Tag: Media

Twitter’s gray ‘official’ labels return for some accounts

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Twitter is once again adding gray “official” labels to some prominent accounts. The company, in its second chaotic week after billionaire Elon Musk took over, had rolled out the labels earlier this week, only to kill them a few hours later.

But on Thursday night they were back again, at least for some accounts — including Twitter‘s own, as well as big companies like Amazon, Nike and Coca-Cola. Some media companies, such as The New York Times and The New Yorker also had the labels as of 9 p.m. Pacific time, while others, like The Wall Street Journal and The Los Angeles Times, did not.

Celebrities, some of whom have been impersonated this week since Musk began overhauling Twitter’s “blue check” verification system, also did not appear to be getting the “official” label.

Twitter began offering a subscription service this week that for $8 a month gets anyone who wants — without actual verification — the blue check mark that previously was given to prominent accounts to prevent impersonation.

Now, there are two categories of “blue checks,” and the check marks look identical. One, which includes the accounts that were actually verified before Musk took helm, now note that “This account is verified because it’s notable in government, news, entertainment, or another designated category.” The other notes that the account subscribes to Twitter Blue.

Earlier Thursday, Musk tweeted that “too many corrupt legacy Blue ‘verification’ checkmarks exist, so no choice but to remove legacy Blue in coming months.”

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November 10, 2022
Twitter survival at stake, Musk warns as remote work ends

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Elon Musk is warning Twitter employees to brace for “difficult times ahead” that might end with the collapse of the social media platform if they can’t find new ways of making money.

Workers who survived last week’s mass layoffs are facing harsher work conditions and growing uncertainty about their ability to keep Twitter running safely as it continues to lose high-level leaders responsible for data privacy, cybersecurity and complying with regulations.

Musk’s first companywide message to employees came by email late Wednesday night and ordered them to stop working from home and show up in the office Thursday morning. He followed that with his first “all-hands” meeting Thursday answering workers’ concerns. Before that, many were relying on the billionaire Tesla CEO’s public tweets for clues about Twitter’s future.

“Sorry that this is my first email to the whole company, but there is no way to sugarcoat the message,” wrote Musk, before he described a dire economic climate for businesses like Twitter that rely almost entirely on advertising to make money.

“Without significant subscription revenue, there is a good chance Twitter will not survive the upcoming economic downturn,” Musk said. “We need roughly half of our revenue to be subscription.”

At the staff meeting Thursday afternoon, Musk said some “exceptional” employees could seek an exemption from his return-to-work order but that others who didn’t like it could quit, according to an employee at the meeting who spoke on condition of anonymity out of a concern for job security.

The employee also said Musk appeared to downplay employee concerns about how a pared-back Twitter workforce was handling its obligations to maintain privacy and data security standards, saying as CEO of Tesla he knew how that worked.

Musk’s memo and staff meeting echoed a livestreamed conversation trying to assuage major advertisers Wednesday, his most expansive public comments about Twitter’s direction since he closed a $44 billion deal to buy the social media platform late last month and dismissed its top executives. A number of well-known brands have paused advertising on Twitter as they wait to see how Musk’s proposals to relax content rules against hate and misinformation affect the tenor of the platform.

Musk told employees the “priority over the past 10 days” was to develop and launch Twitter’s new subscription service for $7.99 a month that includes a blue check mark next to the name of paid members — the mark was previously only for verified accounts. Musk’s project has had a rocky rollout with an onslaught of newly bought fake accounts this week impersonating high-profile figures such as basketball star LeBron James, former U.S. President George W. Bush and the drug company Eli Lilly to post false information or offensive jokes.

In a second email to employees, Musk said the “absolute top priority” over the coming days is to suspend “bots/trolls/spam” exploiting the verified accounts. But Twitter now employs far fewer people to help him do that.

An executive last week said Twitter was cutting roughly 50% of its workforce, which numbered 7,500 earlier this year.

Musk had previously expressed distaste for Twitter’s pandemic-era remote work policies that enabled team leaders to decide if employees had to show up in the office.

Musk told employees in the email that “remote work is no longer allowed” and the road ahead is “arduous and will require intense work to succeed” and they will need to be in the office at least 40 hours per week. He said he would personally review any request for an exception.

Twitter hasn’t disclosed the total number of layoffs across its global workforce but told local and state officials in the U.S. that it was cutting 784 workers at its San Francisco headquarters, about 200 elsewhere in California, more than 400 in New York City, more than 200 in Seattle and about 80 in Atlanta.

The exodus at Twitter is ongoing, including the company’s chief privacy officer, Damien Kieran, and chief information security officer Lea Kissner, who tweeted Thursday that “I’ve made the hard decision to leave Twitter.”

Cybersecurity expert Alex Stamos, a former Facebook security chief, tweeted Thursday that there is a “serious risk of a breach with drastically reduced staff” that could also put Twitter at odds with a 2011 order from the Federal Trade Commission that required it to address serious data security lapses.

“Twitter made huge strides towards a more rational internal security model and backsliding will put them in trouble with the FTC” and other regulators in the U.S. and Europe, Stamos said.

The FTC said in a statement Thursday that it is “tracking recent developments at Twitter with deep concern.”

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

The FTC would not say whether it was investigating Twitter for potential violations. If it were, it is empowered to demand documents and depose employees.

Twitter paid a $150 million penalty in May for violating the 2011 consent order and its updated version established new procedures requiring the company to implement an enhanced privacy protection program as well as beefing up info security.

Those new procedures include an exhaustive list of disclosures Twitter must make to the FTC when introducing new products and services — particularly when they affect personal data collected on users.

Musk is, of course, fundamentally overhauling platform offerings, and it’s not known if he is telling the FTC about it. Twitter, which gutted its communications department, didn’t respond to a request for comment Thursday.

Musk has a history of tangling with regulators. “I do not respect the SEC,” Musk declared in a 2018 tweet.

The Securities and Exchange Commission recently examined for possible tardiness his disclosures to the agency of his purchases of Twitter stock to amass a major stake. In 2018, Musk and Tesla each agreed to pay $20 million in fines over Musk’s allegedly misleading tweets saying he’d secured the funding to take the electric car maker private for $420 a share. Musk has fought the SEC in court over compliance with the agreement.

The consequences for not meeting FTC’s requirements can be severe — such as when Facebook had to pay $5 billion for privacy violations.

“If Twitter so much as sneezes, it has to do a privacy review beforehand,” tweeted Riana Pfefferkorn, a Stanford University researcher who said she previously provided Twitter outside legal counsel. “There are periodic outside audits, and the FTC can monitor compliance.”

Twitter was fined in May for the alleged commercial exploit of customers data — phone numbers and email addresses — that it had claimed it needed for security purposes, such as enabling multi-factor authentication.

—-

AP reporters Frank Bajak and Marcy Gordon contributed to this report.

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November 10, 2022
Musk ends remote work at Twitter, warns of troubles ahead

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Elon Musk has emailed Twitter employees, most working remotely, ordering them to return to the office immediately for at least 40 hours a week and warning of “difficult times ahead.”

A pair of Wednesday night missives seen by The Associated Press marked Musk’s first companywide message to employees who survived last week’s mass layoffs. Many have had to rely on the billionaire Tesla CEO’s public tweets for clues about Twitter’s future.

“Sorry that this is my first email to the whole company, but there is no way to sugarcoat the message,” wrote Musk, before he described a dire economic climate for businesses like Twitter that rely almost entirely on advertising to make money.

