Tag: Media

Musk now gets chance to defeat Twitter’s many fake accounts

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Twitter’s unending fight against spam accounts is now a problem for new owner Elon Musk, who pledged in April to defeat the bot scourge or “die trying!”

He later cited bots as a reason to back out of buying the social platform. Now that the billionaire has completed the deal, he’s faced with the task of delivering on his promise to clean up the fake profiles that have preoccupied him and bedeviled Twitter since long before he expressed interest in acquiring it.

The challenge carries high stakes. The bot count matters because advertisers — Twitter’s chief revenue source — want to know roughly how many real humans they are reaching when they buy ads. It’s also important in the effort to stop bad actors from amassing an army of accounts to amplify misinformation or harass political adversaries.

“The bigger picture in my mind is: How do we make Twitter a better place for everybody,” said bot-counting expert Emilio Ferrara, who worked over the summer to investigate the problem for Musk. He cited the “value of the platform as a societal experience, as a collective place to have civilized discourse and talk freely without interference from nefarious accounts,” or scams, spam, pornography and harassment.

To find out just how bad the bots are, Musk hired Ferrara and other data scientists to investigate. At the time, he sought to prove that Twitter was misleading the public when it said fewer than 5% of its daily active users are fake or spam accounts. If Twitter lied or withheld crucial information about the bot count, Musk could argue that he was justified in terminating the $44 billion agreement.

Ferrara, an associate professor of computer science and communications at the University of Southern California, said he had no real interest in whether Musk ultimately ended up owning the platform.

Instead, he hoped that “any findings would be able to help improve the platform,” Ferrara told The Associated Press, speaking for the first time about his planned role as Musk’s expert trial witness.

The question now is what Musk will do with that information. Ferrara’s presentation — some 350 pages of analysis and supporting documents — is locked up in confidential court filings, and he said he can’t disclose his conclusions.

Twitter’s former leaders and its lawyers said Musk wildly exaggerated the problem because he had buyer’s remorse. Precise counts are “almost impossible” because any bot estimate is based on assumptions that can lead to bias, said Filippo Menczer, a researcher who has been studying social bots for more than a decade and was consulted by Twitter earlier this year.

“Nobody knows exactly how bad the problem is,” said Menczer, director of Indiana University’s Observatory on Social Media, who said he was speaking from his role as an academic researcher, not a consultant. “I would guess it’s not as bad as Musk said and not as good as Twitter claimed.”

Many experts also doubt Musk’s ability to easily make improvements, which he’s suggested would rely on using algorithms to track and remove fake accounts and implementing new measures to “authenticate” real people.

Earlier this month, Ferrara was preparing to travel to the East Coast to testify in Delaware, where Musk was defending against Twitter’s lawsuit asking a court to force him to close the deal. But two weeks before the scheduled Oct. 17 trial, Musk changed his mind and said he would go ahead with the $44 billion acquisition. It closed Thursday.

Most legal experts didn’t think Musk had much of a case. The court’s head judge seemed likely to side with Twitter based on the specific terms and conditions of the April purchase agreement.

But that’s not to say Musk didn’t have a point about the bots, according to Ferrara and other researchers hired by Musk’s legal team.

The analysis firm CounterAction, which worked with Ferrara, said it concluded in a July 18 report submitted to the court that Twitter’s spam rate for monetizable accounts — those of value to advertisers — was at least 10% and could be as high as 14.2%, depending on how the rate is measured.

Trevor Davis, the firm’s founder and CEO, said that analysis was based on a “firehose” of internal data that Twitter gave to Musk, but the company declined to provide additional data sought by Musk’s team.

“We expect that access to the withheld data would reveal an even higher true spam rate,” Davis said in a prepared statement.

Musk has long been preoccupied with Twitter spambots promoting cryptocurrency schemes, in part because as a celebrity user with more than 110 million followers, he sees a lot of them. Some scammers have opened accounts mimicking Musk’s name and likeness to try to get people to think he’s endorsing something.

Not all bots are bad. Twitter encourages the use of automated accounts that report the weather, earthquakes or post humor or lines from literary classics. Twitter also allows for anonymity, which protects free speech and privacy — especially in authoritarian regions. But that practice can make it harder to root out malicious fake accounts.

Ferrara first caught Twitter’s attention in the aftermath of revelations that Russia used social media to meddle in the U.S. presidential election in 2016, when he led a research group that estimated that 9% to 15% of Twitter’s active English-language accounts were bots.

In a blog post soon after, Twitter complained that such outside research “is often inaccurate and methodologically flawed.” The company has repeatedly reported the under-5% number in its quarterly filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission, though it also cautions that it could be higher.

Before Musk’s takeover, Twitter said it removed 1 million spam accounts each day. To calculate how many accounts are malicious spam, Twitter reviews thousands of accounts sampled at random, using both public and private data such as IP addresses, phone numbers, geolocation and how the account behaves when it is active.

But over the past months, Musk and Twitter have tussled over the methodology. Twitter uses a metric it calls mDAU, for monetizable daily active usage.

That “is literally a metric they invented,” Ferrara said. “You cannot contrast and compare that metric with any other service.”

When Musk first started publicly raising questions about the bot numbers after agreeing to buy the company, another firm, Israel-based Cyabra, said it had the answer.

“That elusive number you are looking for … we have it. It’s 13.7%,” the firm tweeted on May 17, flagging Musk’s Twitter handle to get his attention.

Cyabra’s machine-learning technology works by scanning a large number of social media profiles to track behavioral patterns, trying to pick out which are behaving like humans. Such guesswork can misfire — but the tweet caught the attention of people close to Musk, if not the billionaire himself.

Cyabra CEO Dan Brahmy said the company started working with the Musk camp by the end of May. Regardless of what the true count is, he said it’s not going to be an easy problem to solve.

“Some bots are definitely nefarious,” Brahmy said. “The trade-offs are between being extremely high on sign-up standards and information security versus being extremely open minded in a way” that fosters freedom of speech and creativity.

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October 31, 2022
India cricket star Virat Kohli “paranoid” over hotel video

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SYDNEY — India cricket star Virat Kohli says he is paranoid over his privacy after an “appalling” incident in which intruders allegedly filmed inside his hotel room during the Twenty20 World Cup.

Kohli took to social media on Monday to denounce the video, in which a stranger walks through the room filming every step of the way.

A second person was in the room when the video was shot, but no faces are shown in the footage.

The video is labelled ’King Kohli’s Hotel Room,” and shows the star batsman’s neat and organized belongings.

It remains unclear in which hotel room the video was taken, or how it came into Kohli’s possession.

“I understand that fans get very happy and excited seeing their favorite players and get excited to meet them and I’ve always appreciated that,” Kohli wrote to his 221 million followers on Instagram.

“But this video here is appalling and it’s made me feel very paranoid about my privacy. If I cannot have privacy in my own hotel room, then where can I really expect any personal space at all??

“I’m NOT okay with this kind of fanaticism and absolute invasion of privacy. Please respect people’s privacy and not treat them as a commodity for entertainment.”

Kohli played in India’s five-wicket loss to South Africa in Perth on Sunday night. The 33-year-old made only 12 runs and dropped an easy catch in the deep.

India plays its next match at the T20 World Cup on Wednesday against Bangladesh in Adelaide.

———

More AP cricket: https://apnews.com/hub/cricket and https://twitter.com/AP—Sports

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October 31, 2022
Workers leave iPhone factory in Zhengzhou amid COVID curbs

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HONG KONG — Workers who assemble Apple Inc.’s new iPhone have walked out of their factory in northern China to avoid COVID-19 curbs after some coworkers were quarantined following a virus outbreak.

Videos circulating on Chinese social media platforms showed people said to be Foxconn workers climbing over fences and walking down a road laden with their belongings.

The scenes underscore growing public discontent with China’s “zero-COVID” strategy, where the government seeks to stamp out outbreaks by implementing strict testing, isolation and lockdown measures where infections are detected.

Outbreaks have led to entire cities going into lockdown. In the latest wave of infections, Shanghai Disney Resort said Monday that it would close as of Monday for an indefinite amount of time “to follow the requirement of pandemic prevention and control.”

In an online notice, the park apologized for the inconvenience and said it would provide refunds or exchanges for those affected by its closure.

The Foxconn plant in Zhengzhou, Henan province, can accommodate up to 350,000 workers and is one of the largest factories in China assembling products for Apple Inc., including its latest iPhone 14 devices.

Not all the videos that showed workers purportedly leaving the facility could be verified. It was unclear if the workers leaving the facility had escaped or if they were allowed to leave.

Foxconn did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Volunteers from nearby villages put out food and drinks for the Foxconn workers. One such volunteer, who asked to be identified only by his surname Zhang out of privacy concerns, was put in charge of distributing supplies that his village in Xingyang county had prepared. He said that the people shown in a video he uploaded to the short-video platform Douyin were Foxconn workers because they would have to take that road if they were leaving the facility.

It was unclear how many people are currently employed at the Zhengzhou factory, how many of them have left and how many were affected by factory’s COVID-19 curbs.

Earlier this week, media reports said the factory had implemented a “closed-loop” system largely restricting workers to movements between their residences and the plant.

Local media reports said that Foxconn workers complained of poor food quality and a lack of medical care for those who tested positive amid worries infections could be spreading. The company denied rumors that 20,000 people in the plant had been infected with COVID-19.

Cities near Zhengzhou have urged Foxconn workers to report to local authorities if they plan to return to their hometowns to allow preparation of appropriate isolation measures.

Posts on the Zhengzhou government’s public WeChat account said Foxconn issued notices Sunday to workers at the factory, pledging to ensure the safety, legitimate rights and incomes of those who stayed.

