Social Media & Big Tech news and discussions

[Xyls]

Elon Musk Thinks He Can Double Twitter’s Revenue Through Subscriptions Alone

by Emma Roth
May 7, 2022

https://www.theverge.com/2022/5/7/23061 ... tions-blue

Introduction:

(The Verge) Elon Musk — the world’s richest man and Twitter’s new owner — expects Twitter to earn almost $10 billion in revenue from subscriptions by 2028, a projection that doubles the $5 billion in total revenue the platform made last year, according to a report from The New York Times.

In a pitch deck viewed by the Times, Musk gave investors a taste of what to expect under his ownership. This reportedly includes driving up Twitter Blue subscribers to 69 million by 2025 and more than doubling that number to 159 million by 2028. Launched last year, Twitter Blue is the service’s $2.99 / month subscription that gives users access to an “undo tweet” button, app customization, ad-free articles, and other exclusive features. Musk expects a huge growth in total Twitter users as well, growing from the 217 million users reported last year to 600 million Twitter users in 2025 and, eventually, 931 million in 2028.

The pitch deck also outlines plans for an unnamed subscription service outside of Blue, called “X,” which Musk expects to bring in nine million subscribers in 2023 and 104 million by 2028. Earlier this week, Musk hinted at charging governments and corporations a “slight cost” to use Twitter. Whatever subscription “X” may be, revenue from it and Blue combined is supposed to hit the $10 billion mark by 2028, making up a large fraction of the $26.4 billion in total revenue Musk thinks the service will reach that same year.

According to the Times, Twitter is supposed to make up the rest of its total projected revenue with ads, something that Musk predicts Twitter will earn about $12 billion through by 2028. Twitter has been reliant on advertising as its primary stream of revenue in the past, but Musk, who said in a now-deleted tweet that Twitter should remove ads for paid subscribers, wants ads to make up just 45 percent of Twitter’s total revenue.
Musk’s pitch deck reportedly includes plans to rake in $15 million from some sort of payments business as well, which he expects to grow to $1.3 billion by 2028.

caltrek’s comment: As I have already indicated, I hate Twitter. I think after Musk gets through with it, I will hate it even more. I mean content providers will also have to pay a subscription? That is like paying somebody to be allowed to work. (Yes, I post a lot out of fun – but I am retired and living comfortably on a pension, social security, etc.).

No wonder Musk in now the richest man in America, if not the world.

Who the f*ck would pay to use Twitter?

[Xyls]

Elon Musk says he would reverse Twitter ban on Donald Trump
Source: Washington Post

SAN FRANCISCO — Elon Musk said he would reverse Twitter’s ban on former president Donald Trump.

Musk, the Tesla CEO who is soon to own Twitter, said it was a mistake for the website to ban the former president.

“I think it was a morally bad decision to be clear and foolish in the extreme,” he said at a Future of the Car event hosted by the Financial Times.

He added: "I do think it was not correct to ban Donald Trump. I think that was a mistake … It alienated a large part of the country and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice.”

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technolo ... k-twitter/

Good, it is anti-democratic to silence the opposition leader of the minority party of any democracy. That is what russia is doing.

Has nothing to do with democracy. This is a private company and can do whatever it wishes.

Elon is likely going to drive a large amount of users away with his "strategy" on content moderation. No permanent bans so allowing toxic as shit users to come back? Lol good luck keeping engagement with that strategy.

[caltrek]

I prefer LinkedIn. First, it allows for connection to the type of people who circulate their resumes in order to get better paying jobs. So, people are motivated not to come across as neanderthal fruit cakes. Also, they have a new feature, or at least a feature I just noticed that I like. Not only do they give you an "impressions" count, but once you reach twenty-five "impressions or more, they give you a demographic report on those impressions. While my following seems to be tiny, it is also diverse, which is good to know.

[caltrek]

Of course, Future Timeline is still my favorite.

