X -Where Twitter goes to die.

[raison de arizona]

Musk changes Blue check program again. Now celebs with over a million followers get a free blue check.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... ticks.html

[RTH10260]

Does Twitter still have so many subscribers

[Dave from down under]

Trolls
And
Bots
All
The
Way
Down

[RTH10260]

Far-right Britain First party given Twitter gold tick
Verification mark granted to account that was suspended in 2017 but reinstated following takeover by Elon Musk last year

Dan Milmo Global technology editor
Mon 24 Apr 2023 17.47 BST

Twitter has given a gold tick to Britain First, the far right political organisation, after a shake-up of its verification system under new owner Elon Musk.

The party’s leader, Paul Golding, has also received a blue tick for his account, which means that his posts will be boosted in conversations and will be ranked higher in user searches. Golding was jailed in 2018 for religiously aggravated harassment.

Twitter’s gold tick designates a verified organisation that is a business or non-profit entity, according to the platform’s website. Twitter is charging UK entities £1,140 a month for official gold tick status, while personal accounts are being charged £9.60 for a blue tick.

Britain First, whose policies include prison terms for “any attempt to alter the demographic makeup of the British Isles”, had its account suspended in 2017, but it was allowed back on to the platform after Musk’s takeover last year.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a campaign group, accused Twitter of promoting extreme content to drive controversy and user engagement with the aim of generating more revenue.

“Twitter is now a topsy-turvy world where users have been told to ignore information supplied by good, reliable actors and pay undue attention to the bottom-feeders who want to spread hate, misinformation and sow division,” said Imran Ahmed, CEO of CCDH. “It’s harder and harder to know what to trust on the platform, while bad actors are put on a pedestal.”

The Britain First account has 12,700 followers and Golding’s has 45,300.

Twitter’s new paid-for verification system encountered more difficulties on Monday as the platform gave a gold tick to a fake Disney account, in the latest example of rogue actors launching “approved” parodies.

An account with the handle @DisneyJuniorUK secured a gold tick on Monday morning. The account was suspended at 11.30am BST, but not before announcing that the cult animation series South Park was “officially heading to Disney Junior”.

It was not clear whether the holder of the account – which had 2,087 followers – paid the $1,000-a-month cost for the tick or was given it for free. This has been happening with blue ticks for large personal accounts following the launch of a cull last week for legacy accounts that had not paid for verification.

However, the account holder indicated surprise at receiving a tick on Monday, tweeting “No fucking way” and “This isn’t actually real right”. The user that claimed to be running the fake Disney account, @7virtues_, had tweeted a poll on Monday asking whether to deactivate the account “so I don’t get murked by the Disney hitmen”.

Twitter’s previous attempt at charging for verification under new owner Elon Musk was pulled in November last year after the opportunity to pay for a verified account was hijacked by pranksters.

A fake account representing pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly – which had paid for verification – announced free insulin, while the gaming firm Nintendo and the pope were among the other victims of impersonators.

The impersonation issue was one of the drivers behind a fall in advertising revenue on Twitter since Musk’s October 2022 takeover. Advertising accounted for 90% of Twitter’s $5bn in annual revenue before the deal, and Musk revealed in February that he expects turnover at the company to be less than $3bn this year, suggesting a slump in its ad business.




https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... -gold-tick

[RTH10260]

partial crosspost

‘Unprepared’ Twitter among tech firms to face tough new EU digital rules
Designation as ‘very large online platform’ along with 16 other major names means big penalties for breaches

Dan Milmo Global technology editor
Tue 25 Apr 2023 17.48 BST

Twitter is among the tech firms that will face the toughest level of scrutiny under a new European Union regulatory regime for monitoring digital platforms, after warnings from Brussels that the Elon Musk-owned platform is unprepared for the new rules.

The company, which Musk bought in October 2022, has been designated a “very large online platform” under the bloc’s Digital Services Act, which means complying with measures such as publishing an independent audit of its compliance with the legislation.

It will be joined by 16 other major names including YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Wikipedia, Snapchat and TikTok.

Twitter has been repeatedly warned that it is not ready for the new rules, with breaches risking a fine of 6% of global turnover and, in the most extreme cases, a temporary suspension of the service. Under Musk’s ownership Twitter has reduced its workforce from 7,500 people to about 1,500, leading to fears that moderation standards and its ability to comply with the act would suffer as a consequence.

