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Day 177 and users are surprised that ’s decision to remove validation is causing chaos and the creation of impersonation accounts. That could never have been predicted?

is the solution for exposure to willful and arbitrary behavior by egomaniacal billionaires

Anybody else perplexed this happened? 😜

thehill.com/policy/technology/

The HillBlue check chaos: Twitter policy spurs confusion and scramble to prove authenticityBy Lauren Sforza

/3 -Day 180 Kyle Chayka of the New Yorker writing on the decay of the largest social networks with a particular focus on :

“we can’t rely on large digital platforms that are motivated by profit above all”

Certainly makes the case for


newyorker.com/culture/infinite

The New YorkerBuzzFeed, Blue Check Marks, and the End of an Internet EraBy Kyle Chayka

/5 - Day 183 - The elimination of the has degraded ’s utility as a source. The new implementation has nothing to do with authentication and verification, if anything it is a propagandist’s delight. In ’s conception of , truth, veracity and honesty are of little value

nytimes.com/2023/04/26/technol

The New York TimesTweets Become Harder to Believe as Labels Change MeaningBy Steven Lee Myers

/6 Day 184 - What are the consequences of laying off 75% of its workforce?

Two factor authentication used to be available for all accounts, it is now limited to Twitter blue payers. This recent removal, coupled with the lack of staff to assist with hacks, degrades the network. Classify this one under foolish monetization attempts

slate.com/technology/2023/04/t

SlateMy Twitter’s Been Hacked. But Hasn’t Everyone’s?By Daniel Hemel

/7 Day 185 - now regrets ’s take over of . I guess there were no signs of toxic narcissism and egomania when he advocated for as the owner a year ago

I wonder if Dorsey is feeling more anti-Musk now that is making the news?

bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

BloombergTwitter Co-Founder Dorsey Rues Musk Deal: ‘It All Went South’By Sarah Frier

/8 It used to be that was a preferred distribution channel for governmental agencies, that status appears to be crumbling. The MTA, ’s transit agency used the network to provide service updates - now no more.

Twitter is now apparently offering gold and gray check marks for organizations. Maybe a poop brown tick mark will work for ?

abcnews.go.com/amp/Business/wi

ABC NewsNYC transit agency ends Twitter alerts, says it's unreliableBy The Associated Press

11) The value proposition appears to be lacking. Churn rates on the service are extraordinarily high. Without a bona fide set of support services to truly validate users, have become meaningless. Chalk this one up as an

mashable.com/article/half-of-t

MashableOver half of Twitter Blue's earliest subscribers are no longer subscribedBy Matt Binder

12) Another day, another degradation of the work environment because you know employees shouldn't be letting child birth get in the way of world domination

shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-

SHRMTwitter Slashes Parental Leave PolicyBy Kathryn Mayer

13) Increasingly looks like a seedy, battered, casino property. There are plenty of adds for erectile dysfunction and bongs likely encouraging mainstream advertsiers to stay away. Or might it be the bigotry encourage by under the guise of ?

The is out with a story based on an internal presentation from Twitter showing a 59% decline in YOY ad revenues for April.

All is clearly not well

nytimes.com/2023/06/05/technol

The New York TimesTwitter’s U.S. Ad Sales Plunge 59% as Woes ContinueBy Ryan Mac

14) Another clownish misstep from is drawing to a close. Clearly an attempt to force people to register on the site, I imagine the hope was to increase the MAUs

techcrunch.com/2023/07/05/twit

consent.yahoo.comTechCrunch is part of the Yahoo family of brands

17) I think this cartoon from Bruce MacKinnon captures the current state of and ’s judicious approach to managing a prime property

saltwire.com/atlantic-canada/o

18) How much do people dislike ? Enough for 70 million users to sign up for two days into it’s launch!! That’s the equivalent of 15% - 20% of Twitter’s active users.

How many of those 70 million know that threads is part of the , sell your data to anyone complex, is a question that is likely not on the radar.

We might be at an odd moment when is considered a benign actor compared to

bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

BloombergMeta’s Threads Has 70 Million Signups, Surprising ZuckerbergBy Natalie Lung

19) Speaking of and , Fast Company is out with a review of and it’s certainly not complementary.

Pretty surprising that the app was launched without support for !

fastcompany.com/90919575/zucke

20) is not worried about the reported 100 million signups, it’s just blocking URL’s which reference the new service.