As for more conventional media sources, here is something to ponder:

Altercation: How Republicans Argue: They Lie
by Eric Alterman
Mau 13, 2022

(The American Prospect) If I have a single cause in life—aside from my insistence on the proper use of “was” and “were,” together with that of “less” and “fewer”—it’s my apparently quixotic quest to demand contextual information be included in news media accounts of political (and other) events. I wrote about this last week as it related to The New York Times’ (admirable) commitment to long-form investigations. Today, I’m inspired by a rather obscure story, also reported by the Times about a fight going on in the Department of Homeland Security.

But first, some meta-media context: As David Rothkopf (@djrothkopf) pointed out in a tweet, when people like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg speak of “free speech,” what they mean is “speech” in the control of the wealthiest people in the world.

The second piece of meta-context to always keep in mind when reading about U.S. politics is how deeply the contemporary right wing is embedded with the enemies of democracy, including its murderous dictators. It’s not just that CPAC is having its convention in Victor Orban’s Hungary. Nor is it just that Fox News is a more effective propaganda tool for Vladimir Putin than RT ever was. It’s also that the Republicans keep nominating candidates who are either personally, financially, or via their staffs playing for Putin’s team as well. It wasn’t just Trump and the people with whom he peopled the government. It was, as Steve Schmidt revealed this week, also John McCain, something that was originally reported by The Nation back during the 2008 campaign but lied about by the campaign and ignored by the McCain-besotted mainstream media. That article noted, and Schmidt has now confirmed, that “despite McCain’s tough talk, behind the scenes his top advisers have cultivated deep ties with Russia’s oligarchy—indeed, they have promoted the Kremlin’s geopolitical and economic interests, as well as some of its most unsavory business figures, through greedy cynicism and geopolitical stupor.”

Read further here: https://prospect.org/politics/altercati ... -they-lie/

[wjfox]

Elon Musk's Explanation For Why He Put His Twitter Deal On Hold Leaves People Very Skeptical

Ben Acosta
May 16, 2022

In a move that surprised no one, Elon Musk announced his deal to purchase Twitter was “on hold”. While Musk claimed questions about bots on the site need to be investigated, not everyone was willing to buy that explanation.

https://www.comicsands.com/elon-musk-tw ... 28146.html

[caltrek]

Does Elon Musk Actually Have The Money To Buy Twitter? Speculation Says No
Dr Alfredo Carpineti
May 17, 2022

Introduction:

(IFL Science) Elon Musk's Twitter deal has been on hold for four days and the stalemate seems to be here to stay. Musk claims that Twitter's underestimating of the number of fake accounts – so-called "spambots" – on the platform has put the deal temporarily on hold.

Speaking at the All In Summit in Miami, Musk said that a Twitter deal at a lower price “was not out of the question. While Twitter's bot problem is well known, many are speculating Musk putting the deal on hold has more to do with it being unlikely that the world’s richest man can afford the $44 billion dollars originally agreed upon.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, Musk has a net worth of $213 billion at the time of writing. Converted into hard cash, even if he were to spend $1 million every hour, it would take him 24 years and 4 months to run out. But the conversion to cash is the issue, and not just for this hypothetical scenario.

The same index suggests that Musk has only got $9.25 billion in “cash” with the rest of his fortune coming from shares. So, to raise the money for the deal, Musk has been looking for alternatives. Last month, NYU Professor Scott Galloway suggested in his Pivot podcast Musk would have to borrow the cash against his shares in Tesla.

Musk had secured $13 billion in bank loans and then moved to secure $12.5 billion more by pledging about $62.5 billion worth of Tesla stock as collateral. This still leaves about half of the money to be found, with private investors such as Binance chief founder Changpeng Zhao and Saudi Arabian investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talalapparently pledging money to help Musk. However, speculation is rampant that all of that is simply not enough and that Musk can’t afford the offer he made.

