.
The Securities and Exchange Commission recently examined for possible tardiness his disclosures to the agency of his purchases of Twitter stock to amass a major stake. In 2018, Musk and Tesla each agreed to pay $20 million in fines over Musk’s allegedly misleading tweets saying he’d secured the funding to take the electric car maker private for $420 a share. Musk has fought the SEC in court over compliance with the agreement.
“If Twitter so much as sneezes, it has to do a privacy review beforehand,” tweeted Riana Pfefferkorn, a Stanford University researcher who said she previously provided Twitter outside legal counsel. “There are periodic outside audits, and the FTC can monitor compliance.”
Twitter was fined in May for the alleged commercial exploit of customers data — phone numbers and email addresses — that it had claimed it needed for security purposes, such as enabling multi-factor authentication.
—-
AP reporters Frank Bajak and Marcy Gordon contributed to this report.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Report: Tweets with racial slurs soar since Musk takeover
By DAVID KLEPPER
Yesterday
Instances of racial slurs have soared on Twitter since Elon Musk purchased the influential platform, despite assurances from the platform that it had reduced hateful activity, a digital civil rights group reported Thursday.
A racial epithet used to attack Black people was found more than 26,000 times, three times the average for 2022. Use of a slur that targets trans people increased 53%, while instances of an offensive term for homosexual men went up 39% over the yearly average.
Examples of offensive terms used to target Jews and Hispanics also increased.
All told, the researchers looked at nearly 80,000 English-language tweets and retweets from around the world that contained one of the offensive terms they searched for.
“The figures show that despite claims from Twitter’s Head of Trust and Safety, Yoel Roth, that the platform had succeeded in reducing the number of times hate speech was being seen on Twitter’s search and trending page, the actual volume of hateful tweets has spiked,” according to the analysis from the center, a nonprofit with offices in the U.S. and United Kingdom.
Roth resigned Thursday, joining the large number of Twitter employees who have either resigned from Twitter or been laid off since Musk took control.
A day before, Roth acknowledged the recent increase in hate speech on the site but said the platform had made significant progress in bringing the numbers down.
“We’ve put a stop to the spike in hateful conduct, but that the level of hateful activity on the service is now about 95% lower than it was before the acquisition,” Roth said in remarks broadcast live on Twitter. “Changes that we’ve made and the proactive enforcement that we carried out are making Twitter safer relative to where it was before.”
An executive confirmed Roth’s resignation to coworkers on an internal messaging board seen by The Associated Press on Thursday.
On Oct. 31, Twitter announced that 1,500 accounts had been removed for posting hate speech. The company also said it had greatly reduced the visibility of posts containing slurs, making them harder to find on the platform.
“We have actually seen hateful speech at times this week decline (asterisk)below(asterisk) our prior norms, contrary to what you may read in the press,” Musk tweeted last week.
Musk has described himself as a free speech absolutist, and he is widely expected to revamp Twitter's content moderation policies. While he said no changes have been made so far, Musk has made significant layoffs at the company, raising questions about its ability to police misinformation and hate speech before Tuesday's midterm election.
It may take some time to accurately assess the platform's performance in the election and to determine whether Twitter has adopted a different strategy for content that violates its policies, said Renee DiResta, research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory.
“The civic integrity policy was unchanged,” DiResta said of Twitter under its new ownership. "Now, there is a difference between having a policy and enforcing a policy.”
Shortly after Musk purchased Twitter, some users posted hate speech, seemingly to test the boundaries of the platform under its new owner.
Within just 12 hours of Musk’s purchase being finalized, references to a specific racist epithet used to demean Black people shot up by 500%, according to an analysis conducted by the Network Contagion Research Institute, a Princeton, New Jersey-based firm that tracks disinformation.
Twitter did not immediately respond Thursday to messages seeking comment on the findings of the new report.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
I’ve never been on Twitter. Are all these fake accounts a result of anything new Musk did, or are people just messing with him to make him look bad, but it’s nothing new?
