Elon Musk has announced that starting April 15, only verified Twitter accounts will be eligible to be featured on the platform’s recommendation timeline. The tech mogul explained the move in a Twitter post on Monday, stating it’s “the only realistic way to address advanced AI bot swarms taking over.”
Apart from no longer being featured in other users’ ‘For You’ feeds, unverified accounts – those that have not paid the $7 monthly fee to have their account verified with a blue checkmark – will also lose the ability to vote in polls. Musk again explained the decision by pointing to the prevalence of bots on the platform. It is unclear, however, if Musk was only referring to polls created by Twitter and himself – as he often gauges public opinion on key decisions through this tool – or all polls on the platform. Twitter announced last week that it would remove the verified status of some ‘legacy’ accounts by April 1, meaning only those paying a monthly subscription will now have the blue checkmark in their profiles. According to analysts from Sensor Tower, Twitter currently has an estimated paying user base of just over 385,000 mobile subscribers worldwide on both iOS and Android. Critics of Musk’s algorithm change say it will significantly hinder the recommendation timeline’s relevance, as it will essentially prevent regular people from reaching a wider audience and only feature paying users, brands, and accounts of officials. Meanwhile, Twitter has been dealing with a source code leak, after an unknown hacker or group of people posted the code on GitHub – a software collaboration platform. Twitter has filed a court petition seeking to identify those responsible for the leak, arguing that the code, which underpins the website’s entire operation, could expose security vulnerabilities. Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in late October 2022. After appointing himself CEO and vowing to transform the site into a free speech platform, the billionaire fired nearly three-quarters of Twitter’s workforce, removed some of its more contentious censorship policies, and restored a number of banned accounts, including that of former US President Donald Trump. However, he has yet to make the company profitable, as its value has decline by one half since the takeover, according to the Wall Street Journal, despite cutting the workforce and implementing a subscription model.
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Twitter owner Elon Musk has confirmed he will stand by his promise to resign as the company’s chief executive, after the platform’s users voted for him to step down, but suggested that finding a successor may take some time.
“I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers teams,” Musk announced in a tweet on Tuesday. CNBC previously reported that Musk was “actively looking, asking, trying to figure out who the candidate pool might actually be.” On Sunday, the billionaire posted an informal poll asking Twitter users if he should step down as head of the company. Some 57.5% of the 17 million respondents voted for Musk to leave his post. On Monday, Musk stated that henceforth only Twitter Blue subscribers will be able to voice their opinions in polls about policy changes on the platform. After completing his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter, Musk became its majority owner, which means that no one can force him out. However, in recent weeks, the CEO has introduced a number of controversial changes that have caused a massive public backlash. At the same time, the self-styled “free speech absolutist” authorized the release of internal documents in an effort to provide transparency about Twitter’s past decision-making. Twitter boss Elon Musk has vowed to extend a “general amnesty” to an unspecified number of suspended users, a week after reversing former US President Donald Trump’s lifetime ban from the platform.
“The people have spoken. Amnesty begins next week,” Musk tweeted on Thanksgiving Day. He added “Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” a Latin phrase that means “the voice of the people is the voice of God.” The SpaceX and Tesla CEO launched a Twitter poll on Wednesday, asking if Twitter should “offer a general amnesty to suspended accounts, provided that they have not broken the law or engaged in egregious spam?” Out of more than 3.1 million users who took part, 72.4% voted ‘yes’ and 27.6% voted ‘no’. In a separate message Musk also promised to start freeing and offering up for grabs “vast numbers of handles” that had previously been “consumed” by bots and trolls. Since acquiring Twitter for $44 billion last month, Musk has faced growing criticism for laying off hundreds of employees and reversing the permanent suspensions of multiple notable accounts, including former US President Donald Trump following a similar public vote. While critics claimed that Musk’s actions fuel hate speech, harassment and misinformation, he has rejected accusations he was some kind of “right-wing bogeyman” and insisted that Twitter under his ownership has not banned any leftists, not even for “utter lies.” It remains to be seen how many users would be eligible for amnesty. This week the platform already reinstated Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose personal Twitter account had been permanently banned since early January 2022 for posting “misinformation” about the Covid-19 pandemic. Musk, however, drew the line at Alex Jones, saying he had “no mercy” for someone who used children’s deaths for clout. Musk had vowed to transform the platform and turn it into a bastion of free speech, saying it was “important to the future of civilization” to have a digital town square where a wide range of beliefs could be discussed. Elon Musk’s electric carmaker Tesla plans to begin mass production of its Cybertruck at the end of 2023, Reuters reported this week, citing sources. The electric pickup was first unveiled back in 2019, with production initially scheduled to start in late 2021. However, it has since been pushed back three times for various reasons.
The Cybertruck has become something of a legend among Tesla fans over the past three years, despite the fact that neither the approximate cost of the final production version nor the exact characteristics of the vehicle have been unveiled. In 2019, the initial price was to be under $40,000, but Tesla has subsequently hiked prices across its lineup. According to the report, several hundred thousand buyers have so far paid $100 to reserve a Cybertruck, but the company hasn’t disclosed the exact amount of orders. Tesla shut down pre-orders outside North America this past May, with Musk saying the company had “more orders of the first Cybertrucks than we could possibly fulfill for three years after the start of production.” Last month, Tesla reported that it was working on preparing its plant in Austin, Texas, to start producing the new model. EU countries are discussing whether to contribute funding to ensure Ukrainians keep their access to vital Starlink internet services currently paid for by Tesla boss Elon Musk. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis disclosed the plans, which are at an early stage, in an interview with POLITICO on Monday.
The proposal follows warnings from Musk that his SpaceX rocket company could not indefinitely continue paying for Ukrainians to have access to Starlink internet services, amid suggestions that he wanted the U.S. government to foot the bill. Musk, the world’s richest man, later changed his mind and said he would carry on funding the service. But the scare raised concerns about the security of Ukraine’s continued access to a crucial telecommunications system that has played a vital role in their counteroffensives against Russian troops in occupied territories, as well as keeping the civilian population connected. Landsbergis suggested Ukraine's internet access should not be left in the hands of a single "super-powerful" person who could "wake up one day and say, ‘This is no longer what I feel like doing and this is it.’ And the next day, Ukrainians might find themselves without the internet.” He continued: “I figured that it's probably way better to have this as a contractual agreement between, let's say, a coalition of countries that could purchase a service from Mr. Musk, the Starlink service, and provide it to the Ukrainians and keep on providing it to Ukrainians.” The topic made it into the discussion at the meeting of the 27 EU foreign ministers Monday, according to Landsbergis. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell raised the subject, “and certain countries also joined in,” the minister said, without specifying which countries. “If it happens in EU, it's even better,” he said. “I don't see why it couldn't.” |
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