[weatheriscool]

Musk sued by Twitter investors for delayed disclosure of stake
Source: Reuters

Billionaire Elon Musk was sued by Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) investors for delayed disclosure of his stake in the social media company in a complaint filed on Wednesday in California federal court.

The investors said Musk saved himself $156 million by failing to disclose that he had purchased more than 5% of Twitter by March 14. He continued to buy stock after that, and ultimately disclosed in early April that he owned 9.2% of the company.

"By delaying his disclosure of his stake in Twitter, Musk engaged in market manipulation and bought Twitter stock at an artificially low price," said the investors, led by Virginia resident William Heresniak.

The suit comes after Musk, the owner of electric carmaker Tesla Inc (TSLA.O), said he planned to take over Twitter for $44 billion.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/m ... 022-05-26/

[caltrek]

The Supreme Court Shuts Down Texas’s Attempt to Seize Control of Social Media — for Now
by Ian Millhiser
May 31, 2022

Introduction:

(Vox) The Supreme Court handed down a brief order on Tuesday blocking a Texas law that would have effectively seized control over the entire content moderation process at major social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

The Texas law imposed such burdensome requirements on these sites, including disclosure requirements that may literally be impossible to comply with, that it presented an existential threat to the entire social media industry. Facebook, for example, removes billions of pieces of content from its website every year. The Texas law would require Facebook to publish a written explanation of each of these decisions.

At the very least, the law would have prevented major social media sites from engaging in the most basic forms of content moderation — such as suppressing posts by literal Nazis who advocate for mass genocide, or banning people who stalk and harass their former romantic partners.

Conclusion:

The Court’s order in Netchoice is temporary. It preserves the status quo until the Court can issue a final ruling on how the First Amendment applies to social media.

But it is unlikely that this issue will remain open very long. Two federal appeals courts have reached contradictory rulings on the legality of Texas-style laws. So the Supreme Court will need to step in soon to resolve that conflict.

Read more here: https://www.vox.com/2022/5/31/23149183/ ... ice-paxton

[weatheriscool]

Elon Musk Threatens to End Deal With Twitter
Source: Wall Street Journal

Elon Musk threatened to terminate his deal to buy Twitter Inc. TWTR -4.08%▼ in a letter accusing the company of not complying with his request for data on the number of spam and fake accounts on the social-media platform.

Mr. Musk said Twitter has refused to provide the data necessary for Mr. Musk to facilitate his own evaluation of the number of spam and fake accounts. In April, Twitter accepted Mr. Musk’s $44 billion bid to take over the company and go private. As part of the deal, Mr. Musk waived detailed due diligence that buyers typically perform on targets.

Read more: https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk- ... _lead_pos1

[Time_Traveller]

Twitter board endorses Elon Musk takeover, urges investors to vote in favor of the deal

Jun 21, 2022

The Tesla billionaire Elon Musk is one step closer to owning Twitter.

On Tuesday the social-media giant's board of directors recommended that its shareholders vote in favor of the proposed $44 billion sale, according to a regulatory filing.

The board unanimously "determined that the merger agreement is advisable and the merger and the other transactions contemplated by the merger agreement are fair to, advisable and in the best interests of Twitter and its stockholders," it said in a proxy filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Twitter has not yet set a date for the vote.

Musk offered $54.20 per share to take the company private in April.

However, shares of the company have since sunk alongside a broader market selloff. The stock closed at roughly $38 on Friday, 34% below Musk's offering price.

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-mu ... ?r=US&IR=T

[caltrek]

TikTok Is No Longer The World's Most Popular Website
by James Felton
June 16, 2022

Introduction:

(IFL Science) Late last year, the tech world had a bit of a shock as everyone's favorite search engine was knocked off the top spot of the Earth's most popular website.

According to Cloudflare Radar's popularity ranking, the tech giant was knocked down to the second most popular domain by a surprise (relative) newcomer. No, despite Microsoft's crafty trick of making Bing the default search tool for the Edge browser (fun fact: the most popular search term typed into Bing is "Google") it did not manage to beat Google, and its ever-growing array of services including Maps, Translate, Photos, Flights, Books, and News.