A day after the videos circulated of workers leaving the factory on foot, Foxconn and several local governments arranged transportation for employees choosing to return home. It wasn’t clear how much choice they were given in the matter.

———

AP video producer Liu Zheng in Beijing contributed to this report.

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October 30, 2022
Witnesses describe ‘a hell’ inside South Korean crowd surge

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SEOUL, South Korea — In one moment, thousands of Halloween revelers crammed into the narrow, vibrant streets of Seoul’s most cosmopolitan neighborhood, eager to show off their capes, wizard hats and bat wings.

In the next, a surge of panic spread as an unmanageable mass of people jammed into a narrow alley in Itaewon. Toppled revelers were trapped for as long as 40 minutes, stacked on one another “like dominoes” in a chaotic crush so intense that clothes were ripped off.

A stunned Seoul was just beginning on Monday to put together the huge scope of the crowd surge on Saturday night that killed at least 153, mostly people in their 20s and 30s, including foreign nationals. The Ministry of the Interior and Safety said it expected more deaths because there were more than 130 injured, many in serious condition.

Witnesses described a nightmarish scene as people performed CPR on the dying and carried limp bodies to ambulances, while dance music pulsed from garish clubs lit in bright neon. Others tried desperately to pull out those trapped at the bottom of the crush of people, but often failed because there were too many of the fallen on top of them.

“We were just stuck together so tightly we couldn’t even shift to call out and report the situation,” said one survivor, surnamed Lee. “We were strangers, but we held each others’ hands and repeatedly shouted out, ‘Let’s survive!’”

Kim Mi Sung, who works for a non-profit organization in Itaewon, told The Associated Press that nine out of the 10 people she gave CPR to eventually died. Many were bleeding from their noses and mouths. Most were women who dressed as witches or were in other Halloween costumes; two were foreigners.

“It was like a hell,” Kim said. “I still can’t believe what happened.”

In this ultra-wired, high-tech country, anguish, terror and grief — as well as many of the details of what happened — are playing out most vividly on social media. Users posted messages desperately seeking friends and loved ones, as witnesses and survivors described what they went through.

“I thought I was dying,” one woman said in posts on Twitter. “My entire body was stuck among everyone else, while people laughed from a terrace and videotaped us. I thought I would really die if I cried out. I stretched my hands out to (others) who were above me and I managed to get out.”

An unidentified woman in her 20s wept as she described the scene to the Yonhap news agency: “It looked like the graves of people piled upon one another. Some of them were slowly losing consciousness and others seemed to have already died.”

A man, surnamed Kong, said he managed to escape to a nearby bar with his friends after the crush happened. He saw through the bar windows that people were falling on top of each other “like dominoes,” Yonhap reported.

When a 27-year-old office worker who gave only his surname, Choi, left the bar he’d been in during the crush, he saw dozens of police and paramedics. “It kind of looked like a war zone,” he said.

The bodies of 10 to 15 people were lined up in front of the King Kebab restaurant on the asphalt and were being covered up with blue tarps as he walked by.

“It looked like they were sleeping — eyes closed, mouth opened. They looked like mannequins,” Choi said.

Friends and family members gathered at a local government office to try to find news about the missing.

One Twitter user posted a series of messages asking for information about a 17-year-old friend who had gone to Itaewon to celebrate wearing a hairband that looked like cat ears.

“I lost contact with her. She’s been a friend of mine for 12 years, and we were like family. Please help me,” the message said.

Even after the crush, witnesses said they saw some revelers not immediately making way for emergency vehicles, rescuers and police officers. One viral video clip on Twitter showing a crowd of young people dancing and singing near the carnage drew several insults from South Koreans.

Ken Fallas, a Costa Rican architect who has worked in Seoul for the past eight years, watched stunned as a dozen or more unconscious partygoers were carried out from a narrow backstreet packed with youngsters dressed like movie characters.

Fallas said police and emergency workers pleaded with people to step up if they knew how to give CPR because they were overwhelmed by the large number of injured.

“I saw a lot of (young) people laughing, but I don’t think they were (really) laughing because, you know, what’s funny?” Fallas said. “They were laughing because they were too scared. Because to be in front of a thing like that is not easy. Not everyone knows how to process that.”

———

AP journalists Juwon Park in Seoul, South Korea, and Jee-won Jeong and Kiko Rosario in Bangkok contributed to this story.

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October 30, 2022
As subscription prices rise, here’s what’s worth streaming in November 2022: ‘The Crown,’ ‘Willow,’ ‘Mythic Quest’ and more

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So here’s some bad news and some, well, slightly less bad news.

First, the bad-bad: Streaming prices are increasing almost across the board (Hulu and Apple TV+ rose in October, Disney+ will rise in December, while Netflix and Prime Video rose earlier this year), putting even more of a crunch on budget-conscious consumers.

But now the less bad: If you can put up with commercials, there are cheaper, ad-supported versions coming your way (Netflix on Nov. 3, Disney+ in December).

Of course, the other money-saving solution is to double down on a churn-and-return strategy and cut down on recurring subscriptions even more.

Each month, this column offers tips on how to maximize your streaming and your budget, rating the major services as a “play,” “pause” or “stop” — similar to investment analysts’ traditional ratings of buy, hold and sell. We also pick the best content to help you make your monthly decisions.

Consumers can take full advantage of cord-cutting by churning and returning — adding and dropping streaming services each month. All it takes is good planning. Keep in mind that a billing cycle starts when you sign up, not necessarily at the beginning of the month, and keep an eye out for lower-priced tiers, limited-time discounts, free trials and cost-saving bundles. There are a lot of offers out there, but the deals don’t last forever.

Here’s a look at what’s coming to the various streaming services in November 2022, and what’s really worth the monthly subscription fee.

Netflix ($6.99 a month for basic with ads starting Nov. 3, $9.99 basic without ads, $15.49 standard without ads, $19.99 premium without ads)

Netflix has another really good month coming up.

“The Crown” (Nov. 9), returns for its fifth season, set this time in the 1990s as scandals involving Charles and Diana plaster London’s tabloids and the role of Britain’s monarchy in modern society is thrown into question. Imelda Staunton takes over the role of Queen Elizabeth, with Dominic West as Prince Charles, Elizabeth Debicki as Princess Diana and Jonathan Pryce as Prince Philip. Controversy has already erupted over the new season, which will include Diana’s tragic death, as some have spoken out about the show’s increasingly blurry line between truth and fiction. Pryce recently told Vanity Fair, ““The vast majority of people know it’s a drama,” not a documentary. And it’s a pretty good drama.

Netflix
NFLX,
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hasn’t had much success developing original sitcoms, but is hoping to finally break through with “Blockbuster” (Nov. 3), a workplace comedy set at the last Blockbuster video store in America, starring network sitcom veterans Randall Park (“Fresh Off the Boat”) and Melissa Fumero (“Brooklyn Nine-Nine”). There’s also “Wednesday” (Nov. 23), a horror-comedy series from Tim Burton starring Jenna Ortega as the terrifyingly snarky teen Wednesday Addams, with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzman playing her creepy and kooky parents, Morticia and Gomez; and the third and final season of the dark comedy “Dead to Me” (Nov. 17), starring Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini, which returns after a two-and-a-half-year layoff.

On the drama side, there’s “1899” (Nov. 17), a mystery-horror series set aboard a transatlantic steamer ship at the turn of the last century, from the makers of the mind-bending German sci-fi series “Dark” — and if it’s even half as trippy and addictive, it’ll be terrific; Part 1 of the fourth season of the supernatural drama “Manifest” (Nov. 4), which Netflix rescued from NBC’s cancellation; and Season 6 of the soapy Spanish high-school drama “Elite” (Nov 18).

More: Here’s everything new coming to Netflix in November 2022, and what’s leaving

There’s also the timely documentary “FIFA Uncovered” (Nov. 9), digging into the scandal-plagued organization behind the World Cup; “Pepsi, Where’s My Jet” (Nov. 17), a documentary about a man who sued Pepsi in the 1980s to get a free Harrier fighter jet; the fifth installment of “The Great British Baking Show: Holidays” (Nov. 18); and the new standup comedy special from the outgoing “Daily Show” host, “Trevor Noah: I Wish You Would” (Nov. 22).

On the movie front, there’s “Enola Holmes 2” (Nov. 4), a sequel to the hit 2020 movie about Sherlock Holmes’ younger sister, played by Millie Bobby Brown (“Stranger Things”), as young detective Enola sets out to investigate her first case; “Slumberland” (Nov. 18), a comedy adventure about a young girl exploring the dreamworld, starring Mallow Barkley and Jason Mamoa; and Lindsay Lohan is back with a Christmas rom-com, “Falling for Christmas” (Nov. 10).

Who’s Netflix for? Fans of buzz-worthy original shows and movies.

Play, pause or stop? Play. When it’s at the top of its game, as it is again this month, Netflix is a must-have, at whatever price tier.

Disney+ ($7.99 a month)

The TV world has been abuzz about prequels for the past few months, but it’s all about sequels in November for Disney+.

The biggest of the bunch is “Willow” (Nov. 30), a follow-up series to the cult-favorite 1988 fantasy movie of the same name. The magical adventure is set 20 years after the events of the film, and Warwick Davis returns as farmer-turned-sorcerer Willow Ufgood, who leads an unlikely group of heroes on a quest to save their world. It should be fun for the whole family.

