Business, Financial & Legal - Page 43

Mark Zuckerberg has announced mass layoffs at Meta aka Facebook, with 11,000 jobs sliced away -- a significant number, considering the largest social networking site in the world had 87,314 employees at its peak earlier this year.

Meta has been bleeding on the stock market for a while now, and while the headlines are dominated by Twitter and Elon Musk, it seems no one really cares about the bigger issue: the largest social networking site in the world (which owns Instagram, Oculus, WhatsApp, and more) has just laid off 11,000+ people right before Christmas. Oh, and within hours of the 2022 midterm elections.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained: "Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected. Not only has online commerce returned to prior trends but the macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ads signal loss have caused our revenue to be much lower than I'd expected. I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that".

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently fired half of the employees at Twitter, and now reports are coming out that the company is asking some of those employees to come back.

The mass layoff happened on Friday, with Musk announcing the news publicly by saying that Twitter's reduction in force of approximately 7,500 employees "unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day", while adding that everyone who was fired was offered 3 months of severance, which is, according to Musk, 50% higher than what is legally required. The layoffs sparked major concern over Twitter's content moderation capabilities and if the platform was able to maintain its standards and policies on the content allowed on the platform.

Twitter's head of safety, Yoel Roth, took to his Twitter account in a series of Tweets where he explained that the layoffs affected approximately 15% of Twitter's Trust and Safety organization, and that front-line content moderation workers were the least affected out of the entire layoffs. Furthermore, Roth explained that more than 80% of Twitter's incoming content moderation volume was unaffected by Musk's 50% reduction in staff and that Twitter's daily volume of content moderation across the platform remained unchanged throughout the firing period.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has announced that It will kick off the infamous (and very exciting) groundbreaking ceremony for its new chip fabrication plant in Arizona, USA... things are getting hairy already.

American engineers who were sent over to Taiwan for their required training are now flying back to the US to start operations at the Arizona plant, with the US engineers experiencing culture shock when they were in Taiwan. TSMC founder Dr. Morris Chang believes that operating a plant in Taiwan is an easier process than it is in the US, and it's all over low costs and the attitude of its workers.

As someone who has been to Taiwan many, many times -- as well as the US even more times than I can count -- I understand this from some perspectives. The difference between the work culture here in my home country of Australia compared to these two countries is very different, as I'm sure anyone would know. But the issue here is that once the American engineers left Taiwan back for US soil, locals in Taiwan started talking about their experiences with the American engineers while they were in Taiwan on social media... and man, things really took a turn.

Elon Musk has set his sights on a major goal for Twitter, while simultaneously announcing his main mission for Twitter.

The SpaceX and Tesla CEO took to his personal Twitter account to announce that he desires to make Twitter the most accurate source of information in the world, and that pushing the currently world's second-largest social media platform toward that goal is his and the company's mission. Musk's tweet sparked a response from Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey, who asked Musk, "accurate to who?", to which Musk replied, "as judged by the people of Twitter via Community Notes (formerly Birdwatch)."

This announcement speaks volumes to Musk's steadfast effort to open Twitter up and allow more free speech on the platform, while simultaneously wanting it to be a place where people can gather reliable news. This balance will certainly be a tricky one to pull off, and seemingly by Musk's announcement, the responsibility will fall on the members of Twitter's Community Notes.

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk fired approximately half of Twitter's employees or about 3,700 people, and now he's decided to postpone the launch of Twitter's new verification system.

Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, has decided to postpone the launch of Twitter's new verification system that will give the iconic verified check marks to accounts that pay the $7.99 a month subscription for Twitter Blue. According to a report by The New York Times that spoke to two people with knowledge of the situation, Musk and Twitter have decided to halt the rollout of verification check marks to Twitter Blue subscribers until after Tuesday's midterm elections.

The decision to delay the launch of blue check marks ahead of the midterms came from widespread concern that many people would have the ability to create verified accounts impersonating important political figures, such as President Joe Biden, prominent lawmakers, or officials, ahead of the election. These illegitimate verified accounts could then post misinformation about the election or even influence the results.

Members from the US Department of Defense (DoD) spoke with a publication regarding the plethora of UFO, or Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) videos and the origin of the objects in question.