Disappointing to see so many people jumping from one oligarch to another. Do they really think that can be relied on to be less willful than ?

techcrunch.com/2023/07/11/twit

consent.yahoo.comTechCrunch is part of the Yahoo family of brands

21) How far along the wrecking curve are we?

@lopezlinette has the detailed litany and when gathered together, rather than from the daily assault of ’s narcissistic foolishness, it’s even more damning

That said, there is no alternative that has an obvious lead in supplanting the , plenty of contenders, but they’re just nibbling so far.

businessinsider.com/elon-musk-

InsiderElon Musk hasn't killed Twitter, he's just made it irrelevantBy Linette Lopez

22) Looks like @catvalente took unfiltered dictation from my brain as we watched the vs which personal data sucking do you want to support, play out

Does anyone get it?

Seriously I wish I could write with as much comedic profanity and stay on point at the same time

catvalente.substack.com/p/mark

Welcome to Garbagetown · Mark F***king Zuckerberg Is Not Your FriendBy Catherynne M. Valente

23) David French of the with some thoughts on how attempts to enable toxic demagogues and their bankrupt ideas on yielded an enormous opportunity for

Sadly he fails to note/appreciate that throwing your lot in with ’s new social media project, might be quietly toxic for democracy. Do you remember ?

nytimes.com/2023/07/13/opinion

The New York TimesOpinion | Twitter Shows, Again, the Failure of the New Right’s Theory of PowerBy David French

24) How do signups look for ?

Is the volume accelerating or not?

Here’s a chart

First 24 hours yields 50 million

Second 50 million takes a little more than 3 days.

Unsurprisingly the growth is not linear despite the extraordinary volume.

Will the next 10 days yield another 100 million?

I’m guessing not.

Opinions?

25) Things are not going well at a service, when it‘s on the receiving end of a scathing take from the sober pages of @foreignpolicy

I’d also suggest that the financial situation for is increasingly precarious. The debt burden of $12 billion and Twitter’s ability to service the payments is questionable and may threaten ongoing operations. May need to ante up again.

With thanks to @miah_he for the great piece

foreignpolicy.com/2023/07/15/e

Foreign PolicyElon Musk's Twitter Is Becoming a Sewer of DisinformationBy Miah Hammond-Errey

26) It’s no surprise that advertisers have fled . has admitted a 50% drop in revenues. Those advertisers are not going to return soon knowing that their ad placements could pop up next to a racist post from the likes of Nick Fuentes.

Coupled with $13 billion of debt, the company is in more than a shaky position. Are types going to be willing to throw more money at this sinking ship to curry favor with his Muskness?

bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

BloombergTwitter’s Surge in Harmful Content a Barrier to Advertiser ReturnBy Aisha Counts

27) Day 269 since the Twitter acquisition and the latest change appears to be a pure exercise in narrcisism and self sabotage.

is not in need of renaming and rebranding, it is in need of investment to prop its creaky technical infrastructure, and a serious content managment effort which might lure advertisers back; they're not fond of wackadoos and agents of

Don't hold your breath folks

apnews.com/article/elon-musk-t

AP NewsMusk says Twitter to change logo to "X" from the bird. Changes could come as early as Monday.By ANNE D'INNOCENZIO

29) wants to turn the company formerly known as into an

Pretty interesting that there is an expectation of turning over personal financial information to an entity that can barely handle text postings at the moment.

Yeah I want to tell all about my money 🙄

bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

@CNN @oliverdarcy

BloombergWhy Did Elon Musk Rebrand Twitter X, and What's an Everything App?By Aisha Counts

30) In a true sign of 's sucess in monitizing 's blue checkmark, some poor coding creature was charged with making said checkmark hideable

The old has come a long way in 10 months. What was once and indicator of authenticity and influence has now degraded into what exactly?

Please fill in the blank:
The X Blue Checkmark signifies ________

theverge.com/2023/8/2/23816924

The Verge · Twitter Blue subscribers can now hide their blue checksBy Tom Warren

31) Just in case you were wondering whether would retain the term , apparently that is being tossed onto the garbage pile along with

is expunging every element of the brand, it will be no more

has the goods tweet will be replaced by post, I guess xost wasn’t a runner

All this is the most extensive case of brand vandalism I’ve observed

Rock On LOL

🔑 nytimes.com/2023/08/03/technol

The New York TimesSo What Do We Call Twitter Now Anyway?By Kate Conger

32) On , digital eviction is part of the new operating philosophy

Fond of your X handle, well a hammer can come down anytime and change things arbitrarily. Too bad if you thought you owned a handle, that’s certainly not the case on ’s X.

