The IT Nerd

CBC News is reporting that the Canadian Government has been told by the agency Cossette” to pause advertising on Twitter:

Cossette, which is the government’s “media agency of record,” issued guidance Friday to “pause activity immediately and monitor the situation over the weekend” due to “unknown continuity plans for moderation” and a “heightened risk of brand safety,” according to an internal document seen by CBC News.

Cossette helps with “media planning and strategizing, media buying, ad serving and trafficking, ad verification, reporting and reconciliation services, to support a variety of government initiatives.” It works with numerous government agencies and departments.

I pinged a couple of clients of mine who are in the advertising space and asked them how common this sort of guidance it is. Their answer was that it’s not all that common. In fact they also said that it is also surprising that this guidance has been made public. If you’re Twitter generally or Elon Musk specifically, this has to get your attention as your message of “nothing to see here isn’t working. Maybe he should take this as a big hint that his behaviour and how he manages Twitter needs to change. Otherwise he’s going to be in big trouble. Though I suspect that he’s going to take a different path. As in throw a temper tantrum on Twitter. Thus I am waiting for him to rage Tweet at any time.

Such is the world that we currently live in.

Over the last few days, a number of verified Twitter accounts have taken shots at Elon Musk because his take over of Twitter isn’t exactly popular. These accounts going to the lengths of changing their account names and profile pictures to look like Elon Musk’s Twitter account. Here’s a couple of examples:

Now the account of Chris Wallcraft got suspended by Musk Twitter. But clearly this is getting to Musk. And as a result he posted this late on Sunday:

While I admit that what these people are doing violate Twitter’s terms of service, you have to ask what happened to free speech Elon? Is your skin so thin that you can’t take a joke. Especially when you are looking like a big joke in terms of how you’re running Twitter?

What quickly followed was the hypocrisy of this pronouncement by Musk being pointed out:

And it also points out what’s wrong with his Twitter Blue pipe dream:

This is another example of Musk being unable to deal with critics in an adult manner. I cited an example in this post where he’s blocked people who question him in ways that he doesn’t like. The thing is that if he thinks that this will stop people from taking shots at him, it won’t. It will not only encourage more of this, they will also change their tactics. And then what are you going to do Elon?

Oh wait, it’s already happening. Via a reader of this blog:

That fits the pronouncement that Musk put out in terms of what is allowed. Until he moves the goalposts because he doesn’t like how that’s working, or not working for him. Of course you can always just meme the guy instead:

Is he going to ban any meme that he doesn’t like? And then there’s this:

A simple search finds that there’s lots of these around. Is he going to ban anyone and everyone?

What we’re seeing is Elon melt down in real time on Twitter as it’s becoming increasingly clear to anyone watching that Musk is way over his head and doesn’t know what to do and is likely reconsidering his life choices. That on top of the fact that he’s incredibly thin skinned.

Sucks to be Elon Musk right now.

Proving that Elon Musk is in full panic mode which is causing his decision making to be suspect at best, there’s now this story that Twitter is asking laid off employees to return to work:

The company has already asked some Tweeps to return, according to posts on the Blind app and Insider sources, including one who also shared a screenshot of confirmation from a Twitter employee.

A person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named to protect others’ identities, told Insider that five employees had been invited back: “These individuals are essential for Twitter’s ecosystem to function. Goons quickly realized and are asking them back.”

One of the sources said that a worker who Twitter asked to return rejected the offer because they felt “used, and think they will be fired again soon.”

Casey Newton, a contributing editor for The Verge and the founder of the tech-and-democracy focused Platformer newsletter, tweeted late Saturday that multiple sources had told him that Twitter has contacted some former employees and asked them to return. 

Well, that’s a #fail by Elon as clearly he didn’t use any sort of logical method to determine who to downsize. If I am, or was a Twitter employee, Elon would have to offer me a whole lot of cash above and beyond my severance package to return to Twitter. And given how “well” this is going for Elon, I can see that actually happening because Elon is desperate. On top of now looking like he’s really over his head with this purchase of Twitter.