Disney
DIS,
+1.45%
also has “Disenchanted” (Nov. 18), a sequel to the 2007 hit movie “Enchanted.” The musical fantasy is set 10 years after the happily-ever-after ending, with Giselle (Amy Adams) questioning her happiness and inadvertently setting her two worlds askew. Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden and Maya Rudolph co-star. And then there’s “The Santa Clauses” (Nov. 16), as Tim Allen reprises his role of Santa Claus, who’s now facing retirement and looking for a replacement, in a new miniseries spinoff of the family-movie trilogy.

Also of note: “The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special” (Nov. 25), as Star-Lord and the gang kidnap Kevin Bacon; the live performance “Elton John: Live from Dodger Stadium” (Nov. 20), the pop icon’s final show in North America; and weekly episodes of “Dancing With the Stars” (season finale Nov. 21), the “Star Wars” prequel “Andor” (season finale Nov. 23) and “The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers” (season finale Nov. 30).

And heads up: Prices for the ad-free tier will jump to $10.99 a month in December, after Disney+ launches its ad-supported tier for $7.99 a month.

Who’s Disney+ for? Families with kids, hardcore “Star Wars” and Marvel fans. For people not in those groups, Disney’s library can be lacking.

Play, pause or stop? Play. There’s something for everyone in the household — even grumps who aren’t “Star Wars” fans can get into “Andor,” which absolutely works as a dark, gripping, spy thriller. Meanwhile, fans are realizing it just might be the best “Star Wars” series or movie ever made.

HBO Max ($9.99 a month with ads, or $14.99 without ads)

HBO Max is bringing back “The Sex Lives of College Girls” (Nov. 17) for its second season. Created by Mindy Kaling and Justin Noble (who also teamed on Netflix’s “Never Have I Ever”), the ensemble comedy about four college roommates picks up right after Thanksgiving break, with the girls organizing a “sex-positive” male strip show. It’s sharp, funny, and less cringey than its title suggests.

Then there’s “A Christmas Story Christmas” (Nov. 17), a nostalgic sequel to the 1983 classic, starring Peter Billingsley as a grown-up Ralphie who returns to his hometown to try to give his kids a perfect Christmas. It’s risky reviving such a beloved movie, and this could either be wonderful or terrible, there’s really no middle ground.

HBO Max also has a slew of documentaries, including “Love, Lizzo” (Nov. 24), about the pop superstar’s inspiring life story; “Shaq” (Nov. 23), a four-part docuseries chronicling the rise to superstardom of NBA Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal; “Low Country: The Murdaugh Dynasty” (Nov. 3), a true-crime series about a South Carolina lawyer’s scandalous fall; and “Say Hey, Willie Mays!” (Nov. 8), a film exploring the life, career and social impact of the greatest baseball player who ever played the game.

See more: Here’s everything new coming to HBO Max in November 2022, and what’s leaving

And every week brings new episodes of Season 2 of the very dark vacation comedy “The White Lotus,” Season 3 of “Pennyworth: The Origin of Batman’s Butler” and Season 2 of the cult documentary “The Vow.”

Who’s HBO Max for? HBO fans and movie lovers.

Play, pause or stop? Pause and think it over. “The White Lotus” and “The Sex Lives of College Girls” are both worth watching, but beyond that it’s kinda “meh” this month. And Max is too pricey for “meh.”

Amazon Prime Video ($14.99 a month)

Amazon
AMZN,
-6.80%
is bringing the star power in November, starting with the Western drama series “The English” (Nov. 11), starring Emily Blunt as an aristocratic Englishwoman who teams with a Pawnee scout (Chaske Spencer) on a mission to cross the violent 1890s American frontier. It looks stylish and bloody — and promising.

Meanwhile, James Corden and Sally Hawkins star in “Mammals” (Nov. 11), a dark comedy series about modern marriage; pop star-turned-actor Harry Styles stars in “My Policeman” (Nov. 4), a drama about forbidden romance that’s getting very “meh” reviews in its theatrical release; and Kristen Bell, Ben Platt and Allison Janney star in “The People We Hate at the Wedding” (Nov. 18), a raunchy comedy set at a dysfunctional family wedding.

More: Here’s what’s coming to Amazon’s Prime Video in November 2022

There’s also NFL Thursday Night Football every week, and new episodes of the intriguing sci-fi drama “The Peripheral,” which is giving very “Westworld”-but-slightly-less-confusing vibes.

Who’s Amazon Prime Video for? Movie lovers, TV-series fans who value quality over quantity.

Play, pause or stop? Pause. There’s good stuff here, but nothing that feels must-see.

Paramount+ ($4.99 a month with ads but not live CBS, $9.99 without ads)

Taylor Sheridan (“Yellowstone,” “1883,” “Mayor of Kingstown”) has another new series: “Tulsa King” (Nov. 13), starring Sylvester Stallone as a former New York mafia capo who gets freed from prison after 25 years and settles in Tulsa, Okla., to build a criminal empire of his own. Showrunner Terence Winter (“The Sopranos,” “Boardwalk Empire”) knows a thing or two about mob shows, and this one could be good.

Paramount+ also has the spinoff series “Criminal Minds: Evolution” (Nov. 24), about an elite team of FBI profilers unraveling a network of serial killers; the family movie “Fantasy Football” (Nov. 25), about a girl who can magically control how her NFL-player dad performs on the field; and the series finale of “The Good Fight” (Nov. 10), which its creators promise will be “cataclysmic.”

There’s also the Thanksgiving Day Parade (Nov. 24) and a ton of live sports, including college football on Saturdays, NFL football on Sundays (and Thanksgiving Day), and group-stage matches for UEFA’s Champions and Europe leagues.

Who’s Paramount+ for? Gen X cord-cutters who miss live sports and familiar Paramount Global
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broadcast and cable shows.

Play, pause or stop? Pause. Besides its solid live-sports lineup, it’s a good time to catch up and binge “The Good Fight,” and “Tulsa King” could be worth a watch too.

Hulu ($7.99 a month with ads, or $14.99 with no ads)

Hulu has a couple of interesting offerings in November, but nothing that screams must-see. Yet, at least.

FX’s “Fleishman Is in Trouble” (Nov. 17) stars Jesse Eisenberg as a newly divorced dad whose promiscuous dive into app-based dating is disrupted when his ex-wife disappears and leaves him with their kids. Claire Danes, Lizzy Caplan and Adam Brody co-star in the eight-episode drama, which is based on Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s best-selling novel.

There’s also “Welcome to Chippendales” (Nov. 22), a true-crime series starring Kumail Nanjiani as the immigrant founder of the 1980s male-stripper franchise, which chronicles his business empire’s rise and fall amid a blizzard of sex, drugs and violence.

Meanwhile, Adam McKay (“The Big Short”) and Billy Corben (“Cocaine Cowboys”) have the documentary “God Forbid: The Sex Scandal That Brought Down a Dynasty” (Nov. 1), about the private life of Christian televangelist and former Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr. and his very public downfall.

See: Here’s everything new on Hulu in November 2022 — and what’s leaving

There are also the final two episodes of “Atlanta” (series finale Nov. 10), whose fourth season has returned to brilliance after an underwhelming Season 3 over the summer, and new episodes every week of ABC’s “Abbott Elementary.”

Who’s Hulu for? TV lovers. There’s a deep library for those who want older TV series and next-day streaming of many current network and cable shows.

Play, pause or stop? Stop. While you won’t regret paying for Hulu if you already do, there’s not a lot to lure new subscribers this month.

Apple TV+ ($6.99 a month)

Apple TV+ is too inconsistent to be worth the $2-a-month price hike that was just announced, so it’s best to strategically plan when to stream — wait until a good series or two are completed, for example, and binge them all in a month, then cancel. Repeat as needed.

And it actually is a decent month for Apple. Its second-best comedy, “Mythic Quest” Nov. 11), returns for its third season, with Ian (Rob McElhenny) and Poppy (Charlotte Nicdao) gearing up for war against their old videogame company. With a perfect blend of humor and heart, it’s one of the best workplace comedies on TV.

Meanwhile, Season 2 of “The Mosquito Coast” (Nov. 4) finds the fugitive Fox family finally hiding out in Central America, after a tedious premise-pilot of a first season that wasted good actors (Justin Theroux and Melissa George) and beautiful cinematography with nonsensical plot twists, while the action series “Echo 3” (Nov. 23) stars Luke Evans and Michiel Huisman as former soldiers trying to rescue a kidnapped scientist in the jungles of South America.

Apple
AAPL,
+7.56%
also has a pair of high-profile original movies: “Causeway” (Nov. 3), starring Jennifer Lawrence as a former soldier struggling to adjust to civilian life in New Orleans, co-starring Brian Tyree Henry, and “Spirited” (Nov. 18), a musical twist on “A Christmas Carol” told from the ghosts’ point of view, starring Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell.

Who’s Apple TV+ for? It offers a little something for everyone, but not necessarily enough for anyone — although it’s getting there.

Play, pause or stop? Stop. There’s just not enough to justify a month-to-month subscription. December is a better bet, with “Mythic Quest” and a new season of “Slow Horses” running concurrently.

Peacock (free basic level, Premium for $4.99 a month with ads, or $9.99 a month with no ads)

The World Cup from Qatar (Nov. 20-Dec. 18) will be broadcast on Fox and FS1, so cord-cutters are out of luck, unless you subscribe to a live-streaming service like Hulu Live or YouTube TV. However, Peacock will stream every match in Spanish, which could be a decent Plan B for soccer fans.