Late last year, this is how rankings stood.

Top 10 most popular domains in late 2021
1) TikTok.com
2) Google.com
3) Facebook.com
4) Microsoft.com
5) Apple.com
6) Amazon.com
7) Netflix.com
8) YouTube.com
9) Twitter.com
10) WhatsApp.com

The two most popular domains the last thirty days preceding June 16, 2022:

1) Google.com
2) TikTok.com

Read more here: https://www.iflscience.com/tiktok-is-n ... ite-64091

[caltrek]

Nobelist Maria Ressa: Social Media is Corroding U.S. Democracy
by Sara Kehaulani Goo
June 28, 2022

Introduction:

(Axios) The U.S. is "far worse off than you think" when it comes to social media undermining its democracy, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and journalist Maria Ressa told Axios.

Why it matters: Ressa, a Filipino American co-founder of news organization Rappler, says the next wave of elections around the world, including the U.S. midterms in November, provides another opportunity for social media to spread disinformation, divide people against one another and incite violence.

• "Most people, they don't realize they're being manipulated, that these platforms are biased against facts. You don't get facts. It's toxic sludge. Social media encourages anger, hate, conspiracy theories. There's violence," and it's getting worse, Ressa said in an exclusive interview ahead of a Tuesday speech in Honolulu at the East-West Center International Media Conference.

• "Online violence is real-world violence," Ressa says, citing incidents around the world, including the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and recent mass shootings by radicalized killers.

She argues nations need to require accountability for tech firms like Meta, which owns Facebook, and Twitter.

Read more here: https://www.axios.com/2022/06/28/maria ... democracy

[caltrek]

Hate Sites Using the Wider Abortion Argument to Spread Racism and Extremism
June 28, 2022

Introduction:

(EurekAlert) White supremacists are using the debate around women’s reproductive rights to promote racist and extremist agendas, finds a new study released today – following news on Friday that millions of women in the US will lose the constitutional right to abortion.

US white nationalists are heading on to a Neo-Nazi website, ‘Stormfront’, in order to recruit more people to their way of thinking. Whilst online they describe abortions by white women, as ‘murder’ and look to “weaponize” the procedure. However, the extremists reason abortion by non-white women as ‘acceptable’ or even ‘desirable’ because, they argue, the procedure could solve threats to white dominance – including the “urgent need to limit third world populations”.

The findings, published in the peer-reviewed journal Information, Communication & Society, come following a detailed computer-aided analysis of more than 30,000 posts, spanning over two decades on the site.

The study authors warn that their evidence highlights how white extremists “weaponize” abortion arguments to attract recruits, using the political debate as a gateway argument that invites them to dive deeper into white male supremacy ideology.

“Our study shows that science, medicine, and conspiracy theories meet on the dark corners of the internet,” says lead researcher Dr Yotam Ophir at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York, USA.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/957100

[Time_Traveller]

Facebook and Instagram removing posts with mentions of abortion pills

Tue 28 Jun 2022

Facebook and Instagram have begun removing posts related to abortion pills, as posts about such medication spiked following the supreme court’s ruling stripping away constitutional protections for abortions.

Memes and status updates explaining how people can obtain abortion pills in the mail have exploded across social platforms in recent days.

A woman sits holding her phone which is displaying a period tracking app. On the low table before her is a basket full of menstrual products.

General mentions of abortion pills, as well as posts mentioning specific versions such as mifepristone and misoprostol, suddenly spiked on Friday morning across Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and TV broadcasts, according to an analysis by the media intelligence firm Zignal Labs. By Sunday, Zignal had counted more than 250,000 such mentions.

Some of the posts demonstrated how people can legally obtain medication abortion by mail across the US, through abortion telehealth services like Hey Jane, Just the Pill, and Choix in states where such healthcare is legal.