According to a recent report from The New York Times, who spoke with several officials from the DoD, under the assurance of anonymity, said that many of the UFO sightings can simply be chalked up to Chinese surveillance drones, as well as "airborne clutter" such as weather balloons. The anonymous officials said that many of the UFO sightings have now been officially identified as "relatively ordinary" Chinese surveillance drones, which are attempting to steal plans for advanced US fighter planes and the methods the US military use to train its pilots. DoD officials said to the publication that China has done this in the past.

As for other UFO sightings from US military personnel that were able to capture video of objects performing seemingly impossible maneuvers or achieving ridiculous speeds, DoD officials said that many of these sightings are likely a result of optical illusions caused by the camera recording the object. For instance, DoD officials said that the GOFAST UFO video was simply an optical illusion caused by the angle the camera was recording the object and that the object was actually traveling no faster than 30 mph.

Over the weekend, actor Valerie Bertinelli decided to impersonate Elon Musk on Twitter by changing her name and profile picture.

The actor then decided to post and retweet content that showed support for Democratic candidates in an attempt to prove a point with Twitter's coming verification checkmark system. Bertinelli, and many others have voiced concerns that Musk's new $8 verification checkmark system will allow for random people to impersonate other individuals and then spread misinformation under their new identities. Bertinelli decided to illustrate this point by impersonating Musk and posting content such as "#VoteBlueToProtectYourRights" and supportive posts for candidates Gretchen Whitmore in Michigan and Beto O'Rourke in Texas.

Bertinelli has since changed her display name back, saying that she "had her fun" and that "I think I made my point". However, this stunt by Bertinelli has seemingly caught the attention of Twitter owner Elon Musk as the SpaceX CEO recently took to her personal Twitter to make a stark announcement regarding impersonating other individuals on Twitter. Musk wrote that moving forward, any Twitter accounts that are found engaging in impersonation without clearly disclosing that their account is a parody account will be permanently banned from the platform.

Elon Musk has taken to his personal Twitter account to announce two new features coming to the world's second-largest social media platform.

Musk, the official owner of Twitter, took to his account on November 6 to announce that Twitter will soon be getting the ability to attack "long-form text to tweets", which makes the whole craze of users screenshotting walls of text in their notepad and posting images on Twitter obsolete. Musk backs this assumption up by saying this update, "ending absurdity of notepad screenshots". Furthermore, the Twitter owner said that creator monetization will soon be rolled out to Twitter and it will be for "all forms of content".

Additionally, Musk was posed a question that stems from a feature present on Substack where users can subscribe/donate to pieces of writing or authors. Musk was asked if Twitter will get a feature similar to this, which, if Twitter adopted it, would be users subscribing to Twitter accounts or donating money directly to content, which would go to the creators behind that content. Musk replied to this question and said Twitter would "absolutely" be getting subscribe/donate feature.

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has taken to his personal Twitter account to agree that verification checkmarks were egregiously handed out in the past, with some even sold privately for thousands of dollars.

Since Elon Musk officially became the owner of Twitter, the SpaceX CEO has been extremely active on his personal Twitter account, which he seems to be using for all small and major Twitter announcements. In response to Musk's recent announcement of Twitter Blue costing $8 and the contentious nature of verification check marks being a paid feature, Shibetoshi Nakamoto took to Twitter to suggest the paid Twitter Blue subscriber badge, and the verified account badge should be separated, not conflated. Nakamoto suggested there should be a different badge for Twitter Blue and a different badge for a verified account.

Musk responded to this Twitter thread and said that there have been "far too many legacy "verified" checkmarks were handed out", and sometimes they were given to accounts that didn't deserve them. Furthermore, Musk added that individuals can buy verified Twitter accounts "with a Google search", and that a much better way to ensure verification is "piggybacking off payment system plus Apple/Android". Using Apple/Android payment systems as a way to verify accounts seems to be Musk's course of action.

Elon Musk has control of Twitter now and has already been pushing things in an interesting, and fun new direction... and now we have former President Donald Trump not just suggesting, but pretty much saying that he will be running again for President in 2024.

President Donald Trump said during a pre-election rally in Iowa today, that he would "very, very, very probably" do it again (run for President, obviously).

In full, President Trump said: "in order to make our country successful, safe and glorious... I will very, very, very probably do it again, okay. Very, very, very probably... VERY, VERY, very probably" to which the crowd absolutely exploded with applause yelling out "Trump! Trump! Trump!"

Kanye West, who officially changed his name to Ye last year, has been banned from Instagram once again following a recent post.