Expect more of this type of story to drop in the coming days as Twitter under Elon is clearly a train wreck next to a dumpster fire.

So when I posted this story about why my future on Twitter was (and still is for the record) uncertain because of Elon Musk, I said this about his Twitter Blue scheme:

But that’s a half baked idea that is facing a large amount of backlash. Largely because part of this scheme allows anyone to be verified. As in literally anyone. The problem with that is that if everyone is verified, then nobody is verified. Plus it’s not as if some rouge nation who wants to use social media to influence elections and politics in another country won’t spend some cash to get a bunch of bots onto Twitter Blue and amplify their message that way. 

And Musk is clearly too desperate to make as much money as quickly as possible to see that.

Well, maybe the pressure is starting to get to him as this report says that Twitter Blue is now being delayed:

Twitter’s pushing back the launch of its new Blue subscription with verification until after this week’s midterm elections, according to a report from The New York Times. According to an internal memo viewed by the outlet, a manager working on the project said they’ve “made the decision to move the launch of this release to Nov. 9, after the election.”

To be frank, this really doesn’t address how half baked, half a**ed, not at all thought through that this scheme this is. What Musk really should be doing is addressing the multitude of concerns that surround this scheme as that may allow him to launch something that actually makes sense and doesn’t turn the platform into  the hellscape that he claims doesn’t want it to be. But he won’t do that as he is purely focused on trying to get Twitter to make a much money as possible as quickly as possible.

#Fail Elon.

I joined Twitter in 2013 to amplify the reach of my blog. And to be frank, I have been able to do with a decent degree of success. I’ve met and interacted with people that I might not have if I wasn’t on Twitter. Plus I got the attention of some brands who I got to chance to work with over the years which helped to increase the visibility of this blog.

But along the way, Twitter started to become toxic. And eventually Twitter became very toxic. I found myself having to block people and report people for using racial slurs towards me. Because at some point over the years, people have found it perfectly fine to degrade, bully, and intimidate people online. Something that I am pretty sure that 98% of them would not do in real life. Still, I continued on with Twitter.

Now we have Elon Musk taking over Twitter. And his desire to make Twitter a town square where people can say and do what ever they want with few if any restrictions is downright frightening. I can see a scenario where every racist, sexist and homophobe among other low life scumbags appearing and making Twitter even more toxic than it already is. Sure Musk is saying that he’ll have a moderation council to make the call in terms of someone crossing the line. And that council will have “diverse viewpoints”. But I really don’t see that being effective, or even happening at all. Because Elon Musk isn’t going to turn Twitter into a town square because he has two big issues right now that need immediate attention. His first goal is making sure that advertisers, which is Twitter’s primary source of income, don’t flee the platform en masse. Which is apparently happening as I type this. The second is to figure out how to pay back the massive amount of money that he borrowed to buy Twitter. Yes he’s slashing jobs. But that’s only going to get him so far. And yes he wants to revamp Twitter Blue to be $8 a month and include verification as part of the deal. But that’s a half baked idea that is facing a large amount of backlash. Largely because part of this scheme allows anyone to be verified. As in literally anyone. The problem with that is that if everyone is verified, then nobody is verified. Plus it’s not as if some rouge nation who wants to use social media to influence elections and politics in another country won’t spend some cash to get a bunch of bots onto Twitter Blue and amplify their message that way.

And Musk is clearly too desperate to make as much money as quickly as possible to see that.

The fact is, that anything and everything he does is being driven by the fact that he wanted to buy Twitter, then tried to get out of buying Twitter, and then was basically forced to do so when it was clear that Twitter who sued him for trying to back out of the deal was going to win that lawsuit. Thus leaving him wondering what is he going to do having massively overpaid for Twitter with money he doesn’t have.

Cue the panic.

