Twitter board agrees to $44 billion sale to billionaire Tesla founder Elon Musk

[Broomstick]

More and more I am convinced Musk is burning down the house deliberately.

[Mastr Blastr]

Twitter had become a bit of a hotbed of radicalism before the Musk takeover - Marxism was discussed and dissected there on a regular basis amid all the left-liberalism. My guess is that, as world conditions further deteriorate, there will be further sustained assaults on the ability to freely disseminate information.

[bilateralrope]

Musk may try to deny severance to thousands laid off by Twitter, report says

Musk's attorney, Alex Spiro, out but still representing Twitter on pending cases.
ASHLEY BELANGER - 12/15/2022, 8:01 AM

From the moment Elon Musk began layoffs at Twitter, former employees immediately started suing. In a matter of weeks, Twitter was hit with multiple class-action lawsuits, with employees alleging that Twitter violated laws by denying proper severance and discriminating against women and staff with disabilities or on family or medical leave. These class actions didn’t seem to faze Musk, though, as he continued with staff cuts without delivering promised severance to many. Instead of paying ex-employees, he eventually further escalated threats to terminate remaining staff, abruptly firing employees for criticizing him and threatening to sue employees who leak internal Twitter communications.

It's clear that Musk feels confident facing down potential legal battles against former Twitter staff, but what’s not clear is who he imagines will be helping him win. Yesterday The New York Times reported that Musk has begun to “shake up” his legal team at Twitter as he gets ready to overcome all these claims, according to seven people familiar with what’s going on at Twitter. He even reportedly dismissed one of his closest legal allies, his personal attorney, Alex Spiro, after Musk discovered that it was Spiro who made a controversial call to retain Twitter general counsel James A. Baker.

A person familiar with the matter told Ars that Spiro was never a Twitter employee and wasn't fired. Spiro only ever served a transitional advisory role at Twitter, and moving forward, he will continue to work as a trial lawyer representing Musk generally and representing Twitter on multiple pending cases. The source confirmed that NYT's reporting was generally accurate but could not confirm if Baker had anything to do with Twitter’s recent decision to decline to retain Spiro’s services on future litigation.

Anyone following the “Twitter Files” knows that Baker quickly exited Twitter after Musk’s reporters Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss realized that Baker was reviewing all the files being shared and suspected he was “suppressing” information. Apparently, Musk didn’t know the chain of command for releasing the files to reporters.

Before his stint at Twitter, Baker previously worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He seemed to be considered compromised by “Twitter Files” reporters for his history of previously leaking information to the press.

Without Spiro or Baker onboard to help Musk fight back lawsuits, Musk has brought in more than half a dozen SpaceX lawyers, the Times reported. This reportedly includes top experts like Chris Cardaci, SpaceX vice president of legal, and Tim Hughes, SpaceX senior vice president of global business and government affairs.

It’s likely Musk will turn to Hughes for guidance as the Federal Trade Commission threatens more legal challenges. If the FTC finds that Twitter misled users over privacy protections, that would violate a decade-old consent decree. NYT reported that the FTC has already sent Twitter letters asking how staff cuts have potentially impacted Twitter’s ability to uphold that agreement. Before he was dismissed from advising Twitter, Spiro had previously said that Musk “puts rockets into space” and was “not afraid of the FTC.”

Neither SpaceX nor Twitter immediately responded to Ars’ request to comment.

Severance remains key point of contention

Multiple sources told NYT that Musk was considering whether he could get away with paying no severance at all to Twitter's thousands of laid-off employees, contradicting earlier statements by the Twitter CEO that he'd be offering severance agreements that were better than what was legally required.

Severance agreements for Twitter employees have been delayed, as court motions have been filed to stop Twitter from prompting ex-staff to sign severance agreements without notifying employees of pending lawsuits before that happens. While former employees have been caught in limbo and remain unsure how much severance payment they will ultimately receive, Musk has seemingly had time to rethink those agreements. Perhaps, Musk has pondered, ex-employees deserve nothing.

Many ex-employees stand ready to fight if Musk chooses to go that route. This week a lawyer who represents former Twitter employees in four class-action lawsuits, Shannon Liss-Riordan, told the Los Angeles Times that employees “won’t back down.”