The rapper took to Parler, the upcoming social media that he has expressed heavy interest in purchasing, to announce that Instagram has banned his account for 30 days for a comment he made against Jewish people. Ye explained in his Parler post that he was talking to Russel Simmons, who was telling Ye to "be the bridge and fight white supremacy, while getting out the frustrations that blacks have with their Jewish brothers in a digestible way". Ye replied by saying that he was staying in America and that "I gotta get the Jewish business people to make the contracts fair, or die trying".

Instagram's parent company, Meta, told CBS News that Ye's account has had a restriction placed on it for violating the platform's policies or terms of service. The spokesperson for Meta informed the publication that any account that violates its rules might experience a temporary ban or even restrictions, such as being unable to post, comment, or send direct messages to other accounts.

Twitter Blue originally cost just $4.99 a month, but after Elon Musk's successful purchase of the company, there was rumbling of that price hiking up to $20 a month. Now, things have changed again.

In response to the massive outcry of unpleased Twitter users discovering that Twitter Blue was going to be increased to $20 a month, Musk has taken to his personal Twitter account to announce that he has heard the people and that Blue will be just $8 a month. The SpaceX CEO said that the price was adjusted by country proportionate to purchasing power parity, which is essentially a word-salad way of saying the price was averaged out for the less fortunate percentage of Twitter users globally.

Musk then listed out a bunch of features that users will get if they decide to sign up for Twitter's $8-a-month subscription. According to Musk, paying Twitter Blue subscribers will get priority in replies as well as mentions and search results, which the Twitter owner says is "essential to defeat spam/scam" accounts. Additionally, Twitter Blue users will be able to post longer audio and video content while experiencing half the amount of ads on the platform. Furthermore, publishers that are "willing to work with us" will get a paywall bypass.

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has taken to his personal Twitter account to give an update on how already banned accounts may be coming back to Twitter.

Musk replied to a Tweet from Head of Safety & Integrity at Twitter, Yoel Roth, who stated that the company is staying vigilant against any outside attempts that are being made to manipulate general conversations about the upcoming 2022 US midterms. Musk responded to this post from Roth and said that he has talked with several civil society leaders about how Twitter will implement strategies and policies that will combat any outside threats to sway the general conversation approaching the 2022 midterms. Notably, Musk also said he discussed strategies to combat hate speech and harassment on the platform.

The SpaceX CEO didn't stop there as he further explained that Twitter won't be allowing any account that was banned before he took over the company to magically come back onto the platform. Additionally, Musk said that anyone who was banned for violating Twitter's rules won't be returning to Twitter until the company has a clear process for reinstating those accounts that violated Terms of Service. Lastly, Musk said that it will take at least a few weeks to come up with this clear process for reinstating accounts.

In the days following Elon Musk's successful acquisition of Twitter, the SpaceX and Tesla CEO has already set his sights on becoming what has been deemed an S-tier social media platform.

Musk replied to a Tweet from Marques Brownlee, a YouTuber that focuses on reviewing any and all newly released technology such as mobile phones, iPads, wearables, advanced technology, and more. Also known as MKBHD, Marques Brownlee has also sat down for a couple of interviews with Musk in the past, while also visiting Musk's Tesla factory for a tour.

MKBHD took to Twitter following Musk's successful purchase of Twitter to give a hot take (an opinion that may be seen as unpopular) on the now-changing landscape of social media platforms. Brownlee wrote that YouTube is still the only S-tier social media platform, which sparked a response from the now-Twitter-owner who simply said, "For now".

One of the biggest gambling Twitch streamers has revealed how much he supposedly made from gambling sponsorship deals.

Twitch announced on September 20 that it would be updating its Terms of Service (TOS) to reflect its new stance on gambling that went into effect on October 18. The announcement from the world's largest streaming service came after it was revealed that Twitch partner "ItsSliker" scammed his viewers and fellow content creators out of more than $300,000. While the total amount scammed isn't the biggest in Twitch-associated scamming history, the amount of people affected by the ItsSliker has made it the largest, prompting action from Twitch.

Amazon's subsidiary, Twitch decided to respond by outright banning gambling on October 18, which to many gambling streamers was a knee-jerk reaction. One of the most prominent Twitch gambling streamers against Twitch's decision to ban gambling was and still is, Trainwreck, who recently revealed on October 19, after he was out of contract with his sponsor, that he was paid $360 million for 16 months of gambling streaming on Twitch. Furthermore, Trainwreck revealed that more than $70 million of that $360 million was given to his community.

