Tech
Elon Musk Begins Purging Twitter of Up to 3500 Employees
Billionaire Elon Musk began purging Twitter of its abundance of managers and woke employees on Friday.
Elon Musk’s overhaul of Twitter has sparked condemnation from leftist progressives and Democrats who say they are worried over the platform’s ability to combat disinformation just days before the US midterm elections.
Musk’s purge of Twitter has led to legal action from the left. At least one lawsuit was filed in San Francisco on Thursday, saying that Twitter violated federal law by failing to provide needed notice to sacked employees.
Musk informed employees through email that they would find out if they had been laid off on Friday.
His email did not specify how many approximately 7,500 employees would be let go.
Musk did neither confirm nor correct investor Ron Baron, who asked how much money he would save if he “fired half of Twitter” at a conference in New York on Friday.
Musk responded by discussing Twitter’s cost and income issues, blaming activists within Twitter who persuaded large corporations to stop advertising on the platform.
Musk hasn’t said anything about the Twitter layoffs.
Activist groups, including employees, have been successful in causing a decline in Twitter advertising revenue. We’ve done everything we can to please them, but nothing has worked,” Musk said.
He went on to say that the decline in advertising was expected as many of the advertisers were aligned with EGS, Environmental, social, and corporate governance.
When activist employees lost access to their work accounts hours earlier, they realized they would soon be fired.
These employees and others took to the platform using the hashtag #OneTeam to send messages of solidarity.
The memo to employees stated that job cuts were “essential to ensure the company’s success moving forward.”
No other social media network comes close to Twitter in terms of keeping people informed by public agencies and other key service providers – electoral boards, police departments, utilities, schools, and news sources.
Before Musk’s takeover of Twitter, conservatives accused the social media site of being biased against conservative viewpoints. They were excited by the idea of fair moderation under Musk, who has previously criticized Twitter’s leftist moderation.
Republican, Senator Marsha Blackburn, stated on Friday, “I am hopeful that Elon Musk will assist in reining in Big Tech’s history of silencing users who have a different viewpoint than the left.”
The purge of Spam Bots
Musk has stated that Twitter’s mechanism for ranking tweets should be made public, and he has highlighted user-friendly changes to the service, such as the addition of an edit button and the defeat of “spam bots” that send massive numbers of undesired tweets.
“Free expression is the foundation of a functional democracy,” he stated Monday. “I hope that even my harshest detractors remain on Twitter since that is what free expression entails,” he added.
However, many on the left fear Musk’s layoffs will devastate the social media platform and worry about the possible rise of abuse on the platform. Despite Musk’s saying Twitter would not become a “free-for-all hellscape” under his leadership.
Several employees who tweeted about their job losses claimed that Twitter also eliminated their entire teams, including one devoted to human rights and global conflicts.
Another group for testing Twitter’s algorithms for bias in how tweets are amplified and an engineering team dedicated to making the social platform more accessible to people with disabilities.
Eddie Perez, a former Twitter civic integrity team manager who resigned in September, expressed concern that the layoffs close to the midterm elections could allow disinformation to “spread like wildfire” during the post-election vote-counting phase in particular.
“I have a hard time believing that doesn’t have a meaningful influence on their capacity to handle the quantity of disinformation out there,” he said, adding that there may not be enough personnel to combat it.
Progressive Attack Musk and Twitter
According to Perez, a board member of the nonpartisan election integrity NGO OSET Institute, the post-election period is especially dangerous because “some candidates may refuse to concede and some may cite election anomalies, which is likely to start a fresh cycle of falsehoods.”
However, a Twitter insider says Perez’s concerns are somewhat overinflated, and his comments are stereotypical of the progressive activism that permeated the social media platform.
Since Musk took over as CEO, Twitter staff have been anticipating layoffs. On his first day as owner, he sacked key executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal, and removed the company’s board of directors.
As the emails went out, many Twitter employees rushed to the site to voice their support for one another, typically just tweeting blue heart emojis to represent the company’s blue bird logo and salute emojis in answer to one another.
Meanwhile, a coalition of progressive civil rights organizations say the broad layoffs will threaten content moderation standards, and they have increased their requests for corporations to suspend advertising purchases on the site.
This claim has, however, been disputed by Musk supporters saying the progressive left is more worried about their voices being moderated as the platform is being purged of cancel culture activists.
Cancel Culture Activism Surges
The cancel culture activists have said Musk’s layoffs are especially perilous in the run-up to the elections, as well as for transgender people and other groups facing violence spurred by hate speech that circulates online.
Free Press and Color of Change leaders claimed they spoke with Musk on Tuesday, and he committed to keeping and implementing existing election integrity procedures. According to Jessica González, co-CEO of Free Press, the enormous layoffs suggest otherwise.
González disputed Musk’s claim that content moderation procedures had not changed since his takeover, claiming that the organization was already “dangerously under-resourced.”