Liss-Riordan said that Twitter has already filed a motion to force her clients out of the class action and into individual arbitration. A hearing scheduled for January will ultimately decide the proper path for ex-employees seeking the severance that they were promised, and Liss-Riordan said that even if the court does side with Twitter, her firm is prepared to file thousands of arbitration cases, if needed.

Liss-Riordan did not immediately respond to Ars' request for comment.

Some former employees have already decided to go the individual arbitration route. Represented by attorney Lisa Bloom, at least three ex-employees—an ex-account integrity program manager, Helen-Sage Lee; an ex-senior software engineer, Adrian Trejo Nunez; and an ex-product head of Twitter’s developer platform, Amir Shevat—each filed a claim seeking severance packages each would have received before Musk took over Twitter. The LA Times’ review of company documents showed that for some staff, the package included two months’ severance pay, “as well as prorated performance bonuses, extended visa support, money for healthcare continuation, and the cash value of equity that would vest within three months.”

Shevat told Fox that "the way Elon Musk executed the layoffs was really inhumane. At a certain point I was told that as a manager that I might [be] fired if I just gathered my team... to answer questions."

Bloom told Ars that the NYT reporting that Musk has considered denying severance across the board is just “the latest slap in the face to workers.

“When Twitter workers were laid off on November 4 and in the following weeks, they were told in writing that they would receive full pay and benefits for two months, plus an additional month if they signed a release of claims,” Bloom told Ars. “Elon also tweeted that everyone is getting three months' severance. Twitter and Elon's promise has been broken, because that additional month's pay has not materialized.”

Bloom echoed Liss-Riordan’s determination to make it hard for Musk to wriggle out of severance agreements in court and has encouraged former employees to reach out regarding their individual cases.

“We are fighting for every dime they are owed in the cases we are filing daily,” Bloom told Ars.

More lawsuits for the pile of legal problems Musk caused for himself. More things to be angry about. More examples of Musk not wanting to follow through with his promises.

Hopefully it's enough to pierce the corporate veil when Twitter declares bankruptcy.

[Solauren]

Wouldn't denying severance, at this scale, result in jailtime?

[Broomstick]

One would hope so, but you never know for sure until it goes to court.

[Highlord Laan]

Wouldn't denying severance, at this scale, result in jailtime?

People as rich as the Muskrat don't don't see jailtime.

[bilateralrope]

Wouldn't denying severance, at this scale, result in jailtime?

Probably not.

Though I have seen some people speculating that Musk's behavior might be enough to let creditors pierce the corporate veil and go after Musk personally for Twitter's debts.

[LaCroix]

I was already wondering if that behaviour of the last few months would allow people to go past the legal protections and go after Elons personal property. That kind of recklessness goes way beyond rational standards that corp liability protections are designed for.

[bobalot]

Musk getting booed by thousands of people and then getting super not mad about it on Twitter is pretty hilarious.

[LaCroix]

cough*narcissist*cough

[bilateralrope]

Twitter suspends accounts of several journalists who had reported on Elon Musk

Many at CNN, Washington Post and the New York Times who had written critically of the new owner found their handles suspended

A number of prominent journalists who have reported on Twitter and its new chief executive, Elon Musk, appear to have been suspended or banned from the platform.

In a series of evening tweets, Musk wrote that sharing his real-time location on Twitter was forbidden, and accused journalists who he alleged had been sharing information about his location of posting “assassination coordinates”.

Accounts of tech journalists at CNN, the Washington Post, Mashable and the New York Times were suspended in quick succession on Thursday evening. All had recently published articles about Musk’s suspension of a Twitter account that had shared publicly available data about the movements of his private jet. Each of these articles had highlighted the tension between Musk’s stated commitment to “free speech” and his choice to ban an account that he personally disliked.

The Twitter account for rival social media company, Mastodon – which some Twitter users have migrated to after Musk’s takeover of Twitter – also appeared to have been suspended.

Links to individual Mastodon accounts also appeared to be banned. An error message notified some users that links to Mastodon had been “identified” as “potentially harmful” by Twitter or its partners.