It hasn't been long since Elon Musk officially became the owner of Twitter, and the SpaceX CEO has already revealed what he believes is the most messed up thing at the company.

The SpaceX and Tesla CEO posted an email sent to him from Twitter informing him he has just thirty days to complete a mandatory course on how to run the company, and within that Twitter thread, Musk answered a question from an individual that asked him "what's the one thing that's most messed up at Twitter right now??". Musk replied by saying that there seemed to be ten people in a managerial position for every single person that was coding, which speaks to Musk's as well as Twitter's previous statements of planned layoffs at the company.

There have been quite a lot of rumors swirling that Musk plans on taking the reins at Twitter and becoming the company's CEO, which would make him CEO of three different companies. However, Musk recently confirmed that this isn't something he desires, and that he would prefer to be referred to by his self-proclaimed title within his Twitter bio - "Chief Twit". Furthermore, Musk said that he "has no idea" who the CEO is, which indicates that it's still quite early in the deciding process for who would be the best fit for the position.

Elon Musk is on a rampage right now, tweeting out that Twitter and its lawyers deliberately hid evidence from the court... and now the social networking giant will slice its business away from law firms Cooley and Perkins Coie now that the SpaceX and Tesla boss is running the show.

Musk has come out swinging accusing the former board of directors of Twitter, and their lawyers of "deliberately" hiding evidence from the court. The law firm in question is Wachtell, Rosen, Lipton and Katz, where the SpaceX and Tesla CEO tweeted out just hours ago that the law firm and Twitter board "deliberately hid" evidence from the court and that the world should "stay tuned" because there is "more to come". Oh boy.

What's this all over? Well, Musk included a screenshot from Yoel Roth, who is Twitter's head of safety and integrity, where the screenshot sees a Twitter staffer called Amir, who Roth accused of using Objectives and Key Results that were "based on fraudulent metrics".

Elon Musk is making some rather big changes at Twitter in succession, with the social networking giant making changes to its paid subscription service: Twitter Blue.

Twitter Blue costs $4.99 per month right now for the subscription, unlocking some new abilities -- but now Musk has given Twitter staff an ultimatum -- the SpaceX and Tesla (and now Twitter boss, or Chief Twit) boss says meet his deadline for paid verification on Twitter, or leave.

Musk wants to see Twitter charging $19.99 per month up from the $4.99 per month for Twitter Blue, one of the things he wants to do is to revamp how Twitter verifies users and handles the insane bot situation on the platform. Musk recently tweeted about the Twitter Blue verification system, tweeting: "The whole verification process is being revamped right now".

Since Elon Musk acquired Twitter, many have speculated if the Tesla and SpaceX CEO would become the social media platform's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) - which would make him CEO of three completely different companies.

Musk finalized the Twitter deal a day before the deadline set by the Delaware Court of Chancery, successfully coming up with the $44 billion in funding and taking the metaphorical keys to Twitter to do as he pleases. His first order of business was to clean out some top executives such as now former CEO Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Ned Segal, and Vijaya Gadde, the head of legal policy, trust, and safety. With the firing of top executives, it begged the question of who was going to take the helm at Twitter as its CEO.

Whole Mars Catalog posed the question to Musk, asking, "Elon, do you plan to be CEO for some time?". Musk replied to the question by saying that his title is "Chief Twit", and that it's "right there in the bio". The SpaceX CEO added that he has no idea who the Twitter CEO is, which is seemingly a stark indicator that there is currently no one in the running for Twitter's CEO, as it may just be too soon to know who would be right for the job.

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has taken to his personal Twitter account to share an email from Twitter which informs new management on how to run the company.

Musk posted a screenshot of the email to his Twitter account only a few minutes ago that reveals a managing Twitter course called @Twitter 101 (M101). The email states that course covers what it means to be a "good manager at Twitter" through creating opportunities that impact as well as help employees at the company a grow their careers. Notably, the email also states that the course informs new management on how to demonstrate care for their new team.

Furthermore, the email reads that new management has only 30 days to digest this information via the "mandatory course". Additionally, once the course is completed Twitter will enroll the new management in "Managing @Twitter 201", which is seemingly the next step on how to successfully manage the company from the company's point of view. Musk states in his caption that "this is an actual, real email that was autogenerated".