And that “it’ll-do-but-it’s-not-exactly-what-I’m-looking-for” description is the running theme for Peacock. November will bring a handful of originals that are unlikely to move the needle, subscriber-wise: There’s the musical-comedy spinoff series “Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin” (Nov. 23), starring Adam Devine; “The Calling” (Nov. 10), a crime drama about a religious cop, from David E. Kelley and Barry Levinson; the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade (Nov. 24); and the streaming debut of Jordan Poole’s sci-fi/horror hit “Nope” (Nov. 18).

Sports-wise, Peacock has the National Dog Show (hey, it’s a competition!) on Nov. 24, NFL Sunday Night Football every weekend, a full slate of English Premier League matches through Nov. 13, and a ton of golf and winter sports.

Who’s Peacock for? If you have a Comcast
CMCSA,
-0.06%
or Cox cable subscription, you likely have free access to the Premium tier (with ads) — though reportedly not for much longer. The free tier is almost worthless, but the recent addition of next-day streaming of NBC and Bravo shows (like “Saturday Night Live” and “Real Housewives”) bolsters the case for paying for a subscription. Still, Peacock is still not really necessary unless you need it for sports.

Play, pause or stop? Stop. There’s not a lot that’s particularly enticing right now, even on the sports side.

Discovery+ ($4.99 a month with ads, or $6.99 with no ads)

More of the same in November for Discovery+, which is a feature, not a bug. Highlights include the vegan cook-and-chat show “Mary McCartney Serves It Up” (Nov. 1); “Tut’s Lost City Revealed” (Nov. 3), about a 3,000-year-old Egyptian city recently discovered by archaeologists; “Vardy vs Rooney: The Wagatha Trial” (Nov. 19), the inside story of the tabloid-fodder “Wagatha” scandal between the wives of English soccer stars; and Season 2 of the excellent CNN food series “Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy” (Nov. 30). Full disclosure: There are also a handful of sappy holiday movies guest-starring some HGTV and Food Network stars, but they look terrible and I expect better from you, a discerning reader/viewer.

Who’s Discovery+ for? Cord-cutters who miss their unscripted TV or who are really, really into “90 Day Fiancé.”

Play, pause or stop? Stop. Discovery+ is still fantastic for background TV, but it’s not worth the cost. Still, it should add value when the reconfigured Warner Bros. Discovery
WBD,
+3.68%
combines it with HBO Max next summer.

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October 30, 2022
Musk tweets link to an unfounded conspiracy theory

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WASHINGTON — Elon Musk on Sunday tweeted a link to an unfounded rumor about the attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, just days after Musk’s purchase of Twitter fueled concerns that the social media platform would no longer seek to limit misinformation and hate speech.

Musk’s tweet, which he later deleted, linked to an article by a fringe website, the Santa Monica Observer, an outlet that has previously asserted that Hillary Clinton died on Sept. 11 and was replaced with a body double.

In this case, the article recycled a baseless claim that the personal life of Paul Pelosi, the speaker’s husband, somehow played a role in an intruder’s attack last week in the couple’s San Francisco home, even though there is no evidence to support that claim.

Musk did so in reply to a tweet by Hillary Clinton. Her tweet had criticized Republicans for generally spreading “hate and deranged conspiracy theories” and said, “It is shocking, but not surprising, that violence is the result.”

In response to Clinton’s tweet, Musk provided a link to the Santa Monica Observer article and added, “There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye.”

The Los Angeles Times, the dominant news organization in the Southern California area where the Observer is located, has said the Observer is “notorious for fake news.”

Police in San Francisco have said the suspect in last week’s attack, identified as David DePape, 42, broke into the Pelosi family’s Pacific Heights home early Friday and confronted Paul Pelosi, demanding to know, as the AP has reported, “Where is Nancy?”

The two men struggled over a hammer before officers responding to a 911 call to the home saw DePape strike Paul Pelosi at least once, police said. DePape was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, elder abuse and burglary. Prosecutors plan to file charges on Monday and expect his arraignment on Tuesday.

Police say the attack was “intentional” and not random but have not stated publicly what they consider to be the motive.

The exchange between Musk and Clinton occurred a day after Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of safety and integrity, tweeted that the company’s policies toward “slurs” and “hateful conduct” were still in place.

“Bottom line up front: Twitter’s policies haven’t changed. Hateful conduct has no place here,” Roth wrote.

Shortly after Musk took control of Twitter, some accounts on the platform began tweeting messages ranging from racist slurs to political misinformation, such as “Trump won,” to see what Twitter will now tolerate.

Musk himself said Friday that he would form a “content moderation council” for Twitter and promised advertisers that the website would not devolve into a “free for all hellscape.” Musk has also described himself as a “free speech absolutist.”

But at least one major advertiser, General Motors, has said it will suspend advertising on Twitter while it monitors the direction of the platform under Musk.

Also on Sunday, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that she didn’t trust Musk to run Twitter.

Referring to antisemitic attacks and the QAnon conspiracy theory that were advanced online by DePape, the suspect in the attack, Klobuchar said, “I think you have to have some content moderation.”

“If Elon Musk has said now that he’s going to start a content moderation board,” the senator said, “that was one good sign. But I continue to be concerned about that. I just don’t think people should be making money off of passing on this stuff that’s a bunch of lies.”

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October 30, 2022
Musk tweets link to an unfounded conspiracy theory

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WASHINGTON — Elon Musk on Sunday tweeted a link to an unfounded rumor about the attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, just days after Musk’s purchase of Twitter fueled concerns that the social media platform would no longer seek to limit misinformation and hate speech.

Musk’s tweet, which he later deleted, linked to an article by a fringe website, the Santa Monica Observer, an outlet that has previously asserted that Hillary Clinton died on Sept. 11 and was replaced with a body double.

In this case, the article recycled a baseless claim that the personal life of Paul Pelosi, the speaker’s husband, somehow played a role in an intruder’s attack last week in the couple’s San Francisco home, even though there is no evidence to support that claim.

Musk did so in reply to a tweet by Hillary Clinton. Her tweet had criticized Republicans for generally spreading “hate and deranged conspiracy theories” and said, “It is shocking, but not surprising, that violence is the result.”

In response to Clinton’s tweet, Musk provided a link to the Santa Monica Observer article and added, “There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye.”

The Los Angeles Times, the dominant news organization in the Southern California area where the Observer is located, has said the Observer is “notorious for fake news.”

Police in San Francisco have said the suspect in last week’s attack, identified as David DePape, 42, broke into the Pelosi family’s Pacific Heights home early Friday and confronted Paul Pelosi, demanding to know, as the AP has reported, “Where is Nancy?”

The two men struggled over a hammer before officers responding to a 911 call to the home saw DePape strike Paul Pelosi at least once, police said. DePape was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, elder abuse and burglary. Prosecutors plan to file charges on Monday and expect his arraignment on Tuesday.

Police say the attack was “intentional” and not random but have not stated publicly what they consider to be the motive.

The exchange between Musk and Clinton occurred a day after Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of safety and integrity, tweeted that the company’s policies toward “slurs” and “hateful conduct” were still in place.

“Bottom line up front: Twitter’s policies haven’t changed. Hateful conduct has no place here,” Roth wrote.

Musk himself said Friday that he would form a “content moderation council” for Twitter and promised advertisers that the website would not devolve into a “free for all hellscape.” Musk has also described himself as a “free speech absolutist.”

But at least one major advertiser, General Motors, has said it will suspend advertising on Twitter while it monitors the direction of the platform under Musk.

Also on Sunday, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that she didn’t trust Musk to run Twitter.

Referring to antisemitic conspiracy theories that were advanced online by DePape, the suspect in the attack, Klobuchar said, “I think you have to have some content moderation.”

“If Elon Musk has said now that he’s going to start a content moderation board,” the senator said, “that was one good sign. But I continue to be concerned about that. I just don’t think people should be making money off of passing on this stuff that’s a bunch of lies.”

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October 30, 2022
Journalist crushed to death at ex-Pakistan PM Khan’s march

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LAHORE, Pakistan — A female journalist was crushed to death Sunday in Pakistan while covering a political march led by former Prime Minister Imran Khan, a senior police officer said.

Sadaf Naeem, 36, a television journalist with Channel 5 in Lahore, was crushed to death after she slipped from the container truck Khan was traveling in, said Salman Zafar, assistant superintendent in Kamuke, one of the towns on the march’s path.

Khan’s convoy was making its way through Punjab province toward Islamabad on the march’s third day. The demonstrators were challenging Khan’s successor, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif and his government, demanding snap elections. It was the practice of Khan’s convoy team to invite a few journalists at a time onto the top of the truck to speak to Khan.

“Shocked & deeply saddened by the terrible accident that led to the death of Channel 5 reporter Sadaf Naeem during our March today,” Khan said in a tweet. “I have no words to express my sorrow. My prayers & condolences go to the family at this tragic time. We have cancelled our March for today.”

Sharif also expressed his condolences to Naeem’s bereaved family, announcing a roughly $20,000 donation to her relatives.

“Deeply saddened by the death of reporter Sadaf Naeem after falling from a long march container,” Sharif said in a tweet. “Cannot feel sad enough over this tragic incident. Heartfelt condolences to the family. Sadaf Naeem was a dynamic and hardworking reporter. We pray for patience for the family of the deceased.”

Naeem was the breadwinner for her family and had worked as a journalist for 12 years. Pakistani officials say they will bear the living costs and educational expenses of her two children, aged 17 and 21.

About 10,000 of Khan’s supporters, many of them piled into hundreds of trucks and cars, left from Lahore on Friday.

The convoy’s journey, expected to be capped with an open-ended rally in Islamabad, could present a significant challenge to the new administration. The rally could potentially also turn violent if police move in to disperse Khan’s supporters.