“Without significant subscription revenue, there is a good chance Twitter will not survive the upcoming economic downturn,” Musk said. “We need roughly half of our revenue to be subscription.”

Musk’s memo followed a livestreamed conversation trying to assuage major advertisers Wednesday, his most expansive public comments about Twitter’s direction since he closed a $44 billion deal to buy the social media platform late last month and dismissed its top executives. A number of well-known brands have paused advertising on Twitter as they wait to see how Musk’s proposals to relax content rules against hate and misinformation affect the tenor of the platform.

Musk told employees “the priority over the past ten days” was to develop and launch Twitter’s new subscription service for $7.99 a month that includes a blue check mark next to the name of paid members — the mark was previously only for verified accounts.

An executive last week said Twitter was cutting roughly 50% of its workforce, which numbered 7,500 earlier this year.

Musk had previously expressed distaste for Twitter’s pandemic-era remote work policies that enabled team leaders to decide if employees had to show up in the office. On Wednesday, he ordered all employees to return to the office Thursday.

Musk told employees in the email that “remote work is no longer allowed” and the road ahead is “arduous and will require intense work to succeed.” He said he would personally review any request for an exception.

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November 10, 2022
Facebook parent Meta cuts 11,000 jobs, 13% of workforce

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Facebook parent Meta is laying off 11,000 people, about 13% of its workforce, as it contends with faltering revenue and broader tech industry woes, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a letter to employees Wednesday.

The job cuts come just a week after widespread layoffs at Twitter under its new owner, billionaire Elon Musk. There have been numerous job cuts at other tech companies that hired rapidly during the pandemic.

Zuckerberg said that he had made the decision to hire aggressively, anticipating rapid growth even after the pandemic lockdowns ended.

“Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected,” Zuckerberg said in a statement. “Not only has online commerce returned to prior trends, but the macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ads signal loss have caused our revenue to be much lower than I’d expected. I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that.”

Meta, like other social media companies, enjoyed a financial boost during the pandemic lockdown era because more people stayed home and scrolled on their phones and computers. But as the lockdowns ended and people started going outside again, revenue growth began to falter.

Of particular concern to investors, Meta poured over $10 billion a year into the “metaverse” as it shifts its focus away from social media. Zuckerberg predicts the metaverse, an immersive digital universe, will eventually replace smartphones as the primary way people use technology.

Spooked investors have sent company shares tumbling more than 71% since the beginning of the year and the stock now trades at levels last seen in 2015.

An economic slowdown and a grim outlook for online advertising — by far Meta’s biggest revenue source — have contributed to Meta’s woes as well. This summer, the company posted its first quarterly revenue decline in history, followed by another, bigger decline in the fall.

Some of the pain is company-specific, while some is tied to broader economic and technological forces.

Last week, Twitter laid off about half of its 7,500 employees, part of a chaotic overhaul as Musk took the helm. He tweeted that there was no choice but to cut the jobs “when the company is losing over $4M/day,” though did not provide details about the losses. Snap, the owner of Snapchat, also recently laid off 1,000 workers and online real estate broker Redfin said Wednesday it is cutting 862 employees.

Meta and its advertisers are bracing for a potential recession. There’s also the challenge of Apple’s privacy tools, which make it more difficult for social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Snap to track people without their consent and target ads to them.

Although Meta has been hurt by broader economic trends that have curtailed spending on digital ads, the company’s challenges have been compounded by the rise of TikTok at the same time Zuckerberg is pouring billions into a metaverse that so far seems like a distant mirage, said Forrester Research analyst J.P. Gownder.

“They are making a big bet on something that may not happen for another five to 10 years,” Gownder said. “What they need to be doing is trying to solve some of their fundamental business problems. This (mass layoff) is only a stopgap.”

Zuckerberg said Meta is cutting costs across its business, but he added that this alone won’t big costs in line with its revenue growth.

In addition to the layoffs, a hiring freeze at the company will be extended through the first quarter of 2023, Zuckerberg said. The company has also slashed its real estate footprint and he said that with so many employees working outside of the office, the company will transition to desk sharing for those that remain.

More cost cuts at Meta will be rolled out in coming months, Zuckerberg said.

Zuckerberg told employees Wednesday that they will receive an email letting them know if they are among those being let go. Access to most company systems will be cut off for people losing their jobs, he said, due to the sensitive nature of that information.

“We’re keeping email addresses active throughout the day so everyone can say farewell,” Zuckerberg said.

Former employees will receive 16 weeks of base pay, plus two additional weeks for every year with the company, Zuckerberg said. Health insurance for those employees and their families will continue for six months.

Even with Wednesday’s reductions, Meta still has more than 75,000 workers around the globe. In fact, the company had 71,970 workers at the end of 2021, and less than 59,000 at the end of 2020.

Brad Gerstner, the CEO of Meta shareholder Altimeter Capital, wrote an open letter to Zuckerberg last month urging him to tighten Meta’s belt.

“Meta has drifted into the land of excess — too many people, too many ideas, too little urgency,” Gerstner wrote. “This lack of focus and fitness is obscured when growth is easy but deadly when growth slows and technology changes.”

Gerstner urged Zuckerberg to streamline costs and focus the company in an open letter posted on Medium. His suggestions include cutting 20% of the company’s workforce — which still would only set Meta back to 2021 levels of staffing, backing Gerstner’s point that the company has become bigger than it needs to be.

Meta’s Wednesday layoffs, while historic for the company, breaks no tech industry records. Hewlett Packard let go about 2/3 of its workforce between 2010 and 2021, going from 324,600 employees to 111,000 as of Oct. 31, 2021 for HP Inc. and HP Enterprises, which had been one company back in 2010.

And its peak in 1986, IBM had about 400,000 employees worldwide. At the end of last year, IBM had about 282,000 full-time workers.

It’s not yet clear if Meta — and the social media economy — is on a similar trajectory. A decade ago, Facebook successfully pivoted its business from running a website on desktop computers to an app — then multiple apps — on smartphones. While it is possible that it will be able to make the switch again to a new communications platform in the metaverse, the world — and the company — have changed tremendously.

“Meta has three huge problems to overcome: It is no longer an innovative groundbreaker; its grip on market domination is dwindling; and the promise of the metaverse, the centerpiece of Zuckerberg’s vision for the future of his company, has been diminished by a combination of consumer apathy, business skepticism, and the realities of a sinking worldwide economy,” Gerstner wrote.

Shares of Meta Platforms Inc. added $5, or 5.2% to close at $101.47 on Wednesday.

—

AP Technology Writer Michael Liedtke in San Francisco and AP Business Writer Haleluya Hadero in New York contributed to this story.

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November 9, 2022
Facebook parent Meta cuts 11,000 jobs, 13% of workforce

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Facebook parent Meta is laying off 11,000 people, about 13% of its workforce, as it contends with faltering revenue and broader tech industry woes, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a letter to employees Wednesday.

The job cuts come just a week after widespread layoffs at Twitter under its new owner, billionaire Elon Musk. There have been numerous job cuts at other tech companies that hired rapidly during the pandemic.

Zuckerberg said that he had made the decision to hire aggressively, anticipating rapid growth even after the pandemic lockdowns ended.

“Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected,” Zuckerberg said in a statement. “Not only has online commerce returned to prior trends, but the macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ads signal loss have caused our revenue to be much lower than I’d expected. I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that.”

Meta, like other social media companies, enjoyed a financial boost during the pandemic lockdown era because more people stayed home and scrolled on their phones and computers. But as the lockdowns ended and people started going outside again, revenue growth began to falter.