Just another case being made for decentralized and

pcmag.com/news/elon-musk-swipe

PCMagElon Musk Swipes Control of Another Twitter Account, This Time @MusicBy Michael Kan

33) Another day, another petulant use of power by

formerly known as is adding to its pile of reasons to leave the degrading site

The site is still heavily favored by many professionals. Is it time to reconsider their support for the blighted site?

washingtonpost.com/technology/

The Washington Post · Elon Musk’s X is throttling traffic to websites he dislikesBy Jeremy B. Merrill

34) Contempt for and is core to ’s world view. His latest move, detailed in , is just one more swipe at .

Increasingly the / platform is becoming increasingly hostile to members of the and yet members of the profession cling to the corrupted platform.

What or where is the tipping point?

theguardian.com/technology/202

35) Day 305

/ ’s formerly valued has now degenerated into a tool for scammers and frauds. has the story below.

It’s extraordinary to see how quickly has destroyed one of ’s premium brands

theguardian.com/technology/202

The GuardianBlue-tick scammers target consumers who complain on X By Anna Tims

@mnutty That’s a feature of those who funded it. Perception of authority but with whichever narrative they want amplified.

@jremsikjr Not sure I’d want to be associated with a these days given the level of bile surging through these days. To some degree, subscribing to this service is endorsing , etc

@mnutty Hard to believe in 2023 someone would launch a social platform without a working search engine.

The decision to launch by first preloading with corporate brands and plastic personality influencers gave the site an instant artificial, astroturfing vibe. Threads is Diet Twitter, full of chemicals and artificial sweeteners.

@mnutty At this stage I think its just people taking a look. I think the numbers in a few weeks are more significant; its trivial to examine Threads (if you've an Insta account and outside the EU).

@amckinstry @mnutty
It's also whether Meta even gives a damn considering they need to atleast get some features integrated if they want to even compete.

@ashiisbest @mnutty At the moment all the reports I've heard say there is no community there, just adverts. Thats hard to re-create, as is the sense of "go-to" place for live news and politics.

@amckinstry @ashiisbest

I can’t say I’ve taken the trouble to venture on the site. I have enough to do in my life rather than burning time on another site 😜

@amckinstry @ashiisbest

I think does give a damn, might explain the apparent rush to bring to market long before it’s basic-feature complete. I think he would have been better served by waiting, but it could be that was getting up his nose and he wanted to hit back

@mnutty I’m at two thoughts on this… One ( tinfoil hat on) is that there are forces at work to make the birdsite function less as a voice of resistance against said forces (side eye to the Bonesaw republic) (tinfoil hat off) Two: Elmo is a egomaniacal sociopath whose eyes were bigger than his stomach and got a serious case of heartburn

@FalconFive

I don’t see a way forward for the company, only bankruptcy at this point. The brand has been severely damaged in the name of ’s “free speech”. Should the company end up filing for reorganization, than there may be alternative opportunities. How long all this plays out, remains to be seen.

Increasingly, I find myself questioning the morality of even lurking on the platform, something that I’m admitting. I’ve opted to only post on Twitter when encouraging others to migrate

@engineerminded

Fascinating to watch a supposed businessman destroy his investment. But heck, what is the loss of a few billion?

Before the acquisition, was the golden boy of the tech world. His LBO acquistion financing was built on the success of both and . Banks and lined up to finance the takeover. Now I think would be hardpressed to tap those deep pockets again

An extraordinary exercise in self destruction

@mnutty @harriettmb
I’ll say this for Google, at least they didn’t drag out the demise of G+ out over a year.

@jeber

Kind of seemed like it at the end.

@mnutty the worst opinion you'll ever see

@mnutty It's beyond stupid as brand recognition/loyalty was pretty much the only thing social media companies have of any real value. Cloning the product is easy - caputring the brand recognition that attracts and maintains a viable user base.... not so much.

@Syulang

Most efforts I’ve encountered are an exercise in corporate officer egos. Enormous expense generators yielding customer confusion and questionable benefits.

I’d suggest rebranding frequently makes sense following a corporate merger, not the case with and of course there is the thing that most corporate are another exercise in hubris which usually fail. LOL

@mnutty @paulomourajr every single news outlet and journalist that doesn't close their account is complicit with his behavior