And that panic will affect every Twitter user in a negative way. Everyone from the woman who follows Oprah, someone like me who is simply trying to amplify my voice, to politicians or celebrities, and the like. And while he is in full panic mode and making random decisions because of that, Twitter is only going to take a steep decent into being the hellscape that he claims doesn’t want it to be.

And stuff like this from Musk doesn’t help the situation:

And why does Musk do stuff like this when people ask him legitimate questions?:

Then there’s situations like this one which are becoming increasingly common since Musk took over:

Ditto for revelations like this post Musk’s massive layoffs:

There’s also news that Twitter’s Trust And Safety team has been downsized by 15% ahead of the US mid-term elections. I mean, what could possible go wrong in terms of fighting misinformation during a major election in the US when Musk does that?

In other words, Elon Musk’s panic driven decision making will kill Twitter. Assuming that his erratic and bizarre behaviour doesn’t kill it first. Because what you see above is only a taste of things to come with Musk at the helm of Twitter on what seems to be a suicide mission. Which means that I need to be someplace else. Now it is entirely possible that Musk will pull some sort of rabbit out of the hat and turn Twitter into an ATM machine, and also make it less toxic than it is at present. But to be completely frank, I don’t see either of those things happening under Musk’s leadership.

Now where I will be going after I make what seems to be at this point the inevitable decision to leave Twitter, I have no clue at the moment. But I am considering my options. And you’ll be among the first to find out when I make my decision as to where on social media I go to. The bottom line is that Twitter was in trouble and a toxic environment before Elon Musk. But he’s hasn’t got the capability to fix it, which means that Elon Musk will be the one who writes Twitter’s epitaph. Which is bad news for everyone on Twitter.

This is going to be an interesting day. And not in a good way.

So it appears that the layoffs have begun at Twitter. And here’s the rather brutal details:

“It’s going East to West,” one person said. People working for Twitter in London were first to find out, then New York, then people working remotely in the Midwest. California, Twitter’s biggest hub, came last, multiple employees said.

“My entire team is gone,” one person affected by the layoffs in New York said. They worked on a team of 30-plus people. Another person estimated that 90% of their team was cut.

Meanwhile, Musk ignored the layoffs publicly, tweeting “Why is small talk even legal” as his employees were being let go. 

By closer to 11 pm PT, more than 1,000 people at Twitter had lost their jobs, according to employees and messages seen by Insider. The cuts went across the company, from Singapore to the U.K. to Fan Francisco, hitting every department. Content moderation and health, advertising, data storage, product, legal, program management, all were hit with layoffs. Cuts were deep in most areas, but some were so drastic one person said they “don’t know how we keep things going in some areas.” 

Hundreds of Twitter workers began posting to Twitter about losing their jobs, too. Many wrote of gratitude for the years they spent working at the platform and for their colleagues. “Best job I ever had,” one person said. “So it ends,” another wrote.

Musk may be ignoring the carnage that he’s causing, but he can’t ignore this lawsuit that’s been filed that will make his life miserable:

The suit filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco names five current or former workers as plaintiffs, one of whom was told he was terminated effective Tuesday, according to the lawsuit. It names Twitter as the defendant.

Three other staff members have been locked out of their Twitter accounts as of Thursday with no formal notice of a layoff, which they interpret to mean they will lose their jobs, according to the lawsuit.

“Twitter is now engaged in conducting mass layoffs without providing the required notice under the federal WARN Act,” the lawsuit says, referring to the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act that requires 60-day notice for certain plant closings or mass layoffs.

As it typical for Musk, he didn’t think these layoffs through and now he’s likely to get owned in court. But I am a computer nerd, not a lawyer. I say that because the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act isn’t something that he can ignore. But knowing how he thinks, he will try. And there are similar laws in states including California where Twitter has its HQ. Thus I can see more lawsuits like this coming. Especially in California who I am pretty sure aren’t fans of Musk after he bashed them over taxes and regulation and moved Tesla’s HQ to Texas as a result. It might be payback time for that state.

Musk may have just made life a lot more complicated for himself. And a lot of people will enjoy seeing his squirm.