Of particular concern to investors, Meta poured over $10 billion a year into the “metaverse” as it shifts its focus away from social media. Zuckerberg predicts the metaverse, an immersive digital universe, will eventually replace smartphones as the primary way people use technology.

Spooked investors have sent company shares tumbling more than 71% since the beginning of the year and the stock now trades at levels last seen in 2015.

An economic slowdown and a grim outlook for online advertising — by far Meta’s biggest revenue source — have contributed to Meta’s woes as well. This summer, the company posted its first quarterly revenue decline in history, followed by another, bigger decline in the fall.

Some of the pain is company-specific, while some is tied to broader economic and technological forces.

Last week, Twitter laid off about half of its 7,500 employees, part of a chaotic overhaul as Musk took the helm. He tweeted that there was no choice but to cut the jobs “when the company is losing over $4M/day,” though did not provide details about the losses. Snap, the owner of Snapchat, also recently laid off 1,000 workers and online real estate broker Redfin said Wednesday it is cutting 862 employees.

Meta and its advertisers are bracing for a potential recession. There’s also the challenge of Apple’s privacy tools, which make it more difficult for social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Snap to track people without their consent and target ads to them.

Although Meta has been hurt by broader economic trends that have curtailed spending on digital ads, the company’s challenges have been compounded by the rise of TikTok at the same time Zuckerberg is pouring billions into a metaverse that so far seems like a distant mirage, said Forrester Research analyst J.P. Gownder.

“They are making a big bet on something that may not happen for another five to 10 years,” Gownder said. “What they need to be doing is trying to solve some of their fundamental business problems. This (mass layoff) is only a stopgap.”

Zuckerberg said Meta is cutting costs across its business, but he added that this alone won’t big costs in line with its revenue growth.

In addition to the layoffs, a hiring freeze at the company will be extended through the first quarter of 2023, Zuckerberg said. The company has also slashed its real estate footprint and he said that with so many employees working outside of the office, the company will transition to desk sharing for those that remain.

More cost cuts at Meta will be rolled out in coming months, Zuckerberg said.

Zuckerberg told employees Wednesday that they will receive an email letting them know if they are among those being let go. Access to most company systems will be cut off for people losing their jobs, he said, due to the sensitive nature of that information.

“We’re keeping email addresses active throughout the day so everyone can say farewell,” Zuckerberg said.

Former employees will receive 16 weeks of base pay, plus two additional weeks for every year with the company, Zuckerberg said. Health insurance for those employees and their families will continue for six months.

Even with Wednesday’s reductions, Meta still has more than 75,000 workers around the globe. In fact, the company had 71,970 workers at the end of 2021, and less than 59,000 at the end of 2020.

Brad Gerstner, the CEO of Meta shareholder Altimeter Capital, wrote an open letter to Zuckerberg last month urging him to tighten Meta’s belt.

“Meta has drifted into the land of excess — too many people, too many ideas, too little urgency,” Gerstner wrote. “This lack of focus and fitness is obscured when growth is easy but deadly when growth slows and technology changes.”

Gerstner urged Zuckerberg to streamline costs and focus the company in an open letter posted on Medium. His suggestions include cutting 20% of the company’s workforce — which still would only set Meta back to 2021 levels of staffing, backing Gerstner’s point that the company has become bigger than it needs to be.

Meta’s Wednesday layoffs, while historic for the company, breaks no tech industry records. Hewlett Packard let go about 2/3 of its workforce between 2010 and 2021, going from 324,600 employees to 111,000 as of Oct. 31, 2021 for HP Inc. and HP Enterprises, which had been one company back in 2010.

And its peak in 1986, IBM had about 400,000 employees worldwide. At the end of last year, IBM had about 282,000 full-time workers.

It’s not yet clear if Meta — and the social media economy — is on a similar trajectory. A decade ago, Facebook successfully pivoted its business from running a website on desktop computers to an app — then multiple apps — on smartphones. While it is possible that it will be able to make the switch again to a new communications platform in the metaverse, the world — and the company — have changed tremendously.

“Meta has three huge problems to overcome: It is no longer an innovative groundbreaker; its grip on market domination is dwindling; and the promise of the metaverse, the centerpiece of Zuckerberg’s vision for the future of his company, has been diminished by a combination of consumer apathy, business skepticism, and the realities of a sinking worldwide economy,” Gerstner wrote.

Shares of Meta Platforms Inc. added $5, or 5.2% to close at $101.47 on Wednesday.

—

AP Technology Writer Michael Liedtke in San Francisco and AP Business Writer Haleluya Hadero in New York contributed to this story.

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November 9, 2022
Musk seeks to reassure advertisers on Twitter after chaos

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Elon Musk sought to reassure big companies that advertise on Twitter on Wednesday that his chaotic takeover of the social media platform won’t harm their brands, acknowledging that some “dumb things” might happen on his way to creating what he says will be a better, safer user experience.

The latest erratic move on the minds of major advertisers who the company depends on for revenue was Musk’s decision to abolish a new “official” label on high-profile Twitter accounts just hours after introducing it.

Twitter began adding the gray labels to some prominent accounts Wednesday, including brands like Coca-Cola, Nike and Apple, to indicate that they are authentic. A few hours later, the labels started disappearing.

“Apart from being an aesthetic nightmare when looking at the Twitter feed, it was another way of creating a two-class system,” the billionaire Tesla CEO told advertisers in a conversation broadcast live on Twitter. “It wasn’t addressing the core problem.”

Musk’s comments were his most expansive about Twitter’s future since he closed a $44 billion deal to buy the company late last month.

The rollout hours earlier of the “official” labels appeared arbitrary, with some politicians, news outlets and well-known personalities getting the label and others not. Musk seemed to acknowledge the confusion and embraced his role as “Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator” as he invited users to send him complaints.

Media sites like The Associated Press, The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal received an official designation, as did most major corporate brands. And then they were gone.

Before they disappeared, the labels were causing confusion. For instance, users in London could see an “official” label attached to a BBC News account, but the label didn’t show up for users in the U.S.

YouTube personality and author John Green jokingly noted that he got the label, but his younger brother and “vlogging” partner Hank Green didn’t make the cut. But then John Green’s label was gone, too. Another popular YouTuber, Marques Brownlee, who posts videos on technology, tweeted he got the label, then tweeted again that it disappeared, which attracted the attention of Musk himself.

“I just killed it,” Musk responded, though at first it wasn’t clear if he was referring specifically to Brownlee’s label or the entire project.

The site’s current system of using what are known as “blue checks” confirming an account’s authenticity will soon go away for those who don’t pay a monthly fee. The checkmarks will be available at a yet-to-be-announced date for anyone willing to pay a $7.99-a-month subscription, which will also include some bonus features, such as fewer ads and the ability to have tweets given greater visibility than those coming from non-subscribers.

The platform’s current verification system has been in place since 2009 and was created to ensure high-profile and public-facing accounts are who they say they are.

Experts have expressed concern that making the checkmark available to anyone for a fee could lead to impersonations and the spreading of misinformation and scams.

The gray label — a color that tends to blend into the background whether you use light or dark mode to scroll Twitter — was an apparent compromise. But it was expected to lead to more confusion, as Twitter users accustomed to the blue check as a mark of authenticity would now have to look for the less obvious “official” designation.

Esther Crawford, a Twitter employee who has been working on the verification overhaul, had said Tuesday on Twitter that the “official” label would be added to “select accounts” when the new system launches.