In November last year, the EU’s commissioner for the internal market, Thierry Breton, implied that Twitter was in danger of non-compliance with the act, telling Musk that the company will have to raise its efforts to “pass the grade”. Breton added that Musk had “huge work ahead” to comply with the DSA. However, a readout of the November meeting with Musk added that the Tesla CEO had “committed to comply” with the DSA.




https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... ital-rules

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

Do we anticipate a RUD in the making?

[somerset]

Maybe more like a slow-motion trainwreck

[Phoenix520]

More like RID.

[raison de arizona]

This is… a good idea. I would definitely take advantage of this.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1652349875017879552

Rolling out next month, this platform will allow media publishers to charge users on a per article basis with one click.

This enables users who would not sign up for a monthly subscription to pay a higher per article price for when they want to read an occasional article.

Should be a major win-win for both media orgs & the public.

As long as the price is right.

[neonzx]

This is… a good idea. I would definitely take advantage of this.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1652349875017879552
...
As long as the price is right.

Meh. Hard pass.

[raison de arizona]

If you were impacted by the recent updates to Twitter's global parenting program (reducing from 20 to 2 weeks), especially in the state of CA, please reach out. As someone who was laid off while pregnant, and then didn't qualify for my new employer's mat leave policy in time,

As a former Twitter employee that oversaw US LOA and rolled out the 20 week policy in 2016, this is DEPRESSING. I am so sorry to hear of the amazing policies/programs that are being dismantled.

[raison de arizona]

Alas, I am among the affected. Whatever will I do without Twitter?

Twitter down for thousands of users - Downdetector

May 1 (Reuters) - Twitter Inc's services were down for thousands of users on Monday, according to outage-tracking website Downdetector.com.

There were more than 3,600 incidents of people reporting issues with the social media platform led by Elon Musk, according to Downdetector, which tracks outages by collating status reports from a number of sources including user-submitted errors on its platform.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Users on Reddit complained that the website was logging them out unexpectedly and were not able to sign in.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/twit ... 023-05-01/

[sad-cafe]

I got suspended because I told empty greene to STFU

I had only been on about a month.


Is there any new place?

[raison de arizona]

I got suspended because I told empty greene to STFU

I had only been on about a month.


Is there any new place?

There are some alternatives, imo none of them have really taken off yet though.
viewtopic.php?t=1825

[MN-Skeptic]

This is… a good idea. I would definitely take advantage of this.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1652349875017879552
...
As long as the price is right.

Meh. Hard pass.

It’ll be a cold day in hell before I give ANY money to Musk.

[raison de arizona]

NPR stopped Tweeting after Musk labeled them government controlled media.

Elon Musk threatens to re-assign @NPR on Twitter to 'another company'

Elon Musk has threatened to reassign NPR's Twitter account to "another company."

In a series of emails sent to this reporter, Musk suggested he would transfer the network's main account on Twitter, under the @NPR handle, to another organization or person. The idea shocked even longtime observers of Musk's spur-of-the-moment and erratic leadership style.

Musk did not answer when asked whether he planned to change the platform's definition of inactivity and he declined to say what prompted his new questions about NPR's lack of participation on Twitter.

"Our policy is to recycle handles that are definitively dormant," Musk wrote in another email. "Same policy applies to all accounts. No special treatment for NPR."

https://www.npr.org/2023/05/02/11734223 ... r-reassign

[Slim Cognito]

Jeez, a temper tantrum worthy of a toddler. What if...Elmo gives the handle to some whack job right wing idiot who uses the NPR label to post crazy, slanderous right-wing bullshit? Would NPR be able to take any action to protect their name?

[Gregg]

Jeez, a temper tantrum worthy of a toddler. What if...Elmo gives the handle to some whack job right wing idiot who uses the NPR label to post crazy, slanderous right-wing bullshit? Would NPR be able to take any action to protect their name?

They ought to make one post a day, the correct date and time, at exactly noon.

[raison de arizona]

Musk responded to the author of the NPR story. No message, just a subject line written in the middle of the night.

[raison de arizona]

More than half of Twitter Blue's earliest subscribers are no longer subscribed
The early birds cancel their subscriptions.

Twitter Blue's struggles since its launch nearly six months ago are more severe than previously revealed, new data suggests.

Since Musk's version of the subscription service launched last November, Twitter has only been able to convert around 640,000 Twitter users into paying Twitter Blue subscribers as of the end of April, as Mashable reported earlier this week.

While those numbers are lackluster, an even more telling detail about Twitter Blue is just how many of its earliest subscribers have canceled their subscriptions.