In other posts individual users offered to mail prescriptions to women living in states that criminalized abortion following Friday’s supreme court decision.

Meanwhile, underground abortion pill networks have begun to pop up, said Eric Feinberg, a researcher at the Coalition for a Safer Web. Screenshots provided to the Guardian showed Mifepristone for sale in private Facebook groups with names like “MTP Kit and Other Pills” and “Cleaning and Abortion Pills”.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... ills-posts

Reminds me of the 1920s in America with the Prohibition.

[caltrek]

Elon Musk Officially Tries to Bail on Buying Twitter
by Jacob Kastrenakes
July 8, 2022

Introduction:

(The Verge) Elon Musk is officially trying to pull out of his $44 billion agreement to purchase Twitter. In a filing Friday afternoon, Musk’s team claimed that he was backing out of the deal because Twitter was in “material breach” of their agreement and had made “false and misleading” statements during negotiations.

“For nearly two months, Mr. Musk has sought the data and information necessary to “make an independent assessment of the prevalence of fake or spam accounts on Twitter’s platform,” Musk’s team writes. “Twitter has failed or refused to provide this information.”

Musk has been setting the stage to abandon the deal since just weeks after he signed the agreement, claiming that Twitter released misleading stats about the prevalence of spam bots on its platform. It’s entirely unclear, however, that Musk can legally abandon his agreement simply because he isn’t happy about the presence of spam on Twitter — something he could have investigated prior to signing the deal.

Twitter has gone to great lengths to show compliance with Musk’s requests. In early June, the company opened up “firehose” access to its service so that Musk could receive and analyze every tweet as it’s posted.

Read more here: https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/8/232 ... contract

[weatheriscool]

Hate Sites Using the Wider Abortion Argument to Spread Racism and Extremism
June 28, 2022

Introduction:

(EurekAlert) White supremacists are using the debate around women’s reproductive rights to promote racist and extremist agendas, finds a new study released today – following news on Friday that millions of women in the US will lose the constitutional right to abortion.

US white nationalists are heading on to a Neo-Nazi website, ‘Stormfront’, in order to recruit more people to their way of thinking. Whilst online they describe abortions by white women, as ‘murder’ and look to “weaponize” the procedure. However, the extremists reason abortion by non-white women as ‘acceptable’ or even ‘desirable’ because, they argue, the procedure could solve threats to white dominance – including the “urgent need to limit third world populations”.

The findings, published in the peer-reviewed journal Information, Communication & Society, come following a detailed computer-aided analysis of more than 30,000 posts, spanning over two decades on the site.

The study authors warn that their evidence highlights how white extremists “weaponize” abortion arguments to attract recruits, using the political debate as a gateway argument that invites them to dive deeper into white male supremacy ideology.

“Our study shows that science, medicine, and conspiracy theories meet on the dark corners of the internet,” says lead researcher Dr Yotam Ophir at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York, USA.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/957100

This doesn't make any sense as blacks kill their babies at a far higher percentage then whites and most plannedparenthoods are built in the innercity. It is like they're trying to erase blacks and you'd think racist would be cheering for such.

[weatheriscool]

Elon Musk Officially Tries to Bail on Buying Twitter
by Jacob Kastrenakes
July 8, 2022

Introduction:

(The Verge) Elon Musk is officially trying to pull out of his $44 billion agreement to purchase Twitter. In a filing Friday afternoon, Musk’s team claimed that he was backing out of the deal because Twitter was in “material breach” of their agreement and had made “false and misleading” statements during negotiations.

“For nearly two months, Mr. Musk has sought the data and information necessary to “make an independent assessment of the prevalence of fake or spam accounts on Twitter’s platform,” Musk’s team writes. “Twitter has failed or refused to provide this information.”

Musk has been setting the stage to abandon the deal since just weeks after he signed the agreement, claiming that Twitter released misleading stats about the prevalence of spam bots on its platform. It’s entirely unclear, however, that Musk can legally abandon his agreement simply because he isn’t happy about the presence of spam on Twitter — something he could have investigated prior to signing the deal.