“Not all previously verified accounts will get the ‘Official’ label and the label is not available for purchase,” said Crawford, who recently was the subject of a viral photo showing her sleeping on the floor of a Twitter office while working to meet Musk’s deadlines.

Crawford said those receiving the label would include government accounts, commercial companies, business partners, major media outlets, publishers and some public figures. But after the labels started disappearing Wednesday, she again took to Twitter to say “there are no sacred cows in product at Twitter anymore.”

“Elon is willing to try lots of things — many will fail, some will succeed,” she said. “The goal is to find the right mix of successful changes to ensure the long-term health and growth of the business.”

There are about 423,000 verified accounts under the outgoing system. Many of those belong to celebrities, businesses and politicians, as well as media outlets.

But a large chunk of verified accounts belong to individual journalists, some with tiny followings at local newspapers and news sites around the world. The idea was to verify reporters so their identities couldn’t be used to push false information on Twitter.

——-

AP Business Writer Mae Anderson contributed to this report.

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November 9, 2022
Media narrative of US election: Bad news for Trump, GOP

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NEW YORK — Americans awoke Wednesday to Election Day outcomes that remained nearly as murky as the night before: “House, Senate control still hangs in the balance,” a CNN caption blared.

Yet if the results of midterm elections hadn’t solidified, the media narrative clearly had. Good night for Democrats. Bad night for Republicans. Bad night, especially, for Donald Trump.

This quick analysis took shape despite the very real possibility that Republicans would wind up wresting control of one or both houses of Congress from the Democrats. From the coverage’s perspective, Republicans had failed to meet expectations.

“Republicans wildly underperformed, and heads should roll,” conservative commentator Ben Shapiro tweeted.

The Washington Post’s website headlined, “Congress Hangs in the Balance as Democrats Defy Expectations.”

The New York Times headlined, “Control of Congress Hinges on Closely Fought Races.” Yet further headlines on the newspaper’s site said there were no signs of a red wave that Republicans expected, and the lead analysis story was about why an expected GOP rout fell short.

The Times’ closely watched “Needle,” which barely budged much of Tuesday night, predicted Wednesday afternoon that the Democrats had a 66 percent chance of controlling the Senate, and the Republicans an 83 percent chance of winning the House.

Trump, who opted not to announce a 2024 candidacy the night before the election, faced a particularly rough media assessment.

A Washington Post analysis explained, “why the 2022 election was such a disaster for Trump.”

The New York Post, overlooking the governor’s race in its home state, put Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Trump rival on its cover, standing before a huge American flag. “DeFuture,” was the headline.

Fox News’ website ran a steady stream of stories with damaging headlines: “Trump-endorsed Vance doesn’t mention former president in victory speech.” “Republican Brad Raffensperger, reviled by Trump, wins again in Georgia.” And “Conservatives point finger at Trump after GOP’s underwhelming elections results.”

“This ended up being a referendum on crazy,” said MSNBC commentator Donny Deutsch on Wednesday.

Armed with statistics and projections on election night, television networks were wary of drawing conclusions about the closely divided nation’s political future. The night’s first big story, DeSantis’ big win, was favorable for Republicans.

But as Tuesday night slipped into Wednesday morning, the story of what was not happening for the GOP became the main talking point.

“Republicans will have some soul searching to do here,” said Fox News Channel’s Dana Perino.

Kellyanne Conway, the former Trump aide who was a commentator on Fox, grew impatient at one point with on-set discussions about Republicans not performing up to expectations or hopes.

“It’s enough,” she said. “We’ll take it.”

Television networks made an extra effort on Tuesday to have personnel on hand to deal with threats to democracy, such as election deniers or attempts to prevent voting. Instead, there wasn’t much for them to do.

Through it all, news organizations stressed transparency, and how counting election results had become more difficult because of increased early voting and different state rules in how the vote was counted.

“This is more complicated than it was 10 years ago,” CNN’s John King said, “because people are voting in different ways.”

———

David Bauder is AP’s media writer. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/dbauder

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November 9, 2022
Cryptocurrencies slump again amid fallout from FTX sale

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NEW YORK — Bitcoin slumped to a two-year low and other digital assets sold off following the sudden collapse of crypto exchange FTX Trading, which has been forced to sell itself to larger rival Binance.

Bitcoin traded around $17,645, and overnight fell to its lowest level since December 2020. Just a year ago, bitcoin hit an all-time high of $68,990. Ethereum, the second most actively traded digital currency, fell 10%.

FTX agreed to sell itself to Binance after experiencing the cryptocurrency equivalent of a bank run. Customers fled the exchange after becoming concerned about whether FTX had sufficient capital.

The sudden sale was a shocking turn of events for FTX CEO and founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who was hailed as somewhat of a savior earlier this year when he helped shore up a number of cryptocurrency companies that ran into financial trouble.

Shares of publicly traded companies with heavy exposure to crypto were also down in early trading after falling sharply on Tuesday.

Online trading platform Robinhood Markets fell more than 6% after sinking 19% Tuesday. Bankman-Fried’s holding company Emergent Fidelity Technology had a 7.5% stake in Robinhood as of Tuesday. Coinbase, the second-largest cryptocurrency exchange behind Binance, was down 6% in early trading.

FTX is the latest cryptocurrency company this year to come under financial pressure as crypto assets have collapsed in value. Other failures include Celsius, a bank-like company that took in crypto deposits in exchange for yield, as well as an Asia-based hedge fund known as Three Arrows Capital.

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November 9, 2022
Elon Musk sells $3.95 billion worth of Tesla stock

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Twitter’s new owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk sold nearly $4 billion worth of Tesla shares, according to regulatory filings.

Musk, who bought Twitter for $44 billion, sold 19.5 million shares of the electric car company from Nov. 4 to Nov. 8, according to Tuesday’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

He sold $7 billion of his Tesla stock in August as he worked to finance the Twitter purchase he was trying to get out of at the time. In all, Musk has sold more than $19 billion worth of Tesla stock since April, including those in Tuesday’s filings, likely to fund his share of the Twitter purchase.

The takeover of Twitter has not been smooth and the social media platform has seen the exodus of some big advertisers in recent weeks in including United Airlines, General Motors, REI, General Mills and Audi.

Musk acknowledged “a massive drop in revenue” at Twitter, which heavily relies on advertising to make money.

Musk had signaled that he was done selling Tesla shares and the revelation that those sales continue left some industry analysts exasperated.

“Our fear heading into the final days of the deal was that Musk was going to be forced to sell more Tesla stock to fund the disaster Twitter deal and ultimately those fears came true which speaks to some of the massive selling pressures on the stock of late,” wrote Daniel Ives at Wedbush. “For Musk who multiple times over the past year has said he is ‘done selling Tesla stock’ yet again loses more credibility with investors and his loyalists in a boy who cried wolf moment.”

Most of Musk’s wealth is tied up in shares of Tesla Inc. On Tuesday, his personal net worth dropped below $200 billion, according to Forbes, but he is still the world’s richest person.

Musk had lined up banks including Morgan Stanley to help finance the Twitter deal. His original share of the deal was about $15.5 billion, Ives estimated . But if equity investors dropped out, Musk would be on the hook to replace them or throw in more of his own money.

“The Twitter circus show has been an absolute debacle from all angles since Musk bought the platform for all the world to see: from the 50% layoffs and then bringing back some workers, to the head scratching verification roll-out to users which many are pushing back on, to the constant tweeting in this political firestorm backdrop, and now…..selling more TSLA stock,” Ives wrote. “When does it end?”

