The IT Nerd

The hits to Elon Musk and Twitter keeps coming. The latest hit is being reported by The Verge and it’s a big hit:

Omnicom, one of the world’s biggest ad firms, representing brands like McDonald’s, Apple, and PepsiCo, is recommending clients pause spending on Twitter, according to an internal memo obtained by The Verge.

Omnicom Media Group is recommending clients “pause activity on Twitter in the short term,” according to a note titled “Twitter – Continued Brand Safety Concerns.” The memo cites recent events in the last few days that have “potential serious implications” for brands running ads on the platform.

The memo cites the deep layoffs of Twitter trust and safety teams, the resignations of high-profile executives, and the slew of “verified” impersonation accounts as being key issues for advertisers. There is “evidence that the risk to our clients’ brand safety has risen sharply to a level most would find unacceptable,” the memo reads. “We recommend pausing activity on Twitter in the short term until the platform can prove it has reintroduced safeguards to an acceptable level and has regained control of its environment.”

The memo goes on to say that Omnicom has “formally requested that Twitter assure us that these issues will not impact compliant processes, operations, products, brand safety and client investment on the platform in any way” but that “seemingly due to the lack of senior leadership now in these areas, Twitter has not been able to give those assurances.”

I have said this for a while. Elon needs to assure advertisers that Twitter is a safe place for brands to be on. Currently that isn’t the case and Musk hasn’t done nearly enough to convince advertisers otherwise. That means that since Twitter is highly dependent on advertising, an ad agency like Omnicom can effectively kill Twitter if their clients pull out of advertising on Twitter. Thus it’s now Elon Musk’s Rubicon moment. He has one shot at doing something meaningful to save Twitter and avoid costing himself $44 billion. If he succeeds at dealing with Omnicom’s concerns, he has a lifeline. If he doesn’t succeed at dealing with Omnicom’s concerns, Twitter is dead. It’s that simple.

Your move Elon.

It seems that Elon Musk finally figured out that Twitter Blue has become a train wreck next to a dumpster fire that he could not fix. I say that because The Verge is reporting that Twitter Blue appears to have been deep sixed:

Twitter users are reporting that the option to sign up for the company’s new $7.99 subscription service, Twitter Blue, has disappeared from the platform’s iOS app just days after the service launched.

You could previously subscribe to Twitter Blue from the sidebar in the iOS app (the service has yet to launch for Android users), but users this morning reported that the option has disappeared. For those for whom the link is still available, trying to sign up only returns an error message. “Thank you for your interest!” it reads. “Twitter Blue will be available in your country in the future. Please check back later.”

I can confirm that the option is gone for me as well. And reverse engineering expert Jane Manchun Wong seems to have further proof:

So clearly this has been pulled by Twitter and it’s not an accident or an outage.

If it wasn’t clear before, it should be clear now. Elon Musk has no clue what he’s doing. He’s trying random stuff hoping to hit a home run, and he’s ignoring the people around him who are trying to give him advice. Assuming that they have the courage to speak truth to power. As a result you’re seeing stuff like this Twitter Blue train wreck next to a dumpster fire. And since this is happening in public, it is likely sending advertisers to the exits along with the money that Twitter needs to survive. That’s creating a death spiral that will be hard to escape. I say that because while some predict that Twitter will be sold by Elon Musk so that he can find some way to save face and recoup the money he’s spent on it. I seriously doubt that Twitter will survive that long because Musk is doing everything he possibly can to kill the platform.

Twitter is literally imploding in front of us. The latest person to go is this guy Yoel Roth as per this Tweet sent in by a reader:

This is bad. I am guessing that he’s had to walk the plank so to speak for the Twitter Blue gong show from yesterday….. More on that in a moment…… But it’s actually worse than that. According to the Washington Post, this has gotten the attention of the FTC:

The privacy departures prompted a rare warning from the Federal Trade Commission, which has emerged as the government’s top Silicon Valley watchdog. It marked the second time in two days that a federal official has expressed concern about the chaotic developments at the company, coming less than 24 hours after President Biden said Musk’s relationships with other countries deserved scrutiny. 