Comments
He's got some clear social issues; chalk that up to his Asperger's...or don't, I don't know enough about it. But he himself has admitted that's part of his awkwardness.
Lots of people get idealistic and tend to worship people who seem like they are in the realm of possibility of "saving us all". I think that could be the atheist version of Jesus, to be honest. Many of us have it in us (I don't, I'm too jaded lol). I wouldn't necessarily call them fools or whatever. They just want better for the world and they seem to think he (or Bill Gates, or whomever) have "it".
And who among us don't have that little kid inside of us going "I played with toy rockets as a kid; he's fucking doing it for REAL"?
www.headstonesband.com
Makes me wish I was from Canada, so many great Canadian bands…
They are releasing a new album next year and going on tour. Jag (guitarist) said they had some 60 tour dates lined up, so there must be some in the states with that many. You can't play Brandon Manitoba 4 times.
www.headstonesband.com
Very cool they are back on the road, thanks for the info!
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
The good ol US of A. We just had a whole conversation about how Rep control the flag and it's meaning. i want everyone to fly a flag so they don't get to claim it or you get pigeonholed into a group.
www.headstonesband.com
gotta pay those fines somehow.....
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
I think Elon is valuable in his role in SpaceX, Tesla, and the Boring Company. While I HATE his attitude about workers' rights (which seems more about principle than money), he is a visionary who has and will advance tech and science exploration, space exploration, and transportation innovation. He should STAY IN HIS LANE, lol. This whole Twitter thing is ridiculous, and I think he knows it as well as any of us. That's why he tried so hard to back out. He fucked up, got himself stuck in a bad deal, and now has to own it, so he's letting his ego drive that train now, and is trying not to lose as much money as it looks like he's going to lose. And it sucks for everyone else. This buying blue checks thing is LUDICROUS. I really wish he'd just kept his erratic mouth shut the day he decided to say he was going to buy Twitter, lol. I don't even really use Twitter, so am not invested like some others... but he doesn't belong in the social media game. His own social media game has proved that for years.
Hilarious....what was Musk thinking?
The Golden Age is 2 months away. And guess what….. you’re gonna love it! (teskeinc 11.19.24)
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
twitter should just be renamed shitter
www.headstonesband.com
The Golden Age is 2 months away. And guess what….. you’re gonna love it! (teskeinc 11.19.24)
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
I understand wanting to support an electric car company, but I've never understood the appeal in him as a person. The limited knowledge I have of him always left me with the impression he was just another self absorbed uber rich d bag and the twitter takeover isn't doing much to dispel that notion.
The Golden Age is 2 months away. And guess what….. you’re gonna love it! (teskeinc 11.19.24)
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
looks like musk has a typical Republican mind, regulation shmegulation. As a young man, perhaps he had good vision. But once he became successful, apparently he has forgotten his roots and become a typical GOP rich man douche. Fire half your employees literally on day one before gaining a basic understanding of the business. Arse hole, and people suffer as a result.
The Golden Age is 2 months away. And guess what….. you’re gonna love it! (teskeinc 11.19.24)
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
Elon Musk has emailed Twitter employees, most working remotely, ordering them to return to the office immediately for at least 40 hours a week and warning of “difficult times ahead.”
A pair of Wednesday night missives seen by The Associated Press marked Musk's first companywide message to employees who survived last week's mass layoffs. He followed that Thursday with his first “all-hands" meeting answering workers' concerns. Before that, many were relying on the billionaire Tesla CEO's public tweets for clues about Twitter's future.
“Sorry that this is my first email to the whole company, but there is no way to sugarcoat the message," wrote Musk, before he described a dire economic climate for businesses like Twitter that rely almost entirely on advertising to make money.
“Without significant subscription revenue, there is a good chance Twitter will not survive the upcoming economic downturn,” Musk said. “We need roughly half of our revenue to be subscription.”