Shares of Tesla Inc., which were flat before the opening bell Wednesday, have fallen 8% this week and are down 46% this year, far outpacing broader market declines in what has been a dreadful year for investors.

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November 9, 2022
Elon Musk sells $3.95 billion worth of Tesla stock

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Twitter’s new owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk sold nearly $4 billion worth of Tesla shares, according to regulatory filings.

Musk, who bought Twitter for $44 billion, sold 19.5 million shares of the electric car company from Nov. 4 to Nov. 8, according to Tuesday’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

He sold $7 billion of his Tesla stock in August as he worked to finance the Twitter purchase he was trying to get out of at the time. In all, Musk has sold more than $19 billion worth of Tesla stock since April, including those in Tuesday’s filings, likely to fund his share of the Twitter purchase.

The takeover of Twitter has not been smooth and the social media platform has seen the exodus of some big advertisers in recent weeks in including United Airlines, General Motors, REI, General Mills and Audi.

Musk acknowledged “a massive drop in revenue” at Twitter, which heavily relies on advertising to make money.

Musk had signaled that he was done selling Tesla shares and the revelation that those sales continue left some industry analysts exasperated.

“Our fear heading into the final days of the deal was that Musk was going to be forced to sell more Tesla stock to fund the disaster Twitter deal and ultimately those fears came true which speaks to some of the massive selling pressures on the stock of late,” wrote Daniel Ives at Wedbush. “For Musk who multiple times over the past year has said he is ‘done selling Tesla stock’ yet again loses more credibility with investors and his loyalists in a boy who cried wolf moment.”

Most of Musk’s wealth is tied up in shares of Tesla Inc. On Tuesday, his personal net worth dropped below $200 billion, according to Forbes, but he is still the world’s richest person.

Musk had lined up banks including Morgan Stanley to help finance the Twitter deal. His original share of the deal was about $15.5 billion, Ives estimated . But if equity investors dropped out, Musk would be on the hook to replace them or throw in more of his own money.

“The Twitter circus show has been an absolute debacle from all angles since Musk bought the platform for all the world to see: from the 50% layoffs and then bringing back some workers, to the head scratching verification roll-out to users which many are pushing back on, to the constant tweeting in this political firestorm backdrop, and now…..selling more TSLA stock,” Ives wrote. “When does it end?”

Shares of Tesla Inc., which were flat before the opening bell Wednesday, have fallen 8% this week and are down 46% this year, far outpacing broader market declines in what has been a dreadful year for investors.

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November 9, 2022
Facebook parent company Meta laying off 13% of employees

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Facebook parent Meta is laying off 11,000 people, about 13% of its workforce, as it contends with faltering revenue and broader tech industry woes, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a letter to employees Wednesday.

The move that comes just a week after widespread layoffs at Twitter under its new owner, billionaire Elon Musk.

Meta, like other social media companies, enjoyed a financial boost during the pandemic lockdown era because more people stayed home and scrolled on their phones and computers. But as the lockdowns ended and people started going outside again, revenue growth began to falter.

An economic slowdown and a grim outlook for online advertising — by far Meta’s biggest revenue source — have contributed to Meta’s woes. This summer, Meta posted its first quarterly revenue decline in history, followed by another, bigger decline in the fall.

Some of the pain is company-specific, while some is tied to broader economic and technological forces.

Last week, Twitter laid off about half of its 7,500 employees, part of a chaotic overhaul as Musk took the helm. He tweeted that there was no choice but to cut the jobs “when the company is losing over $4M/day,” though did not provide details about the losses.

Meta has worried investors by pouring over $10 billion a year into the “metaverse” as it shifts its focus away from social media. CEO Mark Zuckerberg predicts the metaverse, an immersive digital universe, will eventually replace smartphones as the primary way people use technology.

Meta and its advertisers are bracing for a potential recession. There’s also the challenge of Apple’s privacy tools, which make it more difficult for social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Snap to track people without their consent and target ads to them.

Competition from TikTok is also an a growing threat as younger people flock to the video sharing app over Instagram, which Meta also owns.

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November 9, 2022
Elon Musk sells $3.95 billion worth of Tesla stock

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Twitter’s new owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has sold nearly $4 billion worth of Tesla shares, according to regulatory filings.

Musk, who bought Twitter for $44 billion, sold 19.5 million shares of the electric car company from Nov. 4 to Nov. 8, according to Tuesday’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

He sold $7 billion of his Tesla stock in August as he worked to finance the Twitter purchase he was trying to get out of at the time. In all, Musk has sold more than $19 billion worth of Tesla stock since April, including those in Tuesday’s filings, likely to fund his share of the Twitter purchase.

Most of Musk’s wealth is tied up in shares of Tesla Inc. On Tuesday, his personal net worth dropped below $200 billion, according to Forbes, but he is still the world’s richest person.

Musk had lined up banks including Morgan Stanley to help finance the Twitter deal. His original share of the deal was about $15.5 billion, Wedbush Analyst Dan Ives estimated . But if equity investors dropped out, Musk would be on the hook to replace them or throw in more of his own money.

Tesla’s shares closed down $5.78, or 2.9%, at $191.30. The stock has lost 52% of its value since the start of this year. In comparison, the S&P 500 index has lost about 20% of its value so far this year.

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November 9, 2022
Twitter to add ‘official’ mark to verified big accounts

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Twitter said Tuesday it will add a gray “official” label to some high-profile accounts to indicate that they are authentic, the latest twist in new owner Elon Musk’s chaotic overhaul of the platform’s verification system.

The site’s current system of using what are known as “blue checks” confirming an account’s authenticity will soon go away for those who don’t pay a monthly fee. The checkmarks will be available at a yet-to-be-announced date for anyone willing to pay a $7.99-a-month subscription, which will also include some bonus features, such as fewer ads and the ability to have tweets given greater visibility than those coming from non-subscribers.

The platform’s current verification system has been in place since 2009 and was created to ensure high-profile and public-facing accounts are who they say they are.

Experts have expressed concern that making the checkmark available to anyone for a fee could lead to impersonations and the spreading of misinformation and scams. The gray label — a color that tends to blend into the background whether you use light or dark mode to scroll Twitter — is an apparent compromise. But it might lead to more confusion, as Twitter users accustomed to the blue check as a mark of authenticity will now have to look for the less obvious “official” designation.

Esther Crawford, a Twitter employee who has been working on the verification overhaul, said Tuesday on Twitter that the “official” label will be added to “select accounts” when the new system launches.

“Not all previously verified accounts will get the ‘Official’ label and the label is not available for purchase,” said Crawford, who recently was the subject of a viral photo showing her sleeping on the floor of a Twitter office while working to meet Musk’s deadlines.

Crawford said those receiving the label include government accounts, commercial companies, business partners, major media outlets, publishers and some public figures.

There are about 423,000 verified accounts under the outgoing system. Many of those belong to celebrities, businesses and politicians, as well as media outlets.

But a large chunk of verified accounts belong to individual journalists, some with tiny followings at local newspapers and news sites around the world. The idea was to verify reporters so their identities couldn’t be used to push false information on Twitter.

Musk had previously floated designating official accounts in a way other than the blue check.

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November 8, 2022
Disney misses on profit and key revenue segments, warns streaming growth could taper
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Bob Chapek, Disney CEO at the Boston College Chief Executives Club, November 15, 2021.