The agency said that it was “tracking the developments at Twitter with deep concern” and that it was prepared to take action to ensure the company was complying with a settlement known as a consent order, which requires Twitter to comply with certain privacy and security requirements because of allegations of past data misuse. Three of the resignations Thursday were by members of a data governance committee established in the FTC deal, according to a former employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters. 

Twitter was first put under a consent order in 2011, and it agreed to a new order earlier this year. If the FTC finds Twitter is not complying with that order, it could fine the company hundreds of millions of dollars, potentially damaging the company’s already precarious financial state.

“No CEO or company is above the law, and companies must follow our consent decrees,” said Douglas Farrar, the FTC’s director of public affairs. “Our revised consent order gives us new tools to ensure compliance, and we are prepared to use them.”

This validates this story from earlier today were I said that Musk messes with FTC at his own risk.

Oh, by the way, this is the list of people who have left the company today:

This is really bad. In my opinion, this literally means that Twitter is on life support as far as I am concerned. Because you literally cannot have this much talent leave and it not deeply hurt Twitter. Plus it also may mean that Musk is doing stuff that make people say “I don’t want to go to jail or lose my career over this. I’m outta here!” And remember, for every person that you hear about who has quits Twitter, there’s likely five more or ten more that you don’t. That’s not sustainable for Twitter.

But it is actually worse than that. Remember just yesterday people were impersonating major brands and people via Twitter Blue? Well, the fallout for Twitter is really starting to hit:

Thirty minutes later the REAL Eli Lilly Twitter account Tweeted this:

The problem with this if you’re Musk is that companies will not be on Twitter if the platform does nothing to protect the integrity of their brands. And at present Musk is doing nothing on that front. And advertisers are watching stuff like this situation with Eli Lilly and making their decisions accordingly. Until he changes course and proves he’s capable of providing value to advertisers on Twitter, he’s going to see his ad revenue shrink until it is zero. And then what does he do?

Let’s face it, everything that Musk has done publicly so far to Twitter seems like exactly what I’d do if I wanted to ensure the entire platform ran straight into the ground, and fast. His actions and words make it really hard to see how this isn’t actually his plan. Why he would have this plan I have no idea. But the only other reason for this that I can see is that Musk is incompetent and a horrible businessman. Which I suppose is possible too.

You might want to go sign up for that Mastodon account now. I suspect that you’re going to need it.

It took Elon Musk a while, but he’s finally emailed the staff of Twitter on Wednesday. And the news that he shared was not good. The Verge has the details:

In the email sent to Twitter staff late Wednesday evening and obtained by The Verge, Musk warned that a weaker economic environment in the US would mean difficulties for the company’s ads business. “Frankly, the economic picture ahead is dire, especially for a company like ours that is so dependent on advertising in a challenging economic climate,” he wrote. “Moreover, 70% of our advertising is brand, rather than specific performance, which makes us doubly vulnerable!”

Musk said the company’s “top priority” is Twitter Blue, its revamped $8 a month subscription that adds a verified check mark to the user’s profile and unlocks additional features. “Without significant subscription revenue, there is a good chance Twitter will not survive the upcoming economic downturn,” he wrote. “We need roughly half of our revenue to be subscription.”

In a one-sentence follow-up email sent shortly after, simply titled “Top Priority,” Musk said, “Over the next few days, the absolute top priority is finding and suspending any verified bots/trolls/spam.”

He also told employees that, starting November 10th, they are expected to be in the office for a minimum of 40 hours a week and that he would only approve remote work on a case-by-case basis. “Obviously, if you are physically unable to travel to an office or have a critical personal obligation, then your absence is understandable,” he wrote.

I’m going to call it now. None of this is going to go over well with the remaining staff that are left at Twitter. In fact, this will likely send many to the exits. Assuming that everything else that is going on with Twitter hasn’t already sent the remaining staff to the exits. And what kills me about this email is that he’s taken two weeks or so to click send on it. If you’re looking to retain talent, communicating to employees should be job number one. But that’s clearly not how Musk rolls. And that will come back to haunt him.