Twitter has gone to great lengths to show compliance with Musk’s requests. In early June, the company opened up “firehose” access to its service so that Musk could receive and analyze every tweet as it’s posted.

Read more here: https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/8/232 ... contract

Fucking coward. I was really hoping that he would be the guy to spread freedom of speech as it should but he pussied out. Well, I guess Elon probably should just focus on rockets and getting us to mars but it would have been nice.

[caltrek]

Trump Removed as Director of His Media Company
July 8, 2022

Introduction:

(AFP via Courthouse News) — Former President Donald Trump was removed as director of his own media company shortly before the firm was subpoenaed, according to a legal filing seen by AFP on Friday.

The document also showed that Trump’s son, Donald Jr., and several others were also removed in June as directors of Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), which includes his social media platform Truth Social.

Truth Social said the story, first reported on Thursday by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, the Florida city where TMTG is based, was “fake news” and insisted Trump still served as the company’s chairman.

TMTG is under investigation by U.S. financial regulators and prosecutors in New York over its use to go public of a shell company called Digital World.

TMTG’s filing to the Florida Department of State to remove Trump as director was dated June 8, just weeks before it and Digital World were served with legal papers ordering directors and other executives to testify.

Read more here: https://www.courthousenews.com/trump- ... company/

[weatheriscool]

Twitter sues Elon Musk, setting stage for epic legal battle
Source: Washington Post

Twitter filed suit Tuesday against Elon Musk to force the billionaire to make good on his promise to purchase the company, issuing the first legal volley in what is expected to be one of most high-profile business trials in recent history.

For months Musk has publicly threatened to walk away from the sale of the influential social network, efforts that culminated last week in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing claiming he was “terminating” the agreement because Twitter hadn’t given him enough information about spam and bots on its service. Now a judge in a specialized business court in Delaware must determine whether the world’s richest man can exit the $44 billion deal, despite a contract binding him to complete the acquisition barring a major change to the company’s business.

Experts said they anticipated months of agonizing legal drama to play out in the Delaware Court of Chancery, a tiny, clubby court that has decided the outcomes of some of the biggest business squabbles in the U.S. The court has just seven judges — one chancellor and six vice chancellors — who have enormous discretion to force companies to take specific actions.

The process will likely submit Twitter to a grueling level of public scrutiny, forcing the platform to open up its books and expose internal deliberations in ways that might further damage its stock price and reputation, already-battered from the market downturn and months of sparring with Musk.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technolo ... k-lawsuit/

[Vakanai]

Twitter sues Elon Musk, setting stage for epic legal battle
Source: Washington Post

Twitter filed suit Tuesday against Elon Musk to force the billionaire to make good on his promise to purchase the company, issuing the first legal volley in what is expected to be one of most high-profile business trials in recent history.

For months Musk has publicly threatened to walk away from the sale of the influential social network, efforts that culminated last week in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing claiming he was “terminating” the agreement because Twitter hadn’t given him enough information about spam and bots on its service. Now a judge in a specialized business court in Delaware must determine whether the world’s richest man can exit the $44 billion deal, despite a contract binding him to complete the acquisition barring a major change to the company’s business.

Experts said they anticipated months of agonizing legal drama to play out in the Delaware Court of Chancery, a tiny, clubby court that has decided the outcomes of some of the biggest business squabbles in the U.S. The court has just seven judges — one chancellor and six vice chancellors — who have enormous discretion to force companies to take specific actions.

The process will likely submit Twitter to a grueling level of public scrutiny, forcing the platform to open up its books and expose internal deliberations in ways that might further damage its stock price and reputation, already-battered from the market downturn and months of sparring with Musk.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technolo ... k-lawsuit/

He'll be fine - the courts are largely conservative these days, and as much as the conservatives hate Elon they probably hate Twitter banning Trump more.