The IT Nerd

I have seen a lot of things on Twitter. Some of which really made me wonder what the person who posted the Tweet was thinking. But this one has got to be the one that makes my head explode. Let me get to the Tweet that made me feel this way:

What does that mean. Well if I do a rough translation, it means the following: “you are in their direct messages” on social media, means to speak to someone online romantically, followed by the phrase “I am…”, which usually ends with a self-aggrandising comparison. In basic terms, it means you have something, but I have something better.

In this case, this Tweet is insanely offensive as it seems to sexualize women to a massive degree. And it blows my mind that any major corporation like Proctor and Gamble who owns Tampax would have a social media manager who would sign off on this posting this Tweet.

If that’s not bad enough, they doubled down on this Tweet:

I have to say that this is creepy and insulting. I truly do not understand what this company is thinking and why they would ever think that this is a good idea. I have tried to look around for an explanation or a response from Proctor and Gamble, but I don’t see one. But I would very much like to see one as women around the world deserve an explanation for this, and what Proctor and Gamble is going to do to ensure that they are more sensitive to the markets that they serve.

The world is waiting.

If you decided that staying at Twitter was the right decision as you wanted to prove that you were “hardcore”, you might be rethinking your life choices. The Verge is reporting that Elon wants weekly reports from every Twitter employee now:

Talk about micro management. While I am always willing to be surprised, I would shocked if this level of micro management has a positive effect on Twitter. I also would be surprised if this doesn’t send more employees headed to the exits.

On top of this, Musk is cutting perks at Twitter based on this report from The Verge:

Yeah, that’s going to help his employee retention efforts. #Sarcasm

By the way, what’s with the use of the word “Hardcore!” and “More Hardcore!” That just sounds dumb. It’s almost as if Musk is trying to turn the word “hardcore” into a rallying cry. The thing is, that people will only rally around you as a leader if they respect you. And based on the last few weeks of what the world has seen at Twitter, there’s nothing that one can respect about Elon Musk. Thus this is likely going to be a #Fail for Elon.

You might remember that the first thing that Elon Musk wanted to do was roll out Twitter Blue with a verification checkmark. Well, that turned into a train wreck next to a dumpster fire very quickly. And Elon was forced to pull it. Now according to The Verge, it may not return on the 29th of November:

Elon Musk told Twitter employees on Monday that the company won’t relaunch its paid verification subscription, Twitter Blue, until “we’re confident about significant impersonations not happening,” according to a recording of his remarks obtained by The Verge.

Musk said last week that his $8 per month Blue subscription would be made available again on November 29th. But in the meeting with employees, he said the timing of the launch was unclear: “We might launch it next week. We might not. But we’re not going to launch until there’s high confidence in protecting against those significant impersonations.”

This was confirmed later in a Tweet:

I am guessing that he took a beating from a number of advertisers who were impersonated on the platform. Thus if he relaunches this, he needs to be 1000% sure that nothing bad will happen or he is pretty much screwed. The reason being is that while he wants to shift Twitter income away from advertising as being the primary source of cash, he needs that advertising revenue in the short to medium term unless he wants to fund Twitter by selling Tesla stock like he recently did.

Another tidbit that is worth mentioning from this Verge article is this:

He also told employees that Twitter was done with layoffs and hiring again, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by The Verge.

Maybe that’s because his power play of wanting “hardcore” employees backfired in such a spectacular manner. The question is if anyone would want to work for this guy given what’s gone on these past few weeks? And if Musk is thinking that he can get former Twitter employees to come back, he may want to think twice. Apparently a lot of firms want ex-Twitter staff. Perhaps he should have thought about that before swinging the axe.

Elon Musk is a guy who has 99 problems at the moment when it comes to Twitter. Well, that count could increment with a significant problem next week via a summons from the EU to explain himself and what he’s doing with Twitter:

The world’s richest man who recently bought the social media company is set to receive an invitation to come to the European Parliament in Brussels and explain himself, two Parliament officials told POLITICO. 

European Parliament President Roberta Metsola briefed top EU lawmakers in a closed-door meeting Thursday that she will invite Musk soon. The move comes at the request of lawmakers from the Liberal group Renew, a spokesperson for the group said. 

And:

“There are sound reasons to suggest that the standards applied by Twitter until now, may be weakened, at a time when the fight against election interference, misinformation and hate speech is more important than ever,” wrote Liberal lawmaker Dita Charanzová (Czech) and Sophie in ‘t Veld (Dutch) in a letter to Metsola on November 8. 

Lawmakers want Musk to show up in Brussels in person to hear about his plans and remind him of European laws governing technology.

Knowing him, he will try to brush this off. Or drop some of his questionable memes and act like this is no big deal. But ignoring the EU or flipping them off is something you do at your own peril. Even though the EU can’t directly call him to testify, he’d be smart to show up if he was called. Because if they get mad at him and pass some sort of legislation to govern the behaviour at Twitter, he’s not going to be a happy camper. Besides that, the EU has some of the strongest privacy laws on the planet. Thus if he’s smart, he’d make sure he’s on the right side of that.

This will be interesting to watch. Get your popcorn ready.