All I have to say at this point is that anyone left in Twitter should assume the worst and make plans to be working someplace else when it happens. Because it will happen.

A reader pointed me to this story on The Verge where it illustrates that the chaos within Twitter is worse than what we think it is. Let’s start with this:

Twitter’s privacy and security team is in turmoil after Elon Musk’s changes to the service bypassed the company’s standard data governance processes. The company’s chief privacy officer Damien Kieran, chief information security officer Lea Kissner, and chief compliance officer Marianne Fogarty have all resigned, according to two sources and an internal message seen by The Verge. Kissner confirmed their departure in a tweet.

In a note posted to Twitter’s Slack and viewable to all staff, an attorney on the company’s privacy team wrote that “Elon has shown that his only priority with Twitter users is how to monetize them. I do not believe he cares about the human rights activists. the dissidents, our users in un-monetizable regions, and all the other users who have made Twitter the global town square you have all spent so long building, and we all love.”

Well, I’ve been saying that for a while now. Thus it’s not a shock that this sentiment is starting to become more and more visible in the public sphere. But that’s not the worst of it. This is:

One of the main issues appears to be the FTC settlement Twitter agreed to in May after getting caught using personal user info to target ads. If Twitter doesn’t comply with that agreement, the FTC can issue fines reaching into the billions of dollars, according to the note. The note goes on to say that the writer has “heard Alex Spiro (current head of Legal) say that Elon is willing to take on a huge amount of risk in relation to this company and its users, because ‘Elon puts rockets into space, he’s not afraid of the FTC.’”

Musk’s new legal department is also apparently asking engineers to “self-certify” compliance with FTC rules and other privacy laws. “I anticipate that all of you will de pressured by management into pushing out changes that will likely lead to major incidents,” the lawyer wrote in the message to colleagues, which you can read below.

Here’s part of the internal Slack message sent by a leader on Twitter’s legal team:

Over the last two weeks. Elon has shown that he cares only about recouping the losses he’s incurring as a result of failing to get out of his binding obligation to buy Twitter. He chose to enter into that agreement! All of us are being put through this as a result of the choices he made. 

Elon has shown that his only priority with Twitter users is how to monetize them. I do not believe he cares about the human rights activists. the dissidents, our users in un-monetizable regions, and all the other users who have made Twitter the global town square you have all spent so long building, and we all love.

I have heard Alex Spiro (current head of Legal) say that Elon is willing to take on a huge amount of risk in relation to this company and its users, because “Elon puts rockets into space, he’s not afraid of the FTC.” I have heard another leader in the Legal department say that because of the tight SLA’s (of two weeks?!) between product inception > launch, Legal will “have to shift the burden to engineers” to self-certify compliance with FTC requirements and other laws. This will put huge amount of personal, professional and legal risk onto engineers: I anticipate that all of you will de pressured by management into pushing out changes that will likely lead to major incidents. 

All of this is extremely dangerous for our users. Also, given that the FTC can (and will!) fine Twitter BILLIONS of dollars pursuant to the FTC Consent Order, extremely detrimental to Twitter’s longevity as a platform. Our users deserve so much better than this.

If you feel uncomfortable about anything you’re being asked to do, you can call Twitter’s Ethics Hotline at (800) 275-4843 or submit a report at ethicshelpline.twitter.com. Please also note the FTC’s number is: 1-877-FTC-HELP. You may also remember that Mudge reached out to httos://whistlebloweraid.org

I wish you all luck. It’s been such an honor to work with all of you. And I’ll be taking a day of PTO today.

To be frank, this is far worse that I imagined as taking on the FTC is not a good idea as they have a great track record of winning against people who think that they are above the law. Musk thinks he’s above the law and will likely find out the hard way that he’s not. In the meantime Twitter users will lose and the platform will burn to the ground. And the person holding the matches and the the can of gas will be Elon Musk.