“When you purportedly lay off 50% of your workforce — including teams in charge of tracking, monitoring, and enforcing content moderation and guidelines — it essentially suggests that content moderation has changed,” González explained.
Media Bias Fact Check rates Free Press.Org as Far-Left biased based on editorial positions that align with the progressive left.
They also rate them mostly factual in reporting due to one-sided reporting that does not always offer a counter perspective.
Employee Lawsuits and Income Losses
Meanwhile, a California’s Employment Development Department representative stated that Twitter had provided no public notice of the impending layoffs as of Friday.
On Thursday, a complaint was filed in US federal court in San Francisco by one laid-off employee and 3 other employees who were locked out of their work accounts.
The cutbacks come at a difficult time for social media businesses, as advertisers cut back and newcomers — primarily TikTok — threaten established platforms like Instagram and Facebook.
Musk blamed cancel culture activists in a Friday post for a “huge loss in income” since taking over Twitter late last week. He did not specify how much revenue had been lost.
Large corporations that have bought into ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance), such as General Motors, REI, General Mills, and Audi, have all paused advertising on Twitter owing to concerns about how it would run under Musk.
Volkswagen Group has advised its brands, Audi, Lamborghini, and Porsche, to halt sponsored operations until Twitter updates its brand safety standards.
Musk did tell advertisers last week that Twitter would not become a “free-for-all hellscape,” but many are anxious about whether content monitoring will remain strict and whether sticking to Twitter will degrade their brands.
Musk stated Friday that “nothing has changed with content control.”
Degrading their brand means corporations fear reprisals from woke social media activists who will target their shareholders like they have targeted Musk and Twitter.
The family of a US man who was killed after driving off a crumbled bridge claims he died because Google’s maps were outdated.
Philip Paxson’s family is suing Google for his death, claiming that Google was irresponsible in failing to reveal that the bridge had collapsed nine years before.
Mr. Paxson died in September 2022 while attempting to drive across a broken Hickory, North Carolina bridge.
Google’s spokesman stated that the corporation was looking into the allegations.
On Tuesday, the case was filed in Wake County civil court.
According to the family’s lawsuit, Mr Paxson, a father of two, was driving home from his daughter’s ninth birthday celebration at a friend’s house and was in an unfamiliar neighborhood at the time of his death.
His wife had already driven his two girls home, and he had stuck behind to help clean up.
“Unaware of local roads, he relied on Google Maps, expecting it to safely direct him home to his wife and daughters,” the family’s lawyers said in a statement announcing the complaint.
“Tragically, as he drove cautiously in the rain, he unwittingly followed Google’s out-of-date directions to what his family later learned was known for nearly a decade as the ‘Bridge to Nowhere,’ crashing into Snow Creek, where he drowned.”
The family of a US man who was killed after driving off a crumbled bridge claims he died because Google’s maps were outdated.
According to the lawsuit, when the bridge fell in 2013, local people frequently contacted Google to request that their online maps be changed.
According to the Charlotte Observer, vandals removed the barriers regularly put over the bridge entrance.
The complaint also accuses three local businesses of failing to maintain the bridge.
“Our girls ask how and why their daddy died, and I’m at a loss for words that they can understand because, as an adult, I still can’t understand how those responsible for the GPS directions and the bridge could have acted with such little regard for human life,” his wife, Alicia Paxson, said in a statement.
“We have deepest sympathies for the Paxson family,” a Google spokesman told AP News.
“Our goal in Maps is to provide accurate routing information, and we are reviewing this lawsuit.”
SOURCE – (BBC)
The Google Play store is currently offering six free games, which you should take advantage of before the offer expires. The free games are part of Android app promotions that vary on a regular basis.
The free games can be downloaded through the Google Play Store on any device that supports it. On Wednesday, 9to5toys revealed the most recent update to the free games.
The free games can be downloaded through the Google Play Store on any device that supports it.
Among the free games are:
-
Live or Die: Survival Pro
-
Zombie Age 2
-
Pyramids VR Roller Coaster
-
World War 3 – Tower Defense
-
Spelling Challenge PRO
-
Over The Bridge PRO
There are also a tonne of games on sale for $1-$4 right now.
Towaga, Among Shadows, Superbrothers Sword & Sworcery, Soul Crusade, Pumped BMX 3, Suxy Cube, The Bug Bitcher, Trail Boss BMS, Chameleon Run, Lumino City, and other titles are among them.
Another fantastic bargain is the $8 off Ace Attorney Trilogy for just $15.
To begin, you can get free games by going to the Store App, selecting Games, and then Top Free. You can also go to Search and type “free” into the search box to get a full list of free games to play.
Second, as a Microsoft Rewards member, you can begin earning points to build credit in numerous ways and redeem free games. Simply sign into your Microsoft account and download the Microsoft Rewards app to begin earning points.
There are also other ways to gain points almost painlessly, and points can quickly build if you earn them on a daily basis.