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October 30, 2022
Patriots’ Kraft, school statements denounce antisemitism

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New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and other members of the sports world are condemning recent incidents of hate speech toward Jewish people — not just the antisemitic comments by the music mogul formerly known as Kanye West, but also outside of a college football game in Florida on Saturday night.

A day after the NBA and Brooklyn Nets issued disapproving statements in response to Kyrie Irving’s apparent support for an antisemitic film, other team executives and athletes are speaking out against hatred and intolerance, on and off the field.

At some point during the football game between Florida and Georgia on Saturday night, the phrase “Kanye is right about the jews” was projected on the outside of one of the end zones at the TIAA Bank Field stadium in Jacksonville, Florida. It was a reference to recent antisemitic comments that Ye has made on social media and in interviews — comments that have led to him losing partnerships with Adidas and several other companies.

The University of Florida and University of Georgia issued a joint statement Sunday morning condemning the hate speech on the stadium and “the other anti-Semitic messages that have appeared in Jacksonville.” The schools also said they “together denounce these and all acts of anti-Semitism and other forms of hatred and intolerance. We are proud to be home to strong and thriving Jewish communities at UGA and UF, and we stand together against hate.”

Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry said on social media his northeast Florida city is “made better because of its diversity. Those who spread messages of hate, racism and antisemitism will not be able to change the heart of this city or her people. I condemn these cowards and their cowardly messages.”

And Shad Khan, the owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars, who play in the TIAA Bank Field stadium, said on social media that he was “personally dismayed” by the rhetoric, calling it, “hurtful and wrong.”

“It has to stop. I’m asking everyone to make it their mission to end the ignorance and hate,” Khan said. “Let’s be better.”

Last year, the Anti-Defamation League recorded 2,717 incidents of harassment, vandalism or violence targeting Jews — the highest annual total since it began tracking these incidents in 1979. The recent antisemitic incidents come four years after the deadliest attack on American Jews, when 11 people were killed at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, and just days before the contentious midterm elections throughout the U.S.

A nonprofit founded by Kraft took the extra step of planning to air an ad during the Patriots-New York Jets game on Sunday that condemned anti-Jewish hate speech and encouraged people who are not Jewish to speak up against antisemitism.

“Recently many of you have spoken up,” the 30-second ad from Kraft’s Foundation to Combat Antisemitism said. “We hear you today. We must hear you tomorrow. There are less than 8 million Jewish people in this country. Fewer than are watching this ad. They need you to add your voice.”

The ad, which was scheduled to air during the first quarter of the game, ends with the hashtag: #StandUptoJewishHate.

“I have committed tremendous resources toward this effort and am vowing to do more,” Kraft said in a statement. “I encourage others to join in these efforts. My hope is this commercial will continue to enhance the national conversation about the need to speak out against hatred of all types, and particularly to stand up to Jewish hate.”

Also this week, Nets owner Joe Tsai said he was disappointed by Irving, a seven-time All-Star who appeared to support a film Tsai said was “based on a book full of antisemitic disinformation” when he posted a link for the film “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America” on Twitter on Thursday.

Nets coach Steve Nash said the organization had “spoken to Kyrie about it” but didn’t give specifics. The NBA also spoke up Saturday, saying that “hate speech of any kind is unacceptable.”

“We believe we all have a role to play in ensuring such words or ideas, including antisemitic ones, are challenged and refuted and we will continue working with all members of the NBA community to ensure that everyone understands the impact of their words and actions,” the league said.

Irving, however, responded in a postgame news conference Saturday, claiming to believe in all religions and saying he is “not a divisive person when it comes to religion.” He added he wouldn’t “stand down on anything I believe in.”

“Did I do anything illegal? Did I hurt anybody?” Irving said. “Did I harm anybody? Am I going out and saying that I hate one specific group of people?”

Texas A&M’s football team changed up how it entered the field Saturday night before its 31-28 loss to No. 15 Mississippi. After coming out to “Power” by Ye since 2012, the Aggies instead entered to an instrumental of “Bonfire” by Childish Gambino. Texas A&M athletic director Ross Bjork criticized West’s comments earlier this week.

The fallout around Ye’s comments also includes Donda Sports, a brand management agency he founded. Los Angeles Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald and Boston Celtics swingman Jaylen Brown terminated their associations with the agency, with Donald and his wife, Erica, denouncing the “displays of hate and antisemitism” by Ye.

The high-profile basketball team at Ye’s Donda Academy in California also has been affected, with the Los Angeles Times reporting Friday that it had confirmed four major tournaments had dropped the school.

———

AP Pro Football Writer Mark Long, AP Pro Basketball Writer Brian Mahoney and AP Sports Writer Erica Hunzinger contributed to this report.

———

More AP sports: https://apnews.com/hub/apf-sports and https://twitter.com/AP—Sports

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October 30, 2022
Workers leave iPhone factory in Zhengzhou amid COVID curbs

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HONG KONG — Workers in a manufacturing facility in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou appear to have left to avoid COVID-19 curbs, with many traveling on foot for days after an unknown number of employees were quarantined in the facility after a virus outbreak.

Videos circulating on Chinese social media platforms showed people who are allegedly Foxconn workers climbing over fences and carrying their belongings down the road.

The Foxconn plant in Zhengzhou, Henan province, is one of the largest factories in China that assembles products for Apple Inc., including its latest iPhone 14 devices.

Not all the videos that showed workers purportedly leaving the facility could be verified. It is unclear if the workers leaving the facility had escaped or if they were allowed to leave.

Foxconn did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Volunteers from nearby villages put out food and drinks for the Foxconn workers. One such volunteer, who asked to be identified only by his surname Zhang out of privacy concerns, was put in charge of distributing supplies that his village in Xingyang county had prepared. He said that the people shown in a video he uploaded to the short-video platform Douyin were Foxconn workers because they would have to take that road if they were leaving the facility.

The workers’ exodus comes after reports that Foxconn had placed a number of workers under quarantine following a COVID-19 outbreak in the factory.

The Foxconn facility in Zhengzhou can accommodate up to 350,000 factory workers, but it is not clear how many are currently employed by the factory. It is also unclear how many of them have left, or how many were affected by COVID-19 curbs implemented in the factory prior to their departure.

Earlier this week, media reports said that a “closed-loop” system had been implemented in the factory that largely restricts workers to movements between their residence and the plant.

Local media reports said that Foxconn workers complained of poor food quality and a lack of medical care for those who tested positive amid growing concerns that the infection could be spreading. The company also denied rumors that 20,000 people in the plant had been infected with COVID-19.

Cities near Zhengzhou have since urged Foxconn workers to report to local authorities if they have plans to return to their hometowns so they can undergo appropriate isolation measures.

According to posts on the Zhengzhou government’s public WeChat account, Foxconn issued notices Sunday to workers at its factory, pledging to ensure the safety, legitimate rights and income for those willing to stay.

A day after videos circulated of workers leaving the factory, Foxconn and several local governments have also arranged transportation for employees who choose to return home. It is not clear how much agency the workers had in deciding to leave the factory.

The departure of Foxconn workers from the Zhengzhou plant highlights the growing discontent in China’s “zero-COVID” strategy, where governments attempt to stamp out outbreaks by implementing strict isolation and lockdown measures where infections are detected.

———

AP video producer Liu Zheng in Beijing contributed to this report.

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October 30, 2022
Cuba says at least 5 dead after boat heading to US crashes

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HAVANA — A boat off northern Cuba traveling toward the United States sank Saturday after a collision with a Cuban coast guard ship, and at least five people died, Cuban officials said Saturday.

The craft reportedly flipped over after the crash near Bahía Honda, about two hours from the capital of Havana.

Among the five known dead were a minor and three women, while about two dozen people were rescued, the state media outlet Cubadebate said.

Further details were not released, with Cuban officials telling the state channel that an investigation was underway.

The incident comes amid the biggest migratory flight from the Caribbean island in four decades, spurred by a deepening economic, political and energy crisis.

Cuba’s Interior Ministry threw blame on the U.S., saying the deaths were a “another consequence” of American policy toward Cuba, including the 60-year embargo.

Meanwhile, the U.S. sent condolences to the families of those deceased.

“As we expand safe and legal pathways for migration, we warn against attempting dangerous and sometimes fatal irregular migration,” said a tweet from the U.S. Embassy in Havana, which has yet to resume full operations on the island.

The vast majority of Cubans who are leaving go by plane to Nicaragua, then travel overland to the U.S. border, often in Texas and Arizona.

But a growing number have fled by boat on the dangerous 90-mile journey to the southern coast of the United States. Between October 2021 and August 2022, the U.S. Coast Guard intercepted more than 4,600 Cubans traveling by boat, almost six times more than in all of 2020.

It is the largest exodus since 1980, when around 125,000 Cubans traveled by sea to the U.S. over six months, known as the Mariel crisis.

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October 29, 2022
Why did Elon Musk just spend billions to take over Twitter?

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Elon Musk has taken over Twitter and fired its CEO and other top executives. Trading in company shares was suspended Friday on the New York Stock Exchange and the stock will be officially delisted early next month, according to a filing with securities regulators. So now what?

WHY DID MUSK BUY TWITTER?

One reason why Musk bought Twitter this week is because he had little choice. The world’s richest man spent months trying to back out of the $44 billion purchase agreement he originally signed in April. But the uncertainty was so disruptive to Twitter’s business that it sued him in the Delaware Court of Chancery to force the deal’s completion, and a judge gave a Friday deadline to complete the deal or face a November trial that Musk was likely to lose.

As for why Musk wanted to own Twitter in the first place, the reasons are more complicated. “There has been much speculation about why I bought Twitter and what I think about advertising,” he said in an open letter Thursday to companies that sell ads on Twitter, which is how the company makes money. “Most of it has been wrong.”