Charles Krupa | AP

Disney fell short of expectations for profit and key revenue segments during the fiscal fourth quarter Tuesday and warned strong streaming growth for its Disney+ platform may taper going forward.

Shares of the company fell roughly 8% in after-hours trading.

The company’s quarterly results missed Wall Street expectations on the top and bottom lines, as both its parks and media divisions underperformed estimates. And Chief Financial Officer Christine McCarthy tempered investor expectations for the new fiscal year, forecasting 2023 revenue growth of less than 10%. The company reported fiscal 2022 revenue growth of 22%.

Revenue in Disney’s media and entertainment division fell 3% year over year to $12.7 billion during the fiscal fourth quarter, as the company’s direct-to-consumer and theatrical businesses struggled. Analysts had expected segment revenue of $13.9 billion, according to StreetAccount estimates.

The company also posted lower content sales because it had fewer theatrical films on the calendar and therefore, fewer films to place into the home entertainment market.

Here’s how the company performed in the period from July to September:

Earnings per share: 30 cents per share adj. vs. 55 cents expected, according to a Refinitiv survey of analysts

Revenue: $20.15 billion vs. $21.24 billion expected, according to Refinitiv

Disney+ total subscriptions: 164.2 million vs. 160.45 million expected, according to StreetAccount

Disney+ added 12.1 million subscriptions during the period, bringing the platform’s total subscriber base to 164.2 million, higher than the 160.45 million analysts had forecast, according to StreetAccount estimates.

However, growth is expected to slow in the fiscal first quarter, Disney executives warned on Tuesday’s conference call.

At the end of the fiscal fourth quarter, Hulu had 47.2 million subscribers and ESPN+ had 24.3 million. Combined, Hulu, ESPN+ and Disney+ have over 235 million streaming subscribers. Netflix, long the leader in the streaming space, had 223 million subscribers, according to the most recent tally.

Disney CEO Bob Chapek said in the company’s earnings release that Disney+ will achieve profitability in fiscal 2024. The direct-to-consumer division lost $1.47 billion during the most recent quarter. It also reported a 10% drop in domestic average revenue per user (ARPU) to $6.10.

The company is set to hike prices for the service in December and is planning an ad-supported tier, which is expected to boost revenue.

Chapek has been on a mission to better link the company’s divisions as one single organization and accelerate its direct-to-consumer strategy.

The company reported record results in its parks, experiences and products segment, Chapek said. The division, which includes the company’s theme parks, resorts, cruise line and merchandise business, saw revenue increase more than 34% to $7.4 billion during the quarter.

Still, Wall Street had slightly higher hopes for the division: Analysts were expecting revenue of $7.5 billion, according to StreetAccount.

Operating income for the division rose more than 66% to $1.5 billion as spending increased at its domestic and international parks and consumers booked voyages on its new cruise ship, the Disney Wish. The parks unit, specifically, brought in $815 million in operating income, well shy of the $919 million expected by StreetAccount.

Disney cited higher costs and said they were only partially offset by higher ticket revenue, driven by the introduction of the Genie+ and Lightning Lane guest offerings.

CFO McCarthy said Tuesday Disney is looking for “meaningful efficiencies” and actively examining the company’s cost base.

— CNBC’s Alex Sherman contributed to this report.
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November 8, 2022
WSJ News Exclusive | Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg Says He Is Accountable as Company Preps for Mass Layoffs
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WSJ News Exclusive

Tech

Layoffs are to begin on Wednesday morning, the CEO told hundreds of executives on Tuesday
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November 8, 2022
Disney stock dives 10% after earnings and revenue miss, sales growth forecast to slow after record year

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Walt Disney Co. wrapped up its fiscal year with record sales and its best revenue growth in more than 25 years, but executives predicted much slower sales increases in the year ahead while missing expectations for fourth-quarter earnings and sales, sending shares down more than 10% Tuesday afternoon.

Disney
DIS,
-0.53%
reported fiscal fourth-quarter net income of $162 million, or 9 cents a share, on sales of $20.15 billion, up from $18.53 billion a year ago but more than $1 billion short of expectations. After adjusting for amortization and certain investment changes, Disney reported earnings of 30 cents a share, down from 37 cents a share a year ago.

Analysts surveyed by FactSet had on average expected adjusted earnings of 56 cents a share on revenue of $21.27 billion.

Disney executives blamed a number of factors for the revenue miss, including lower content sales because they had fewer theatrical films on the calendar; underperformance of the parks and media divisions; and seasonality of its fourth quarter, which tends to be the lowest for margins.

For the full fiscal year, Disney reported record sales of $82.72 billion, more than 22% higher than the previous year, the strongest annual sales growth for Disney since the 1996 fiscal year, according to FactSet records. Profit grew to $3.19 billion from $2.02 billion the year before, but is nowhere close to prepandemic Disney earnings, which hit eight figures in both 2019 and 2018.

In a conference call Tuesday afternoon, though, Chief Financial Officer Christine McCarthy suggested that revenue and profit growth will slow to single digits on a percentage basis in the current fiscal year, missing Wall Street’s expectations. Analysts’ average revenue projection for Disney in the new fiscal year suggested revenue growth of about 13.9% and operating-income growth of roughly 17.4%, according to FactSet.

“Putting this all together, assuming we do not see a meaningful shift in the macroeconomic climate, we currently expect total company fiscal 2023 revenue and segment operating income to both grow at a high-single-digit percentage rate versus fiscal 2022,” McCarthy said.

Disney shares initially fell more than 6% in after-hours trading following the release of the results, but plunged anew to a decline of more than 10% after closing with a 0.5% decline at $99.94.

Disney has been helped by the return of visitors to its theme parks in the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as a recovering movie business. The main attraction for investors, though, has been growing Disney’s streaming efforts — total streaming subscribers topped Netflix Inc.’s
NFLX,
+1.88%
subscriber total last quarter, and grew its lead in Tuesday’s report, with Disney adding 12.1 million net new subscribers, while analysts on average expected 10.4 million.

Disney’s streaming growth has hampered its profitability, however, as the company spends to add content to its streaming services in order to compete with Netflix. Those days appear to be coming to an end as Disney struggles with profit.

“The rapid growth of Disney+ in just three years since launch is a direct result of our strategic decision to invest heavily in creating incredible content and rolling out the service internationally, and we expect our DTC operating losses to narrow going forward and that Disney+ will still achieve profitability in fiscal 2024, assuming we do not see a meaningful shift in the economic climate,” Disney Chief Executive Bob Chapek said in a statement announcing the results. “By realigning our costs and realizing the benefits of price increases and our Disney+ ad-supported tier coming December 8, we believe we will be on the path to achieve a profitable streaming business that will drive continued growth and generate shareholder value long into the future.”

Disney’s largest business segment, media and entertainment distribution, reported sales of $12.73 billion in the quarter, down from $13.08 billion a year ago; analysts on average predicted $13.86 billion. Direct-to-consumer sales, which includes streaming services as well as some international products, hauled in $4.9 billion, compared with analysts’ forecast of $5.4 billion on average.

The trajectory of Disney’ meteoric rise as video-streaming market leader is likely to continue once its advertising-supported service debuts in the U.S. next month, according to Wall Street analysts, after Netflix launched its rival offering on Nov. 3. Disney has leaned heavily on its stable of mega-franchises such as “Star Wars” and the Marvel Cinematic Universe to outpace Netflix Inc.
NFLX,
+1.88%,
Apple Inc.
AAPL,
+0.42%,
Comcast Corp.
CMCSA,
+0.95%,
Warner Bros. Discover Inc.
WBD,
-2.04%,
Amazon.com Inc.
AMZN,
-0.61%,
Paramount Global
PARA,
+1.28%
and others.