Ryan Mac, a New York Times tech reporter, wrote on a new Twitter account that he was given “no warning” before his account was suspended and that he had received no communication from the company about the reason his account was “permanently suspended”.

Some folks have asked so will try to answer here:
-This is the notification on my account.
-I was given no warning.
-I have no email or communication from the company about the reason for suspension.
-I report on Twitter, Elon Musk and his companies. And I will continue to do so. pic.twitter.com/Fz14nStH7U

— Silenced Ryan Mac (@MacSilenced) December 16, 2022

The Washington Post said in a statement that the suspension of their technology reporter, Drew Harnell, “undermines Elon Musk’s claim that he intends to run Twitter as a platform dedicated to free speech”.

CNN said in its statement: “Twitter’s increasing instability and volatility should be of incredible concern to everyone who uses the platform.”

“Musk just seems to be stamping out accounts that he doesn’t like,” Donie O’Sullivan, one of the journalists whose account was abruptly suspended, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper.

The Committee to Protect Journalists said that if individual’s bans were confirmed as retaliation for journalists’ work, it would be a “serious violation of journalists’ right to report the news without fear of reprisal”.

In a series of late-night tweets on Thursday, Musk said: “Criticizing me all day long is totally fine, but doxxing my real-time location and endangering my family is not.”

He added that the “same doxxing rules apply to ‘journalists’ as to everyone else” and wrote: “They posted my exact real-time location, basically assassination coordinates, in (obvious) direct violation of Twitter terms of service.”

Musk did not clarify in what way he believed the reporters who were suspended had shared his “exact real-time location”. The news articles about Musk that several reporters had published before their accounts were suspended did not include any information about his real-time location, or the location of any of his family members. The articles were focused on ElonJet, an account that had posted the location of the billionaire’s private jet as it travelled to different cities.

In a Twitter spaces event, Musk was questioned about the bans by some of the journalists who had their accounts suspended. Musk said journalists were not being treated differently to other citizens, and “if you doxx, you get suspended. That’s it. End of story.”

While the journalists had reported that the suspensions were permanent, in multiple tweets Musk said the suspensions would be for only seven days.

“Some time away from Twitter is good for the soul …” Musk tweeted. He subsequently tweeted a poll asking people whether the ban should be lifted now, tomorrow, in seven days or longer.

The poll went in favour of immediately unbanning the users, with 43% of the over half a million votes going with “now”. Musk then tweeted that he would redo the poll because there were too many options, narrowing it to now or in seven days.

It is similar to the poll launched by Musk that resulted in former US president Donald Trump being unbanned from the platform.

At least two of the reporters whose accounts were suspended had reportedly tweeted about a public statement from the Los Angeles police department, responding to an allegation Musk had made about an incident in LA in which he said a stalker had targeted a car, believing it was his.

Donie O’Sullivan, the CNN reporter whose account was suspended, is one of the country’s leading reporters on conspiracy theories and disinformation, and had shared a comment from the LAPD about Musk shortly before he was suspended. Matt Binder, the Mashable reporter whose account was suspended, “was tweeting about O’Sullivan’s suspension when his account also went dark”, the Washington Post reported.

Twitter, which recently dissolved the majority of its press department, did not immediately respond to request for comment.

But Twitter’s head of trust and safety told the Verge: “Without commenting on any specific accounts, I can confirm that we will suspend any accounts that violate our privacy policies and put other users at risk.”

Looks like Musk threw a tantrum.

[Ralin]

If I was concerned about assassination attempts I probably wouldn't want to use the biggest media platform in the world to spread the word that my exact movements and location are publicly available knowledge. But I'm not smart enough to become a billionaire.

[LaCroix]

Also, that jet account was not banned until after they posted that Elon's flight history records 12 visits to Eppstein island since 2010...

Then it was gone in seconds...
For doxxing...

[bobalot]

Twitter suspends accounts of several journalists who had reported on Elon Musk

...

Looks like Musk threw a tantrum.

Sounds like the actions of a true FREE SPEECH™ absolutist.

[bilateralrope]

The EU is paying attention:

Twitter threatened with EU sanctions over journalists' ban

3 minutes ago

By Max Matza & Simon Read
BBC News

The EU has threatened Twitter owner Elon Musk with sanctions after several journalists covering the company had their accounts abruptly suspended.