Elon Musk might think that “activists” are bad and causing advertisers to bolt from the platform. But those “activists” are about to really crank up the pressure on him and Twitter. Reuters has the details:

The groups in the Stop Toxic Twitter coalition complained that Musk had vowed to advertisers that Twitter would take a considered approach to reinstating banned accounts and convene a new content moderation council. No such council has been created as of Monday.

“It was a real breach,” Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters, a left-leaning media watchdog that is part of the coalition, said on Monday. He said Musk “was lying from the beginning.”

“In less than three weeks Musk has gone back on every promise he made to civil-rights leaders and advertisers,” said Jessica Gonzalez, co-chief executive of media and democracy group Free Press, which is also part of the Twitter coalition, in a press release.

It doesn’t surprise me that Musk might have lied as he doesn’t seem like someone who can be trusted. And from what I have observed over the years, most of the time he doesn’t seem to care about his ability to keep his word. But here’s why that might come back to bite him this time around:

Of Twitter’s top 100 advertisers by total spending this year, 51 have paused ads according to private conversations with the coalition, public statements or spending data provided by ad measurement firm Pathmatics, Carusone said.

The coalition is asking brands that have not publicized their Twitter pause to issue public statements and help generate pressure on the other 49 advertisers that have taken no action, he said.

“You need to take a stand and draw the line,” Carusone said. “It’s important for big spenders to say they have stopped.”

The coalition will consider naming the companies later this week if they have not issued a public statement about pausing ads, he added.

Being named and shamed is likely going to be a great motivator for the 49 companies in question to not be on the wrong side of this issue. And it seems to be having an effect:

The names atop the list of Twitter’s top advertisers have shifted from the week before Musk closed his deal to acquire the company. Major brands HBO and Mondelez were Twitter’s top two advertisers in the week before the acquisition, according to data from Pathmatics. But between Nov. 10 and Nov. 16, after Musk laid off half of Twitter’s staff, the top two largest advertisers were FinanceBuzz.io, a personal finance website and Trendytowns, an ecommerce site based in Singapore.

Pathmatics data showed that the top 100 advertisers between Nov. 10 to Nov. 16 spent an estimated $23.6 million on Twitter, down from $24. 2 million spent between Oct. 16 to Oct. 22 before Musk became Twitter’s owner.

Keep in mind that the majority of Twitter’s revenue comes from advertising. And if you have “A” tier advertisers, you can charge more for advertising. But it looks like he hasn’t got “A” tier advertisers at the moment based on the above. So Twitter isn’t making as much money. Which means that this play by these groups has a very high chance of success. Which means that Elon should be paying attention to this. Or if he is smart, which he’s proven not to be smart given his recent track record, he would find a way to make nice with these people. But I don’t see that happening. And he’s going to have a major problem as a result.

I guess that Elon Musk isn’t afraid of what his mass layoffs and resignations are doing to his ability to run Twitter. I say that because there is news of more layoffs at Twitter:

Looking around briefly, I saw this about the layoffs:

Some of those who were fired started to receive notice on Sunday, according to two people familiar with the matter, though it’s unclear how many will be impacted in the current round. Platformer earlier reported the news.

Twitter’s sales organization held an all-hands meeting on Sunday with Musk and the new head of sales, Chris Riedy, two people said. Many employees showed up expecting some announcement about cuts, after Bloomberg reported Saturday that more were coming. Instead, Musk used the time to talk about ongoing updates, including his decision to reinstate the account of former US President Donald Trump, one of the people said. He also explained that the company needed to make ads more targeted to particular users, according to another person familiar with the remarks. There was no mention of layoffs during the meeting. 

Employees who were cut received notice via emails entitled: “Your Role at Twitter.”

“After further review of our workforce, we have identified roles within our organizational structure that are no longer necessary,” the note reads, according to a copy seen by Bloomberg. “Today is your last working day at the company.” The note, which goes on to explain that details on severance and returning company property is coming later, is signed, “Twitter.”

I have two theories about this:

• Tesla is known for having NO marketing budget. Thus Elon is reorienting Twitter around the model of his other companies. Though if the majority of your revenue is based around advertising as is the case with Twitter, I am not certain this move will work.
• This may imply that perhaps there’s isn’t a need for sales types at Twitter as advertisers flee the platform. It’s hard to see how Musk would view that as a good thing as that’s a direct hit to Twitter’s income. But Elon has his own “unique” view of the universe.

I also looked for evidence of engineers being offered their jobs back, but I couldn’t find any. But it would not shock me as someone has to run Twitter and Elon clearly can’t do it alone.

Speaking of Elon, he’s put out two Tweets that are truly in WTF country with one bordering on not safe for work country. I’ll start with that one as it involves Donald Trump’s reinstatement on the platform:

I have no words for this. Neither do I have words for this one related to CBS News suspending posts on Twitter:

I really don’t get it. You’d think with everything that is surrounding Twitter at the moment, you would think he’d have better things to do than to post some extremely questionable memes that make people wonder about where his head is at. But clearly not. And that may come back to bite him sooner than he thinks.

UPDATE: Musk is clearly trolling CBS News as they have restarted posting to Twitter after saying that they were putting a pause on using the platform.