Musk addressed employees again during a staff meeting Thursday afternoon, telling them that some “exceptional” employees could seek an exemption from his return-to-work order but that others who didn’t like it could quit, according to an employee at the meeting who spoke on condition of anonymity out of a concern for job security.
ELON MUSK
Report: Tweets with racial slurs soar since Musk takeover
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Elon Musk sells $3.95 billion worth of Tesla stock
The employee also said Musk appeared to downplay employee concerns about how a pared-back Twitter workforce was handling its obligations to maintain privacy and data security standards, saying as CEO of Tesla he knew how that worked.
Musk’s memo and staff meeting echoed a livestreamed conversation trying to assuage major advertisers Wednesday, his most expansive public comments about Twitter’s direction since he closed a $44 billion deal to buy the social media platform late last month and dismissed its top executives. A number of well-known brands have paused advertising on Twitter as they wait to see how Musk's proposals to relax content rules against hate and misinformation affect the tenor of the platform.
Musk told employees the “priority over the past 10 days" was to develop and launch Twitter's new subscription service for $7.99 a month that includes a blue check mark next to the name of paid members — the mark was previously only for verified accounts. Musk's project has had a rocky rollout with an onslaught of newly bought fake accounts this week impersonating high-profile figures such as basketball star LeBron James, former U.S. President George W. Bush and the drug company Eli Lilly to post false information or offensive jokes.
In a second email to employees, Musk said the “absolute top priority" over the coming days is to suspend “bots/trolls/spam” exploiting the verified accounts. But Twitter now employs far fewer people to help him do that.
An executive last week said Twitter was cutting roughly 50% of its workforce, which numbered 7,500 earlier this year.
Musk had previously expressed distaste for Twitter's pandemic-era remote work policies that enabled team leaders to decide if employees had to show up in the office. On Wednesday, he ordered all employees to return to the office Thursday.
Musk told employees in the email that “remote work is no longer allowed" and the road ahead is “arduous and will require intense work to succeed." He said he would personally review any request for an exception.
Twitter hasn’t disclosed the total number of layoffs across its global workforce but told local and state officials in the U.S. that it was cutting 784 workers at its San Francisco headquarters, about 200 elsewhere in California, more than 400 in New York City, more than 200 in Seattle and about 80 in Atlanta.
The exodus at Twitter is ongoing, including the company's chief information security officer Lea Kissner, who tweeted Thursday that “I’ve made the hard decision to leave Twitter.”
Cybersecurity expert Alex Stamos, a former Facebook security chief, tweeted Thursday that there is a “serious risk of a breach with drastically reduced staff” that could also put Twitter at odds with a 2011 order from the Federal Trade Commission that required it to address serious data security lapses.
“Twitter made huge strides towards a more rational internal security model and backsliding will put them in trouble with the FTC” and other regulators in the U.S. and Europe, Stamos said.
The FTC said in a statement Thursday that it is “tracking recent developments at Twitter with deep concern."
“No CEO or company is above the law, and companies must follow our consent decrees," said the agency's statement. “Our revised consent order gives us new tools to ensure compliance, and we are prepared to use them.”
The FTC would not say whether it was investigating Twitter for potential violations. If it were, it is empowered to demand documents and depose employees.
Twitter paid a $150 million penalty in May for violating the 2011 consent order and its updated version established new procedures requiring the company to implement an enhanced privacy protection program as well as beefing up info security.
Those new procedures include an exhaustive list of disclosures Twitter must make to the FTC when introducing new products and services — particularly when they affect personal data collected on users.
Musk is, of course, fundamentally overhauling platform offerings, and it's not known if he is telling the FTC about it. Twitter, which gutted its communications department, didn't respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Musk has a history of tangling with regulators. “I do not respect the SEC,” Musk declared in a 2018 tweet.