Read more: Disney overtook Netflix as the streaming leader, and is expected to widen its lead

Disney’s television networks generated sales of $6.34 billion, while analysts’ average estimates called for $6.64 billion. Content sales and licensing, a category that includes Disney’s film business, registered revenue of $1.74 billion vs. analysts’ expectations of $2.08 billion.

The company’s signature theme parks and product sales business increased to $7.43 billion in revenue from $5.45 billion a year ago. The average analyst estimate was $7.46 billion.

Shares of Disney are down 35.5% this year, while the broader S&P 500 index
SPX,
+0.56%
has dropped 20%.

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November 8, 2022
World Cup ambassador from Qatar denounces homosexuality

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BERLIN — An ambassador for the World Cup in Qatar has described homosexuality as a “damage in the mind” in an interview with German public broadcaster ZDF only two weeks before the opening of the soccer tournament in the Gulf state, highlighting concerns about the conservative country’s treatment of gays and lesbians.

Former Qatari national team player Khalid Salman told a German reporter in an interview that being gay is “haram,” or forbidden in Arabic, and that he has a problem with children seeing gay people.

Excerpts of the television interview were shown Monday on the ZDF news program Heute Journal. The full interview, which is part of a documentary, will be shown Tuesday on ZDF.

About 1.2 million international visitors are expected in Qatar for the tournament, which has faced criticism and skepticism ever since the gas-rich emirate was selected as host by FIFA in December 2010. Concerns about LGBTQ tourists attending the World Cup have also been expressed for a long time.

In the interview, Salman also said that homosexuality “is a spiritual harm.”

“During the World Cup, many things will come here to the country. Let’s talk about gays,” Salman said in English, which is simultaneously dubbed into German in the TV segment. “The most important thing is, everybody will accept that they come here. But they will have to accept our rules.”

The interview was cut short by a media officer of the World Cup organizing committee after Salman expressed his views on homosexuals, ZDF reported.

———

AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/world-cup and https://twitter.com/AP—Sports

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November 8, 2022
Russia, China and Islamic State jump on Musk’s Twitter bandwagon

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Elon Musk has some new super fans: Russia, China and the Islamic State.

After the world’s richest man bought Twitter for $44 billion last month, officials and journalists linked to Russia and China — and even some jihadists — urged him to lift restrictions on their use of the platform.

So far, their pleas have fallen on deaf ears. But the repeated requests — including from high-profile figures like Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson for Russia’s foreign ministry — are part of efforts by these individuals to use Musk’s takeover as a chance to make a comeback on Twitter.

Right-wing extremist groups in the West have already heralded Musk’s ownership as a signal that they can post hate-filled and potentially illegal content online with little, or no, resistance.

Now, Russian and Chinese state-backed Twitter accounts have taken up the same free speech argument, demanding the platform reinstate them, remove labels that identify these accounts as linked to Beijing or Moscow, and allow them to post more freely, including on hot-button topics like the war in Ukraine.

“They are doing this to jump on the bandwagon now that the right-wing community are putting pressure on Musk,” said Felix Kartte, a senior adviser at Reset, a technology accountability lobbying group. “They are pushing it because everyone else is pushing Musk, too.”

A representative for Twitter did not respond to a request for comment. The company has previously said its policies regarding online hate content have not changed since Musk’s takeover.

The pressure is a crucial early test of Musk’s willingness to police his new platform. Fears are already mounting that under his leadership, Twitter could be reshaped to make it a more toxic place for political debate — and potentially even incite an increase in violent extremism or foreign interference within Western democracies.

The resurgence of interest from the state-backed and jihadist accounts comes as Twitter undergoes a fundamental shift under Musk. The South African-born billionaire laid off half of the company’s employees on Friday, including many in senior public policy and content moderation roles.

After Vladimir Putin’s forces invaded Ukraine, the European Union imposed sanctions banning content from the likes of Russia’s RT and Sputnik, a move that forced Twitter to adopt its own restrictions, which it expanded beyond the borders of the 27-country bloc. Now senior figures at RT — and Kremlin officials — are demanding Musk lift those measures.

Margarita Simonyan, RT’s editor-in-chief, and other prominent RT journalists, messaged Musk in the days before and after the acquisition to urge him to end the so-called shadow bans against their state-affiliated news organization. Those restrictions include RT’s content not appearing when people search on Twitter.

“Elon @elonmusk, since you’re all for free speech, maybe unban RT and Sputnik accounts and take the shadow ban off mine as well?” Simonyan wrote on Twitter.

George Galloway, a former British politician who now hosts a show on RT, called on Musk to remove the “Russia state-affiliated media” label that had been placed on his account.

Chinese accounts also jumped on the bandwagon. While Beijing blocks Twitter for its domestic audience, the country’s officials and state media have repeatedly used the platform to spread propaganda and attack other users who criticize the Chinese Communist Party.

In August 2020, Twitter began labeling these accounts as state-affiliated, and since then, there has been a significant drop in engagement, including likes and shares, of those accounts, according to an analysis by the China Media Project, a research group at the University of Hong Kong.

Ever since Musk bought Twitter, Chinese officials and state-backed journalists have been urging him to live by his free speech beliefs. He must “remove all those McCarthyist discriminatory” policies for Chinese accounts, according to a Twitter post from Chen Weihua, the European bureau chief of the state-run China Daily newspaper.

“Can you please free the warning to Chinese media to give us a better and pleasant experience? Thank you,” added Zhang Heqing, an official in the Chinese embassy in Pakistan in response to Musk when he said Twitter would become a bastion for free speech.

It’s not just authoritarian governments. Islamic State supporters are also pushing to get back on the platform.

Within jihadist online communities, Musk’s takeover of Twitter has been welcomed as an opportunity to return.

Before 2015, Islamic State-related accounts had posted indiscriminately, including videos and images of beheadings and other acts of violence. Over the last seven years, Twitter’s content moderation tools had forced such activity to go underground.

Yet the number of Islamic State-affiliated accounts on Twitter has seen a sharp rise, compared to the previous 11-day period before Musk’s acquisition on October 27. The activity includes jihadist-supporting accounts likening the global clampdown they face to Musk’s own statements that both the left and right of politics are attacking him. In the last week, Islamic State-related Twitter users have also held so-called Twitter Spaces, or online voice conversations, with at least one of the sessions called “The Islamic Caliphate is remaining and expanding.”

Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of safety and integrity, said the company’s policies toward hateful content and so-called online trolls have not changed since Musk’s takeover. Twitter’s “core moderation capabilities” have not been hampered by the recent layoffs, which saw about 15 percent of Twitter’s global trust and safety team fired, Roth added.

Not everyone is convinced. “Through the changing of the guard, it seems as if Islamic State accounts have gotten more brazen,” according to Moustafa Ayad, executive director for Africa, the Middle East and Asia at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank that tracks online extremism. “If you make others feel like the group is back, it ultimately creates a sense of relief, or that it’s alright to post again as the Islamic State.”

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November 7, 2022
Musk threatens to boot Twitter account impersonators

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BOSTON (AP) — Elon Musk tweeted Sunday that Twitter will permanently suspend any account on the social media platform that impersonates another.