HOW DID MUSK BUY TWITTER?

It’s not yet clear how Musk secured all of the financing to close his $44 billion agreement to buy the company and take it private. But many of the commitments to the Tesla CEO were pledged back in the spring.

A group of banks, including Morgan Stanley and Bank of America, signed on earlier this year to loan $12.5 billion that Musk needed to buy Twitter and take it private. Solid contracts with Musk bound the banks to the financing, although changes in the economy and debt markets since April have likely made the terms less attractive.

Investors who would get ownership stakes in Twitter were also expected to chip in billions. Musk’s original slate of equity partners included an array of parties ranging from the billionaire’s tech world friends with like-minded ideas about Twitter’s future, such as Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, to funds controlled by Middle Eastern royalty.

Billionaire Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal said Friday that he and his Kingdom Holding Company rolled over a combined $1.89 billion in existing Twitter shares, making them the company’s largest shareholder after Musk. Another equity investor, the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, confirmed Friday that it put in $500 million.

The more equity investors kicked in for the deal, the less Musk would have had to pay on his own. Most of Musk’s wealth is tied up in shares of his electric car company. Since April, he has sold more than $15 billion worth of Tesla stock, presumably to pay his share.

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October 29, 2022
Musk takes over Twitter and faces social media crash course

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Twitter’s newly minted owner, the self-described “free speech absolutist” Elon Musk, is about to get a crash course on global content moderation.

Among his first moves after completing his $44 billion takeover Thursday was to fire the social media platform’s top executives, including the woman in charge of trust and safety at the platform, Vijaya Gadde.

He also posted a conciliatory note to wary advertisers, assuring them he won’t allow Twitter to devolve into a “free-for-all hellscape.”

The problem is, not even the world’s richest man can have it both ways.

Lightly moderated “free speech” sites such as Gab and Parler serve as cautionary tales of what can happen when the guardrails are lowered. These small, niche sites are popular with conservatives and libertarians fed up with what they see as censorship of their viewpoints on mainstream platforms like Facebook. They are also full of Nazi imagery, racist slurs and other extreme content, including calls to violence.

Some conservative personalities jumped on Twitter Friday after Musk’s takeover to recirculate long-debunked conspiracy theories in an apparent attempt to see if the site’s policies on misinformation were still being enforced.

Advertisers don’t want to promote their products next to disturbing, racist and hateful posts — and most people don’t want to spend time on chaotic online spaces where they are barraged by racist and sexist trolls.

On Friday, GM announced it would be pausing advertising on Twitter while it figures out the direction of the platform under Musk. But Lou Paskalis, former head of media for Bank of America, said Twitter’s most loyal advertisers, many Fortune 100 companies, believe in the platform and probably won’t leave unless “some really untoward things” happen.

But it’s not just ads and jokes that are at stake.

Eddie Perez, a former Twitter civic integrity team leader, said Musk seems to consider Twitter a digital public square where everyone has equal voice. It’s a “quaint idea of the modern-day version of the town square,” Perez said.

But that’s not how the major social media platforms work. They have instead become powerful tools of asymmetric warfare, and many of their users don’t realize they are being manipulated with disinformation by nation states and bad domestic actors — many with significant resources.

“The danger here is that in the name of ‘free speech,’ Musk will turn back the clock and make Twitter into a more potent engine of hatred, divisiveness, and misinformation about elections, public health policy, and international affairs,” said Paul Barrett, deputy director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights.

Though he’d been expected to reinstate banned accounts — ranging from conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene — Musk said on Friday that no decisions on content or reinstatements will be made until a “content moderation council” is put in place. The council, he wrote, would have “diverse viewpoints,” but he gave no further details.

Musk may be starting from scratch, but Twitter has spent years building up its content moderation system, which is still far from perfect. As such, experts have expressed grave concern’s about Musk’s efforts — after all, the Tesla CEO has little experience navigating the temperamental and geopolitical world of social media, even if he is a constant and wildly popular user of the site he just bought.

“I am most concerned about Musk’s decision to summarily fire Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s head of legal policy, trust, and safety — a senior executive who was trying, however imperfectly, to keep the platform from spreading even more harmful content than it does,” Barrett said.

Many are looking to see if he will welcome back a number of influential conservative figures banned for violating Twitter’s rules — speculation that is only heightened by upcoming elections in Brazil, the U.S. and elsewhere.

“I will be digging in more today,” Musk tweeted early Friday, in response to a conservative political podcaster who has complained that the platform favors liberals and secretively downgrades conservative voices.

Former President Donald Trump, an avid tweeter before he was banned, said Friday he was “very happy that Twitter is now in sane hands” but promoted his own social media site, Truth Social, that he launched after being blocked from the more widely used platform.

Trump was banned two days after the Jan. 6 attacks for a pair of tweets that the company said continued to cast doubts on the legitimacy of the presidential election and raised risks for the presidential inauguration that Trump said he would not be attending.

Another task for Musk: delivering on his promise to clean up the fake profiles, or “spam bots” that have preoccupied him and bedeviled Twitter since long before he expressed interest in acquiring it.

The bot count matters because advertisers — Twitter’s chief revenue source — want to know roughly how many real humans they are reaching when they buy ads. It’s also important in the effort to stop bad actors from amassing an army of accounts to amplify misinformation or harass political adversaries.

———

Associated Press writers Frank Bajak, Jill Colvin and Mae Anderson contributed to this story. Follow AP’s coverage of Elon Musk: https://apnews.com/hub/elon-musk

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October 28, 2022
Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen announce divorce after 13 years of marriage

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NFL superstar Tom Brady and supermodel Gisele Bündchen are getting divorced after 13 years of marriage, they announced Friday.

“We arrived at this decision amicably and with gratitude for the time we spent together,” the Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback, 45, said on Instagram. “We are blessed with beautiful and wonderful children who will continue to be the center of our world in every way. We will continue to work together as parents to always ensure they receive the love and attention they deserve.”

The celebrity couple married in 2009 and have two children together: Benjamin, 12, and Vivian, 9. Brady has another son, Jack, 15, with former girlfriend Bridget Moynahan. Combined, Brady and Bündchen have a reported net worth of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Bündchen, 42, said in a statement posted to her Instagram, “The decision to end a marriage is never easy but we have grown apart and while it is, of course, difficult to go through something like this, I feel blessed for the time we had together and only wish the best for Tom always.”

Brady returned to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers this season weeks after announcing his retirement back in February. In an interview with Elle Magazine in September, Bundchen expressed her concerns about Brady returning to football for a 23rd season, and his third with the Buccaneers.

“Obviously, I have my concerns—this is a very violent sport, and I have my children and I would like him to be more present,” she said. “I have definitely had those conversations with him over and over again. But ultimately, I feel that everybody has to make a decision that works for [them]. He needs to follow his joy, too.”

Brady’s Bucs are 3-5 this year, an uncharacteristically bad record for the quarterback, who’s won seven Super Bowls, including six with the New England Patriots and one with Tampa.

The Buccaneers lost to the Baltimore Ravens on Thursday night.

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October 28, 2022
Guest lineups for the Sunday news shows

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WASHINGTON — ABC’s “This Week” — Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla.

——

NBC’s “Meet the Press” — Gov. Chris Sununu, R-N.H.

——

CBS’ “Face the Nation” — Reps. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., and Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y.; Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Jen Easterly.

———

CNN’s “State of the Union” — Scott; Cheri Beasley, Democratic nominee for Senate in North Carolina.

———

“Fox News Sunday” — Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del.; Ronna McDaniel, Republican National Committee chairwoman.

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October 28, 2022
Musk now gets chance to defeat Twitter’s many fake accounts

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Twitter’s unending fight against spam accounts is now a problem for new owner Elon Musk, who pledged in April to defeat the bot scourge or “die trying!”

He later cited bots as a reason to back out of buying the social platform. Now that the billionaire has completed the deal, he’s faced with the task of delivering on his promise to clean up the fake profiles that have preoccupied him and bedeviled Twitter since long before he expressed interest in acquiring it.

The challenge carries high stakes. The bot count matters because advertisers — Twitter’s chief revenue source — want to know roughly how many real humans they are reaching when they buy ads. It’s also important in the effort to stop bad actors from amassing an army of accounts to amplify misinformation or harass political adversaries.

“The bigger picture in my mind is: How do we make Twitter a better place for everybody,” said bot-counting expert Emilio Ferrara, who worked over the summer to investigate the problem for Musk. He cited the “value of the platform as a societal experience, as a collective place to have civilized discourse and talk freely without interference from nefarious accounts,” or scams, spam, pornography and harassment.

To find out just how bad the bots are, Musk hired Ferrara and other data scientists to investigate. At the time, he sought to prove that Twitter was misleading the public when it said fewer than 5% of its daily active users are fake or spam accounts. If Twitter lied or withheld crucial information about the bot count, Musk could argue that he was justified in terminating the $44 billion agreement.

Ferrara, an associate professor of computer science and communications at the University of Southern California, said he had no real interest in whether Musk ultimately ended up owning the platform.

Instead, he hoped that “any findings would be able to help improve the platform,” Ferrara told The Associated Press, speaking for the first time about his planned role as Musk’s expert trial witness.

The question now is what Musk will do with that information. Ferrara’s presentation — some 350 pages of analysis and supporting documents — is locked up in confidential court filings, and he said he can’t disclose his conclusions.

Twitter’s former leaders and its lawyers said Musk wildly exaggerated the problem because he had buyer’s remorse. Precise counts are “almost impossible” because any bot estimate is based on assumptions that can lead to bias, said Filippo Menczer, a researcher who was not working for either side in the dispute.

