Re: Rough times for Twitter
*Note: This message was accidentally marked as spam. We apologize for the mistake (we get a lot of spam). Here it is as it was received on Friday.* Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2022 17:00:37 +0900 (JST) From: "Akira Urushibata" To: libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org Subject: Re: Rough times for Twitter Day by day Twitter is sinking deeper into quagmire. It appears two thirds of the workforce has left the company. (We don't know the exact figure for the layoffs were so thorough that the section which should be reporting such details exists no more.) How much the remaining staff can handle is an open question. I believe fellow list members are observing friends and relatives who are still on Twitter growing pessimistic about its chances of survival and asking for assistance on how best to evacuate. Instructions to Twitter users on how to archive user account data are appearing in mainstream media. They come with warnings that requests can take more than 24 hours to be processed. This was so even before Musk's takeover - and as things stand now, unlikely to get better. I don't particularly like Twitter. But I know people who do and are hoping that it would survive. Much information on what Ukrainians have experienced under Russian aggression reached us via Twitter. Politicians and business leaders used the platform to make announcements. Some are still doing so. People like the public officials taking protective measures face a dillenma. If they don't hurry to save their past tweets, they may see them wiped out when the company folds. Lost tweets and direct messages have the potential of inviting legal jeapordy. But the actions of those who do hurry place a burden on the system servers. Ironically the stress can hasten the downfall. Many people are each contributing a straw which might be the one (="last straw") that breaks the mule's back. In the meantine a crisis is brewing in the cryptocurrency market. CEOs and analysts continue to use Twitter to send messages to anxious stakeholders. This is a source of concern, for history teaches us that communication failures tend to aggrevate financial turmoil. "The bird has been freed." So Elon Musk tweeted upon completing the purchase. It is obvious to many that the bird is growing weaker and weaker under his custody - to the point that once down it may never be free to take off again. Reminding people about this should encourage them to think about freedom. Ordinary Twitter users are starting to realize what freedom they would lose should the platform disappear. I expect at least some of them to be willing to listen to accounts by people who have been working to protect freedom. If Elon Musk really cares about freedom, he should discuss the matter with an expert of freedom. Richard Stallman is one such expert. Musk should have reached out much earlier: doing so would have given him better understanding of what he had ahead and saved him money. Even now it is not too late. "Many a man can stand adversity. To test a man's true character, give him power." - Abraham Lincoln --- Hundreds said to have opted to leave Twitter over Elon Musk ultimatum - The Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/17/twitter-musk-easing-rto-order/ Hundreds of Twitter employees refused Thursday to sign a pledge to work longer hours, threatening the site's ability to keep operating ... "I know of six critical systems (like `serving tweets' levels of critical) which no longer have any engineers," a former employee said. "There is no longer even a skeleton crew manning the system. It will continue to coast until it runs into something, and then it will stop." ... Among those who were said to have declined to sign the pledge were half the trust and safety policy team, including a majority of those who work on spotting misinformation, spam, fake accounts and impersonation, according to one employee familiar with the team. ... "Every mistake in code and operations is now deadly" said a former engineer who departed the company this week. Those left "are going to be overwhelmed, overworked and, because of that, more likely to make mistakes." --- Users urged to archive tweets amid rumors of Twitter implosion - The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/17/twitter-archive-tweets-company-shuts --- Elon Musk Is Bad at This - The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/11/elon-musk-twitter-poor-management-layoffs-advertisers/672029/ The Musk era of Twitter has so far been defined by unhinged tweets, fleeing advertisers, and botched layoffs. Elon Musk has spent the past 12 years tweeting whatever comes into his mind, often without major negative consequences. That was before he owned the place. Now, less than two weeks after his $44 billion purchase, the world's richest man is finding that his actions ... may actually have cons
Re: Rough times for Twitter
It only took one middle age crisis of a bilionaire to make people
realize how much of a garbage twitter is... glory to the fediverse!