About the Google Play Store
Google Play is Google’s digital distribution platform and app store for Android devices, including smartphones, tablets, and some other Android-based devices such as smart TVs and wearables. It is the official Android app store, and it allows users to explore and download many forms of digital content, such as:
Google Play has a large assortment of Android apps, including games, productivity tools, social networking apps, and much more. Developers can make their apps available for download on Google Play.
Games: In addition to ordinary apps, Google Play provides a diverse selection of mobile games, ranging from simple puzzle games to complicated multiplayer experiences.
Movies and TV series: Google Play Movies & TV allows users to buy or rent movies and TV series. These are available to stream or download for offline viewing.
Google Play Music was a music streaming service that let users buy and listen to music. It has, however, been discontinued, and users are recommended to utilise YouTube Music for music streaming instead.
Books: Google Play Books allows Android users to buy and read e-books, periodicals, and audiobooks.
Newsstand: This section allows users to subscribe to and read digital periodicals and newspapers on their devices.
gadgets: Google periodically offers hardware products through the Google Play Store, such as Google Pixel smartphones and Google Nest smart home gadgets.
Google Play Pass is a membership service that provides access to a library of premium apps and games without the use of advertisements or in-app payments.
Most Android devices come with Google Play pre-installed, and users can access it simply launching the Google Play app. It offers Android customers a straightforward and centralised way to browse, acquire, and manage digital content for their devices.
LONDON, England – European regulators fined TikTok $368 million on Friday for failing to protect children’s privacy, the first time the popular short video-sharing app has been penalized for violating Europe’s rigorous data privacy standards.
Ireland’s Data Protection Commission, the key privacy regulator for Big Tech corporations with European headquarters primarily in Dublin, announced a 345 million euro fine and reprimand for infractions stretching back to the second half of 2020.
According to the inquiry, the sign-up process for teen users resulted in default settings that made their accounts public, allowing anyone to view and comment on their recordings. These default settings also created a risk to youngsters under 13, who got access to the platform despite being prohibited.
Furthermore, a “family pairing” tool intended for parents to manage settings was not stringent enough, allowing adults to enable direct messaging for users aged 16 and 17 without their knowledge. According to the watchdog, it also steered teen users towards more “privacy intrusive” options when joining up and sharing films.
TikTok issued a statement stating that it disagrees with the ruling, “particularly the level of the fine imposed.”
On Friday, European regulators fined TikTok $368 million for failing to protect children’s privacy.
The company pointed out that the regulator’s concerns centered on features and settings that had been in place for three years. TikTok said it implemented modifications well before the inquiry began in September 2021, such as making all accounts for teenagers under 16 private by default and prohibiting direct messaging for 13- to 15-year-olds.
“Most of the decision’s criticisms are no longer relevant as a result of measures we introduced at the start of 2021 — several months before the investigation began,” Elaine Fox, TikTok’s head of privacy for Europe, said in a blog post.
Since EU privacy legislation was enacted in 2018, the Irish regulator has been chastised for not moving quickly enough in its probes against Big Tech corporations. German and Italian regulators disputed sections of a draught ruling released a year ago, further postponing it.
To avoid new bottlenecks, the 27-nation bloc’s Brussels headquarters has been tasked with enforcing new regulations to stimulate digital competition and clean up social media content — rules aimed at maintaining the bloc’s status as a global leader in IT regulation.
On Friday, European regulators fined TikTok $368 million for failing to protect children’s privacy.
The Irish authority also investigated TikTok’s techniques for determining if users are at least 13 years old but found no violations.
The agency is still investigating whether TikTok complied with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation when it moved user data to China, where its owner, ByteDance, is based.
TikTok has been accused of posing a security risk because of concerns that users’ sensitive information could wind up in China. To address those concerns, it has begun a drive to localize European user data, launching a data center in Dublin this month, the first of three on the continent.
Instagram, WhatsApp, and its parent company, Meta, are among the other internet behemoths punished with large fines by the Irish regulator last year.
SOURCE – (AP)
Canadian Mother And Twins Charged With Pretending To Be Inuit
Ukraine War: US To Give Kyiv Long-Range ATACMS Missiles – Media Reports
US Child Dies From Fentanyl Kept Under Nursery Nap Mat In Daycare
-
Beauty5 months agoYeezy Shoes Still Stuck In Limbo After Adidas Split With Ye
-
Celebrity5 months ago
Princess Anne Gives Rare Interview Ahead Of King Charles III’s Coronation
-
Business5 months ago
Oprah Tells Class Of 2023 To Follow ‘Still, Small Voice’
-
Celebrity5 months ago
Harry Potter’s Miriam Margolyes Hospitalized With Chest Infection
-
News5 months ago
2023: Arab Ministers To Meet Over Syria’s Return To Arab League
-
News5 months ago
Strong Quake In Central Japan; 1 Dead, More Than 20 Injured