The Securities and Exchange Commission recently examined for possible tardiness his disclosures to the agency of his purchases of Twitter stock to amass a major stake. In 2018, Musk and Tesla each agreed to pay $20 million in fines over Musk’s allegedly misleading tweets saying he’d secured the funding to take the electric car maker private for $420 a share. Musk has fought the SEC in court over compliance with the agreement.
The consequences for not meeting FTC's requirements can be severe — such as when Facebook had to pay $5 billion for privacy violations.
“If Twitter so much as sneezes, it has to do a privacy review beforehand,” tweeted Riana Pfefferkorn, a Stanford University researcher who said she previously provided Twitter outside legal counsel. “There are periodic outside audits, and the FTC can monitor compliance.”
Twitter was fined in May for the alleged commercial exploit of customers data — phone numbers and email addresses — that it had claimed it needed for security purposes, such as enabling multi-factor authentication.
—-
AP reporters Frank Bajak and Marcy Gordon contributed to this report.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Instances of racial slurs have soared on Twitter since Elon Musk purchased the influential platform, despite assurances from the platform that it had reduced hateful activity, a digital civil rights group reported Thursday.
Researchers at the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that the number of tweets containing one of several different racial slurs soared in the week after Musk bought Twitter.
A racial epithet used to attack Black people was found more than 26,000 times, three times the average for 2022. Use of a slur that targets trans people increased 53%, while instances of an offensive term for homosexual men went up 39% over the yearly average.
Examples of offensive terms used to target Jews and Hispanics also increased.
All told, the researchers looked at nearly 80,000 English-language tweets and retweets from around the world that contained one of the offensive terms they searched for.
“The figures show that despite claims from Twitter’s Head of Trust and Safety, Yoel Roth, that the platform had succeeded in reducing the number of times hate speech was being seen on Twitter’s search and trending page, the actual volume of hateful tweets has spiked,” according to the analysis from the center, a nonprofit with offices in the U.S. and United Kingdom.
ELON MUSK
Twitter's gray 'official' labels return for some accounts
Musk warns Twitter's survival is at stake as staff quits
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Roth resigned Thursday, joining the large number of Twitter employees who have either resigned from Twitter or been laid off since Musk took control.
A day before, Roth acknowledged the recent increase in hate speech on the site but said the platform had made significant progress in bringing the numbers down.
“We’ve put a stop to the spike in hateful conduct, but that the level of hateful activity on the service is now about 95% lower than it was before the acquisition,” Roth said in remarks broadcast live on Twitter. “Changes that we’ve made and the proactive enforcement that we carried out are making Twitter safer relative to where it was before.”
An executive confirmed Roth’s resignation to coworkers on an internal messaging board seen by The Associated Press on Thursday.
On Oct. 31, Twitter announced that 1,500 accounts had been removed for posting hate speech. The company also said it had greatly reduced the visibility of posts containing slurs, making them harder to find on the platform.
“We have actually seen hateful speech at times this week decline (asterisk)below(asterisk) our prior norms, contrary to what you may read in the press,” Musk tweeted last week.
Musk has described himself as a free speech absolutist, and he is widely expected to revamp Twitter's content moderation policies. While he said no changes have been made so far, Musk has made significant layoffs at the company, raising questions about its ability to police misinformation and hate speech before Tuesday's midterm election.
It may take some time to accurately assess the platform's performance in the election and to determine whether Twitter has adopted a different strategy for content that violates its policies, said Renee DiResta, research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory.
“The civic integrity policy was unchanged,” DiResta said of Twitter under its new ownership. "Now, there is a difference between having a policy and enforcing a policy.”
Shortly after Musk purchased Twitter, some users posted hate speech, seemingly to test the boundaries of the platform under its new owner.
Within just 12 hours of Musk’s purchase being finalized, references to a specific racist epithet used to demean Black people shot up by 500%, according to an analysis conducted by the Network Contagion Research Institute, a Princeton, New Jersey-based firm that tracks disinformation.
Twitter did not immediately respond Thursday to messages seeking comment on the findings of the new report.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14