-- Jacob "Kreyren" Hrbek
Original Message
On Nov 7, 2022, 17:25, Paul Sutton via libreplanet-discuss <
libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org> wrote:
On 06/11/2022 22:44, Akira Urushibata wrote: > Twitter, now owned by
Elon Musk, is going through a major upheaval. > According to Musk
the company is losing 4 million dollars a day. > Half of the
workforce will depart in a massive layoff, raising > concerns that
there may not be enough staff left to monitor harmful > content. > >
Twitter is also exploring new venues of raising money. One is >
making authorized accounts, previously available to celebrities and
> public officials for free, open to all for a charge. Some are >
worried that imposters make take advantage of this feature. >
Twitter, with its urgent need to raise money, may prod a small team
> to implement it as quickly as possible. > > I request fellow list
members to be on the alert. Someone may > set up an account
pretending to be Richard M Stallman or some other > influential
programmer, and be granted verification. The account may > not last
long but significant damage can be done with no more than a > few
tweets. > > Elon Musk paid 44 billion dollars to acquire Twitter.
Many observers > now feel certain that the unreasonably high price
has led to savage > cost-cutting measures. What people don't notice
is that Musk got much > free software as well. More accurately he
got access thereto in the > form of experienced engineers who know
what free tools are available > and how best to apply them. Many of
them are now leaving Twitter > and that means the firm is losing
access to free software. > > Because free software is free (as in
"free beer") the loss does not > immediately show up in the
accounts. Neither does the effect of any > inappropriate tweet made
by the maverick owner. Being invisible loss > of this nature evades
the attention of most observers, especially > financial experts. It
is possible that even Elon Musk fails to > understand the extent of
the problem, for as we all know, he is one > character especially
fond of the money that he can count. > There has been a huge exodus
to mastodon over the past few days, something like 60,000 users, so
this really does open up opportunities for the free software
communities to help and support. 1. More instances to even the
overall user load 2. Opportunities to help people develop the skills
needed to run their own instance 3. Opportunities to open up
discussions around free software, given that much of mastodon is
based on GPL or similar licensing structures 4. Lets just share
news, content etc on Mastodon, peertube etc and help each other
share this content to these new users We have the opportunity to
make sure the conversation around any free software is positive, so
promoting LibreOffice or BBB or Jitsi as alternatives to teams /
zoom etc. Paul ___
libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
___
libreplanet-discuss mailing list
libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: Rough times for Twitter
On 06/11/2022 22:44, Akira Urushibata wrote: Twitter, now owned by Elon Musk, is going through a major upheaval. According to Musk the company is losing 4 million dollars a day. Half of the workforce will depart in a massive layoff, raising concerns that there may not be enough staff left to monitor harmful content. Twitter is also exploring new venues of raising money. One is making authorized accounts, previously available to celebrities and public officials for free, open to all for a charge. Some are worried that imposters make take advantage of this feature. Twitter, with its urgent need to raise money, may prod a small team to implement it as quickly as possible. I request fellow list members to be on the alert. Someone may set up an account pretending to be Richard M Stallman or some other influential programmer, and be granted verification. The account may not last long but significant damage can be done with no more than a few tweets. Elon Musk paid 44 billion dollars to acquire Twitter. Many observers now feel certain that the unreasonably high price has led to savage cost-cutting measures. What people don't notice is that Musk got much free software as well. More accurately he got access thereto in the form of experienced engineers who know what free tools are available and how best to apply them. Many of them are now leaving Twitter and that means the firm is losing access to free software. Because free software is free (as in "free beer") the loss does not immediately show up in the accounts. Neither does the effect of any inappropriate tweet made by the maverick owner. Being invisible loss of this nature evades the attention of most observers, especially financial experts. It is possible that even Elon Musk fails to understand the extent of the problem, for as we all know, he is one character especially fond of the money that he can count. There has been a huge exodus to mastodon over the past few days, something like 60,000 users, so this really does open up opportunities for the free software communities to help and support. 1. More instances to even the overall user load 2. Opportunities to help people develop the skills needed to run their own instance 3. Opportunities to open up discussions around free software, given that much of mastodon is based on GPL or similar licensing structures 4. Lets just share news, content etc on Mastodon, peertube etc and help each other share this content to these new users We have the opportunity to make sure the conversation around any free software is positive, so promoting LibreOffice or BBB or Jitsi as alternatives to teams / zoom etc. Paul OpenPGP_0x8EA91B51E27E3D99.asc Description: OpenPGP public key OpenPGP_signature Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