“Nobody knows exactly how bad the problem is,” said Menczer, director of Indiana University’s Observatory on Social Media. “I would guess it’s not as bad as Musk said and not as good as Twitter claimed.”

Many experts also doubt Musk’s ability to easily make improvements, which he’s suggested would rely on using algorithms to track and remove fake accounts and implementing new measures to “authenticate” real people.

Earlier this month, Ferrara was preparing to travel to the East Coast to testify in Delaware, where Musk was defending against Twitter’s lawsuit asking a court to force him to close the deal. But two weeks before the scheduled Oct. 17 trial, Musk changed his mind and said he would go ahead with the $44 billion acquisition. It closed Thursday.

Most legal experts didn’t think Musk had much of a case. The court’s head judge seemed likely to side with Twitter based on the specific terms and conditions of the April purchase agreement.

But that’s not to say Musk didn’t have a point about the bots, according to Ferrara and other researchers hired by Musk’s legal team.

The analysis firm CounterAction, which worked with Ferrara, said it concluded in a July 18 report submitted to the court that Twitter’s spam rate for monetizable accounts — those of value to advertisers — was at least 10% and could be as high as 14.2%, depending on how the rate is measured.

Trevor Davis, the firm’s founder and CEO, said that analysis was based on a “firehose” of internal data that Twitter gave to Musk, but the company declined to provide additional data sought by Musk’s team.

“We expect that access to the withheld data would reveal an even higher true spam rate,” Davis said in a prepared statement.

Musk has long been preoccupied with Twitter spambots promoting cryptocurrency schemes, in part because as a celebrity user with more than 110 million followers, he sees a lot of them. Some scammers have opened accounts mimicking Musk’s name and likeness to try to get people to think he’s endorsing something.

Not all bots are bad. Twitter encourages the use of automated accounts that report the weather, earthquakes or post humor or lines from literary classics. Twitter also allows for anonymity, which protects free speech and privacy — especially in authoritarian regions. But that practice can make it harder to root out malicious fake accounts.

Ferrara first caught Twitter’s attention in the aftermath of revelations that Russia used social media to meddle in the U.S. presidential election in 2016, when he led a research group that estimated that 9% to 15% of Twitter’s active English-language accounts were bots.

In a blog post soon after, Twitter complained that such outside research “is often inaccurate and methodologically flawed.” The company has repeatedly reported the under-5% number in its quarterly filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission, though it also cautions that it could be higher.

Before Musk’s takeover, Twitter said it removed 1 million spam accounts each day. To calculate how many accounts are malicious spam, Twitter reviews thousands of accounts sampled at random, using both public and private data such as IP addresses, phone numbers, geolocation and how the account behaves when it is active.

But over the past months, Musk and Twitter have tussled over the methodology. Twitter uses a metric it calls mDAU, for monetizable daily active usage.

That “is literally a metric they invented,” Ferrara said. “You cannot contrast and compare that metric with any other service.”

When Musk first started publicly raising questions about the bot numbers after agreeing to buy the company, another firm, Israel-based Cyabra, said it had the answer.

“That elusive number you are looking for … we have it. It’s 13.7%,” the firm tweeted on May 17, flagging Musk’s Twitter handle to get his attention.

Cyabra’s machine-learning technology works by scanning a large number of social media profiles to track behavioral patterns, trying to pick out which are behaving like humans. Such guesswork can misfire — but the tweet caught the attention of people close to Musk, if not the billionaire himself.

Cyabra CEO Dan Brahmy said the company started working with the Musk camp by the end of May. Regardless of what the true count is, he said it’s not going to be an easy problem to solve.

“Some bots are definitely nefarious,” Brahmy said. “The trade-offs are between being extremely high on sign-up standards and information security versus being extremely open minded in a way” that fosters freedom of speech and creativity.

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October 28, 2022
Musk now gets chance to defeat Twitter’s many fake accounts

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Twitter’s unending fight against spam accounts is now a problem for new owner Elon Musk, who pledged in April to defeat the bot scourge or “die trying!”

He later cited bots as a reason to back out of buying the social platform. Now that the billionaire has completed the deal, he’s faced with the task of delivering on his promise to clean up the fake profiles that have preoccupied him and bedeviled Twitter since long before he expressed interest in acquiring it.

The challenge carries high stakes. The bot count matters because advertisers — Twitter’s chief revenue source — want to know roughly how many real humans they are reaching when they buy ads. It’s also important in the effort to stop bad actors from amassing an army of accounts to amplify misinformation or harass political adversaries.

“The bigger picture in my mind is: How do we make Twitter a better place for everybody,” said bot-counting expert Emilio Ferrara, who worked over the summer to investigate the problem for Musk. He cited the “value of the platform as a societal experience, as a collective place to have civilized discourse and talk freely without interference from nefarious accounts,” or scams, spam, pornography and harassment.

To find out just how bad the bots are, Musk hired Ferrara and other data scientists to investigate. At the time, he sought to prove that Twitter was misleading the public when it said fewer than 5% of its daily active users are fake or spam accounts. If Twitter lied or withheld crucial information about the bot count, Musk could argue that he was justified in terminating the $44 billion agreement.

Ferrara, an associate professor of computer science and communications at the University of Southern California, said he had no real interest in whether Musk ultimately ended up owning the platform.

Instead, he hoped that “any findings would be able to help improve the platform,” Ferrara told The Associated Press, speaking for the first time about his planned role as Musk’s expert trial witness.

The question now is what Musk will do with that information. Ferrara’s presentation — some 350 pages of analysis and supporting documents — is locked up in confidential court filings, and he said he can’t disclose his conclusions.

Twitter’s former leaders and its lawyers said Musk wildly exaggerated the problem because he had buyer’s remorse.

Other experts doubt Musk’s ability to make improvements, which he’s suggested would rely on using algorithms to track and remove fake accounts and implementing new measures to “authenticate” real people.

Earlier this month, Ferrara was preparing to travel to the East Coast to testify in Delaware, where Musk was defending against Twitter’s lawsuit asking a court to force him to close the deal. But two weeks before the scheduled Oct. 17 trial, Musk changed his mind and said he would go ahead with the $44 billion acquisition. It closed Thursday.

Most legal experts didn’t think Musk had much of a case. The court’s head judge seemed likely to side with Twitter based on the specific terms and conditions of the April purchase agreement.

But that’s not to say Musk didn’t have a point about the bots, according to Ferrara and other researchers hired by Musk’s legal team.

The analysis firm CounterAction, which worked with Ferrara, said it concluded in a July 18 report submitted to the court that Twitter’s spam rate for monetizable accounts — those of value to advertisers — was at least 10% and could be as high as 14.2%, depending on how the rate is measured.

Trevor Davis, the firm’s founder and CEO, said that analysis was based on a “firehose” of internal data that Twitter gave to Musk, but the company declined to provide additional data sought by Musk’s team.

“We expect that access to the withheld data would reveal an even higher true spam rate,” Davis said in a prepared statement.

Musk has long been preoccupied with Twitter spambots promoting cryptocurrency schemes, in part because as a celebrity user with more than 110 million followers, he sees a lot of them. Some scammers have opened accounts mimicking Musk’s name and likeness to try to get people to think he’s endorsing something.

Not all bots are bad. Twitter encourages the use of automated accounts that report the weather, earthquakes or post humor or lines from literary classics. Twitter also allows for anonymity, which protects free speech and privacy — especially in authoritarian regions. But that practice can make it harder to root out malicious fake accounts.

Ferrara first caught Twitter’s attention in the aftermath of revelations that Russia used social media to meddle in the U.S. presidential election in 2016, when he led a research group that estimated that 9% to 15% of Twitter’s active English-language accounts were bots.

In a blog post soon after, Twitter complained that such outside research “is often inaccurate and methodologically flawed.” The company has repeatedly reported the under-5% number in its quarterly filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission, though it also cautions that it could be higher.

Before Musk’s takeover, Twitter said it removed 1 million spam accounts each day. To calculate how many accounts are malicious spam, Twitter reviews thousands of accounts sampled at random, using both public and private data such as IP addresses, phone numbers, geolocation and how the account behaves when it is active.

But over the past months, Musk and Twitter have tussled over the methodology. Twitter uses a metric it calls mDAU, for monetizable daily active usage.

That “is literally a metric they invented,” Ferrara said. “You cannot contrast and compare that metric with any other service.”

When Musk first started publicly raising questions about the bot numbers after agreeing to buy the company, another firm, Israel-based Cyabra, said it had the answer.

“That elusive number you are looking for … we have it. It’s 13.7%,” the firm tweeted on May 17, flagging Musk’s Twitter handle to get his attention.

Cyabra’s machine-learning technology works by scanning a large number of social media profiles to track behavioral patterns, trying to pick out which are behaving like humans. Such guesswork can misfire — but the tweet caught the attention of people close to Musk, if not the billionaire himself.

Cyabra CEO Dan Brahmy said the company started working with the Musk camp by the end of May. Regardless of what the true count is, he said it’s not going to be an easy problem to solve.

“Some bots are definitely nefarious,” Brahmy said. “The trade-offs are between being extremely high on sign-up standards and information security versus being extremely open minded in a way” that fosters freedom of speech and creativity.

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October 28, 2022
Musk took over Twitter. Then some users began testing chaos

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NEW YORK — Confusion, concern, conspiracies, celebration.

In the hours after Elon Musk took control of Twitter, reaction on the platform ranged from triumph to despair.