The platform’s new owner issued the warning after some celebrities changed their Twitter display names — not their account names — and tweeted as ‘Elon Musk’ in reaction to the billionaire’s decision to offer verified accounts to all comers for $8 month as he simultaneously laid off a big chunk of the workforce.

“Going forward, any Twitter handles engaging in impersonation without clearly specifying “parody” will be permanently suspended,” Musk wrote. While Twitter previously issued warnings before suspensions, now that it is rolling out “widespread verification, there will be no warning.”

In fact, “any name change at all” would compel the temporary loss of a verified checkmark, the world’s richest man said.

Comedian Kathy Griffin had her account suspended Sunday after she switched her screen name to Musk. She told a Bloomberg reporter that she had also used his profile photo.

“I guess not ALL the content moderators were let go? Lol,” Griffin joked afterward on Mastodon, an alternative social media platform where she set up an account last week.

Actor Valerie Bertinelli had similarly appropriated Musk’s screen name — posting a series of tweets in support of Democratic candidates on Saturday before switching back to her true name. “Okey-dokey. I’ve had fun and I think I made my point,” she tweeted afterwards.

Before the stunt, Bertinelli noted the original purpose of the blue verification checkmark. It was granted free of charge to people whose identity Twitter employees had confirmed; with journalists accounting for a big portion of recipients. “It simply meant your identity was verified. Scammers would have a harder time impersonating you,” Bertinelli noted.

“That no longer applies. Good luck out there!” she added.

The $8 verified accounts are Musk’s way of democratizing the service, he claims. On Saturday, a Twitter update for iOS devices listed on Apple’s app store said users who “sign up now” for the new “Twitter Blue with verification” can get the blue check next to their names “just like the celebrities, companies and politicians you already follow.”

It said the service would first be available in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the U.K. However, it was not available Sunday and there was no indication when it would go live. A Twitter employ, Esther Crawford, told The Associated Press it is coming “soon but it hasn’t launched yet.”

Twitter did not respond on Sunday to an email seeking comment on the verified accounts issue and Griffin’s suspension.

Musk later tweeted, “Twitter needs to become by far the most accurate source of information about the world. That’s our mission.”

If the company were to strip current verified users of blue checks — something that hasn’t happened — that could exacerbate disinformation on the platform during Tuesday’s midterm elections.

Like Griffin, some Twitter users have already begun migrating from the platform — Counter Social is another popular alternative — following layoffs that began Friday that reportedly affected about half of Twitter’s 7,500-employee workforce. They fear a breakdown of moderation and verification could create a disinformation free-for-all on what has been the internet’s main conduit for reliable communications from public agencies and other institutions.

Many companies have paused advertising on the platform out of concern it could become more unruly under Musk.

Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of safety and integrity, sought to assuage such concerns in a tweet Friday. He said the company’s front-line content moderation staff was the group least affected by the job cuts.

Musk tweeted late Friday that there was no choice but to cut jobs “when the company is losing over $4M/day.” He did not provide details on the daily losses at Twitter and said employees who lost their jobs were offered three months’ pay as severance.

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November 7, 2022
Media preps for 2022 election with focus on democracy issues

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NEW YORK (AP) — Time was, a television reporter assigned to “democracy issues” would have a quiet time on election night sets, occasionally popping up to talk about broken voting machines at a polling place or two.

That’s not the case in 2022.

Between election deniers and threats to voting rights, news organizations have emphasized the beat. That will continue next Tuesday, with coverage plans for the midterms rounding into shape.

CBS News will have its first-ever “Democracy Desk” to look at those issues and how law enforcement is dealing with threats. NBC News’ “Vote Watch Unit” is looking at election security and disinformation. ABC News has assigned the team of Dan Abrams, Pierre Thomas, Terry Moran and Kate Shaw to the topic.

News teams, mindful of public suspicion about journalists, also promise transparency in their own operations.

“Because there is an adamant disinformation campaign, there are efforts to sow chaos, one of the most important things we can do is stick to the facts,” said CBS anchor Norah O’Donnell.

Following a precedent set in the 2018 midterms, the broadcast networks will set aside their entire prime-time schedules to follow the action. CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC will have wall-to-wall coverage. There will be a wealth of online options for those whom one screen won’t do.

Expect surprises. Close pre-election polls, with control of the House and Senate up for grabs, combined with the lingering question of whether any politician will take Donald Trump’s example from 2020 and not accept the results, make the night potentially combustible.

“The stakes are high,” said David Chalian, CNN’s political director. “The results of this will alter the course of Biden’s presidency.”

ABC News is preparing for the possibility that answers to which party controls the House and Senate won’t be known when the network’s planned cut-off point of 2 a.m. Eastern is reached — and to extend that if necessary, said Marc Burstein, who’s in charge of the coverage.

“There’s just a lot of tight races,” said Martha MacCallum, who will co-anchor Fox News’ coverage with Bret Baier. “As a reporter and anchor that makes it a lot more fun to cover. It’s going to be a really exciting night in a lot of ways in terms of the drama that has already been built into this.”

Fox became a major part of the election night stories in 2018, when it declared long before its rivals that Democrats would control the House, and in 2020, when its first call of Arizona for Joe Biden infuriated Trump and his supporters.

After the fallout, one of Fox’s decision desk executives retired and another was reassigned, soon to leave the network — even though Fox got it right.

As a result, Fox viewers will probably see a lot of Arnon Mishkin, who returns to lead the network’s decision desk. Fox wants to bring viewers into the process as much as possible this year, so they can see the communication between the anchors, decision desk and producers, MacCallum said.

“We want people to understand how the calls are made,” she said. “We’re definitely making an effort to open up that process so viewers can see for themselves.”

Networks won’t say they’ll be more cautious than usual in calling races, not wanting the implication they weren’t careful enough in the past. Executives noted that news organizations didn’t declare Biden the winner in 2020 until the Saturday after the election.

But transparency — showing with perhaps mind-numbing detail how voting is going in close races — was a byword.

“We care about being right,” said Carrie Budoff Brown, senior vice president of “Meet the Press” and executive in charge of NBC News’ election coverage, “not necessarily being first.”

Burstein preached patience with so many local races. “We’re not going to jump to any conclusions that it’s a red wave or a blue wave,” he said.

The Associated Press, which has counted the nation’s votes for more than a century, does not declare a winner in an individual race until it has determined that there is no scenario under which trailing candidates can close the gap — even if a candidate has declared victory or others have conceded.

One of Tuesday’s biggest mysteries is whether any 2020 election deniers become 2022 election deniers.

“I can’t control what a politician comes out and says about the election results,” Chalian said. “What is in our control is our ability to present the factual results to the viewer.”

CNN will have more reporters out in the states than it ever has for a midterm election, he said. Other networks echo him; CBS News is preparing to tap into the expertise and staffing of its local stations across the country. NBC News has assigned six reporters each to Georgia and Pennsylvania alone.

“Through it all, they are going to have to be nimble and cover whatever story that emerges,” Budoff Brown said.

NBC News’ coverage will be led by the team of Lester Holt, Savannah Guthrie, Chuck Todd and Andrea Mitchell. David Muir anchors ABC’s coverage. CNN says its hosts include Jake Tapper, Anderson Cooper, Dana Bash and Don Lemon.

With the exit of news anchor Brian Williams, MSNBC’s coverage will be led by three anchors who host opinion shows: Rachel Maddow, Joy Reid and Nicolle Wallace.

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David Bauder is the media writer for The Associated Press. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/dbauder

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November 7, 2022