Out of about 150,000 early subscribers to Twitter Blue, just around 68,157 have stuck around and maintained a paid subscription as of April 30. Subscriptions are $8 per month – $11 on mobile.

https://mashable.com/article/half-of-tw ... subscribed

The interest on Twitter's debt is estimated at $1.2B/yr. Advertising revenue has dropped by over 80%. On the other side of the column, they are down to 1,500 employees at this point. I'm not sure how these numbers work for Twitter to be breaking even, as Musk has stated.

[RTH10260]

Twitter admits to ‘security incident’ involving Circles tweets
Feature allows users to set a list of friends and post tweets that only they are supposed to be able to read

Alex Hern UK technology editor
Sat 6 May 2023 10.53 BST

A privacy breach at Twitter published tweets that were never supposed to be seen by anyone but the poster’s closest friends to the site at large, the company has admitted after weeks of stonewalling reports.

The site’s Circles feature allows users to set an exclusive list of friends and post tweets that only they can read. Similar to Instagram’s Close Friends setting, it allows users to share private thoughts, explicit images or unprofessional statements without risking sharing them with their wider network.

But, in an email to affected users seen by the Guardian, Twitter admitted tweets had escaped this containment. “A security incident that occurred earlier this year,” the email says, “may have allowed users outside of your Twitter Circle to see tweets that should have otherwise been limited to the Circle to which you were posting.”

For weeks, users had been reporting Circles tweets receiving likes and views from accounts that should not have been able to see them. Twitter, whose press office has been largely destaffed and set to autoreply to requests for comment with a poo emoji, did not acknowledge the reports.

Now, the company says the issue “was identified by our security team and immediately fixed so that these tweets were no longer visible outside of your Circle”.

“Twitter is committed to protecting the privacy of the people who use our service, and we understand the risks that an incident like this can introduce and we deeply regret this happened,” the company said.

The email did not address separate reports that similar privacy breaches were occurring to “private” accounts, whose tweets should not be displayed to anyone save for their approved followers.




https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... les-tweets

[bob]

[Dr. Ken]

lol the meltdown on the right over twitter


They're saying she's a social justice warrior and all that 8 bucks a month was for nothing.

[Foggy]

White E_____ Female (?)

English? No.
European? I dunno. Her name is Yaccarino.
Educated? Oh man, educated women are the worst.

I'm missing something here.

[Suranis]

So am I. I looked at "acronym finder" on internet slang and found nothing relevant.

https://www.acronymfinder.com/WEF.html

Urban Dictionary does not have it as an acronym but as a term in its own right. And its nothing to do with Women, sorry people here who just jump on that meaning for everything.

Woods' meaning here is probably the Despot meaning. Or maybe the World Economic Forum - ie "globalists."

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=WEF

WEF

Minor despotism, esp. one ruled by a contemptible bully. Said rulers'conduct tends to be a mixture of aggressive posturing towards greater powers, coupled with a real-politik of submission. Personal characteristics: pretensions to creative achievement, suppressed homosexuality.
"This place is turning into just another WEF."
by K P Ankrah December 16, 2004

Wef Wef

1. Term or name given to someone or something that is disgusting or funny. This can be used in any circumstance.

2. A small organic compound grown, found, and distributed in Georgia.

3. Universal word : any part of speech. (Noun, adjective, adverb, pronoun, verb, etc.)

See lug nut or meat head
(Sir) I just pissed on the cat!
(Me) Wow! You're a Wef Wef!
by Kyle Smeer June 4, 2006

wef

the opposite of few, it is defined as a lot or a large amount
Star Jones needs to lose a wef amount of weight.
by Tyrian September 18, 2004

Wef

A noise a spoilt posh dog makes.
WEFWEFWEFWEFWEFWEFWEFWEFWEFWEFWEF!!!
by Wefin August 5, 2010

Wef

A stupid-ass way to say wtf (for lazy people and douchebags)
John: Yo wazzup
Sally: Nothing much -- oh! a spider!
John: wef
Sally: what the fuck...?
John: ya itz cool
Sally: you're a lazy douchebag
by oneinch March 30, 2011

wef

The abbreviation for: wild eternal freedom.
A side effect of eating waffles at 2am.
Can be used to harass people over Facebook chat.
1. "What did the series of paragraphs have to be about?"
"Well, wef of course!! "

2. "WEF"
"What?"
"Wild eternal freedom."
"Huh?"
"It's a club, wanna join!?"
by Founder of WEF January 23, 2011