While no immediate policy changes had been announced by Friday afternoon, that didn’t stop users from cheering — or criticizing — what they expected to be a quick embrace of Musk’s pledges to cut back on moderation in what he has said is an effort to promote free speech.

Conservative personalities on the site began recirculating long-debunked conspiracy theories, including about COVID-19 and the 2020 election, in a tongue-in-cheek attempt to “test” whether Twitter’s policies on misinformation were still being enforced.

Popular right-wing pundits tweeted buzzwords such as “ivermectin,” and “Trump won” to see whether they’d be penalized for content they suggested would previously have been flagged. Ivermectin, a cheap drug that kills parasites in humans and animals, has been promoted by some Republican lawmakers and conservative talk show hosts as an effective way to treat COVID-19. But health experts have been pushing back, warning there’s scant evidence to support the belief that it works.

“Ok, @elonmusk, is this thing on..?” Steve Cortes, a former commentator for the conservative TV network Newsmax and adviser to former President Donald Trump wrote in a tweet, where he included a microphone emoji. “THERE ARE TWO SEXES TRUMP WON IVERMECTIN ROCKS.”

In a letter aimed to soothe the fears of advertisers, Musk vowed Thursday that Twitter won’t be a “free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences.”

But the jury is still out on what will become of the social media platform — and what it will tolerate. Observers are eyeing who stays, who goes and who might potentially come back from the list of people the platform has banned over the years. They range from Trump, to conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke — none of whom have returned to the platform so far.

The Associated Press checked at least a dozen other Twitter accounts that were suspended by the platform — including those used by right-wing activist James O’Keefe and MyPillow Chief Executive Mike Lindell — and each turned up an “account suspended” message as of Friday afternoon.

At least one still found a way to get his message out.

“I am very happy that Twitter is now in sane hands, and will no longer be run by Radical Left Lunatics and Maniacs that truly hate our country,” Trump said Friday morning in a post on his social media platform Truth Social, leaving no indication of whether he’d return to the platform or not even though Musk has said he would allow it.

“I LOVE TRUTH!,” he said, adding Twitter will be “better” if it works to get rid of bots and fake accounts “that have hurt it so badly.”

In a Tweet posted on Friday afternoon, Musk said Twitter will be forming a “content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints,” and “no major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes.”

Earlier in the day, news outlets reported Kanye West, the rapper legally known as Ye, appeared to be back on Twitter after being locked out of his account earlier this month over his antisemitic posts on the social media platform.

But there was no evidence to suggest the status of his account had changed or that Musk played a role, and there was no sign of recent activity. Twitter did not immediately reply to a request for comment on whether Ye was back on the platform. The rapper and fashion designer had also been suspended from Instagram, where his account there was recently reinstated.

Meanwhile, dozens of extremist profiles — some newly created — circulated racial slurs and Nazi imagery while expressing gratitude to Musk for his new leadership. One such post shared a breaking news update about Musk taking over the company, tweeting a racial slur and the message, “thank you Elon.” Another anonymous account tweeted, “Elon now controls Twitter, unleash the racial slurs,” along with several derogatory comments.

“His acquisition of Twitter has opened Pandora’s box,” the advocacy group Ultraviolet said in a prepared statement on Friday, while also urging Musk, Twitter executives and the company’s board of directors to continue to enforce the ban on Trump “as well as violent right-wing extremists and white supremacists.”

Some users reacted to the news by threatening to quit, and others made fun of them for doing so. The terms “Elon,” and “deleting,” appeared in Twitter’s top trends Friday as users discussed the fallout. Speculation also permeated the platform. Some worried the number of their Twitter followers was plunging, theorizing that Twitter may be cleaning up bots. Other users posted unverified reports that their “like” counts were dwindling.

“Elon Musk bought a platform, he didn’t buy people,” said Jennifer Grygiel, a social media expert and professor at Syracuse University. “And we still have a choice in how we get our news, our information and how we communicate.”

Grygiel said there will be a flight to quality if Twitter descends into further chaos under Musk, and maybe that isn’t a bad thing as the platform has increasingly come to serve corporate and state media interests.

And as always, users were quick to crack jokes — aiming to cut through the disorder in more comical ways.

“In honor of Elon now owning this site, I’d like to start utter chaos,” CNN commentator Bakari Sellers wrote in a Tweet on Friday morning. “Which is better Popeyes or Bojangles and why?”

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October 28, 2022
“I Like Our Chances”: Chris Licht Stresses Relevance Over Ratings to Kick Off CNN’s New Morning Show

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On Thursday afternoon, CNN invited me to visit the set of CNN This Morning, the network’s newly rebooted breakfast-hour bonanza, which, on Tuesday, will become the latest gabfest vying for viewers’ attention during the hectic morning rush. So naturally, when CNN boss Chris Licht dropped by for a few minutes to say hello, I asked him the question that no television executive ever wants to answer when they’re about to launch a new show: What are his expectations for the type of audience he thinks this thing can draw? Which is a more delicate way of saying, “Talk to me about the ratings.” For context, Licht has called CNN This Morning a “mass appeal play,” while also signaling that CNN’s new regime is less concerned with the relentless metric-mongering that is an ugly hallmark of cable news. How to square those two ideas?

“My first expectation is relevance,” he said. “If the show is culturally relevant, and we have the platform on a global scale to be culturally relevant, that’s the first win…I do care about the ratings, but the ratings are a reflection of the audience catching on, which they will. When I say we don’t care about the ratings, I mean that I don’t want [a producer] to decide what he’s leading with because he thinks it’s gonna pop a number, you know what I’m saying?…The reality of the situation is there is no more competitive daypart in television than the morning. The Golf Channel has a morning show. Everybody has a morning show, and there are some very good morning shows that have established audiences, so I am not pretending that this is gonna be easy. But I think we are offering something that is unique and fills a void that’s not being met by the other very good morning shows. I like our chances.”

Regardless of Licht’s expectations, it’s fair to say the stakes for CNN This Morning are high. Part of that is because the morning is what made Licht an industry hot shot, first with Morning Joe and later with CBS This Morning, which Licht executive-produced before entering the late-night ring with Stephen Colbert. He has identified the morning as a top priority of his broader network overhaul since joining as CEO this past spring. He’s even brought on his former CBS This Morning comrade Ryan Kadro, who is shepherding the reboot along with executive producer Eric Hall. The trick is that Licht now finds himself playing in a much smaller arena than he’s used to. The morning broadcast shows tend to perform in the range of 2.5 to 3.5 million total viewers, depending on the network. Fox & Friends, which leads cable news in the a.m., is generally in the universe of 1.5 million. Over at MSNBC, Morning Joe usually hovers in the high six figures, while CNN’s current morning offering, New Day, is lucky to do half of that. In the 25- to 54-year-old age bracket that advertisers care about, it would be a win for New Day at this point to break into the six figures. (No pressure.)

Licht urges patience. Speaking of his experience with Morning Joe and CBS This Morning, he said, “It took a while for both of those shows to get traction. But then, once there is sampling and once people talk about it because of the relevance—CBS This Morning had 50—five-zero—months of straight audience growth at a time where no one was growing. So, you know, it takes a minute.”

Courtesy of CNN.

Enough about ratings and audience growth. The primary reason for my visit was to get some face time with the incoming morning hosts: prime-time star Don Lemon, White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins, and afternoon anchor Poppy Harlow, who told me of her new mandate, “People have very little time, especially in the morning. They’re getting their kids ready. They’re trying to get to their job. They’re dealing with things in their home. For many of them, we’re their first introduction to what they’re sending their kids out to in the day. What’s the news? What do I need to care about? Why do I need to care? And what’s the context?”

The idea is to do all of that but in a less politics-centric manner than the majority of CNN’s programming. Think health and wellness. Business and personal finance. In one corner of the set, there’s a kitchen-slash-coffee-bar-looking configuration where Lemon, Collins, and Harlow will stand around chitchatting for a casual segment they’ve coined “Breakfast Crew.” That doesn’t mean they won’t be all over the midterms for the next couples of weeks. “That’s the biggest story, obviously, on the radar right now,” said Lemon. “We’re leaning into the midterms.” The show also plans to leverage the star power of its parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery. So for instance, a new Warner Bros. superhero blockbuster drops and, bam, there’s Dwayne Johnson gabbing away with the hosts.

“I can’t wait to meet the cast of Succession,” said Collins. (Season four comes to HBO in spring 2023.) “I’m serious.” I wondered if Collins, who recently relocated from Washington to New York, thought her new role might be an adjustment for viewers accustomed to seeing her beam in from the White House lawn with bursts of political news that leave little room for levity. “I went to something recently,” she said, “and this lawmaker was there with his wife, and I was talking to him, like, trying to get information about something, and his wife comes up, and she’s like, ‘I’m sorry, but I’m deeply freaked out right now.’ And I was like, ‘Why?’ I’d never met her before. She was like, ‘Because you’re so serious [on TV], and it’s really weird for me to see you interacting and laughing and talking.’ And I was like, ‘Really?’” (No dice when I asked who the lawmaker was, though she did say it was a Democrat.)

Lemon, meanwhile, told me he’d started to burn out on the daily “knife fight” that is cable news in prime time. “I’m looking forward to the nonconfrontational nature of this [morning] format. People don’t want to be beaten up as they wake up with their coffee. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to hold people to account…I’m just really looking forward to elevating the conversation and making people smarter instead of just fighting.”

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October 28, 2022
Elon Musk says no banned Twitter accounts will be restored before a review by new “content moderation council”

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Elon Musk says no banned Twitter accounts will be restored before a review by new "content moderation council"

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October 28, 2022