Reporters for the New York Times, CNN and the Washington Post were among those locked out of their accounts.

EU commissioner Vera Jourova warned that the EU's Digital Services Act requires respect of media freedom.

"Elon Musk should be aware of that. There are red lines. And sanctions, soon," she tweeted.

She said: "News about arbitrary suspension of journalists on Twitter is worrying.

"[The] EU's Digital Services Act requires respect of media freedom and fundamental rights. This is reinforced under our Media Freedom Act."

The sanctions could be applied under a new Digital Services Act, which is currently going through the EU Parliament but could be in force by next year.

Under the terms of the proposed new law, the EU Commission will be allowed to impose fines of up to 6% of the global turnover of a service provider that it finds breaks its rules.

In extreme cases the EU could ask a court to suspend a rogue service, but only if it is "refusing to comply with important obligations and thereby endangering people's life and safety".

A Twitter spokeswoman earlier told tech website The Verge that the ban was related to the live sharing of location data.

It comes after Mr Musk vowed to sue the owner of a profile that tracks his private jet.

The list of banned journalists also includes The Intercept's Micha Lee, Mashable's Matt Binder, and independent reporters Aaron Rupar and Tony Webster.

A spokesman for the New York Times called the suspensions "questionable and unfortunate", and said neither the paper nor reporter Ryan Mac received any explanation for the action.

CNN said the "impulsive and unjustified suspension of a number of reporters... is concerning but not surprising". It has asked Twitter for an explanation and will "re-evaluate our relationship based on that response".

CNN's Donie O'Sullivan, whose account was among those suspended, said the move was significant for "the potential chilling impact" it could have for journalists, particularly those who cover Mr Musk's other companies.

When he completed his takeover of the social media site in October, Mr Musk addressed potential advertisers in a tweet in which he spoke of buying Twitter because he wanted to "try to help humanity", and said he wanted "civilisation to have a digital town square".

Mr Musk has not commented directly on the suspensions, but said in a tweet that "criticising me all day long is totally fine, but doxxing my real-time location and endangering my family is not".

He added that accounts engaged in doxxing, which refers to the release of private information about individuals online, receive a temporary seven-day suspension.

"Same doxxing rules apply to 'journalists' as to everyone else," he tweeted. "They posted my exact real-time location, basically assassination coordinates, in (obvious) direct violation of Twitter terms of service."

He added: "If anyone posted real-time locations & addresses of NYT reporters, FBI would be investigating, there'd be hearings on Capitol Hill & Biden would give speeches about end of democracy!"

The technology tycoon has since set up a poll asking whether he should unsuspend the accounts "now" or "in seven days", suggesting the decision could be reversed sooner rather than later.

Matt Binder, a journalist for Mashable and one of those suspended, said he didn't know why he had been banned.

"I've been very critical of Musk in my reporting," he told the BBC.

But he said that Mr Musk's claim "that everyone that got suspended was doxxing him - due to the jet tracker", was not true.

He said he had never tweeted a hyperlink to the tracker, but had mentioned the account after it had been suspended.

"Clearly the people who were suspended were handpicked, because there are literally hundreds of accounts per minute who tweeted the link."

Mr Binder, who has been on Twitter since 2008 and has been reporting on the developments at the social media site, said he was surprised at the ban on journalists.

"I knew it was a possibility but really thought he wouldn't because it would entirely wreck the facade of being a free speech platform."

Twitter's head of trust and safety, Ella Irwin, told The Verge that bans are related to a new rule introduced on Wednesday that prohibits "live location information, including information shared on Twitter directly or links to 3rd-party URL(s) of travel routes."

"Without commenting on any specific accounts, I can confirm that we will suspend any accounts that violate our privacy policies and put other users at risk," Mrs Irwin told the outlet.

"We don't make exceptions to this policy for journalists or any other accounts."At the heart of all this is a father raging about the sharing of location data of his private jet, which he claims led to a security incident involving his young son X. The Twitter feed that started it all was scraping publicly available flight data. Not very decent, perhaps, but not illegal.

His fury has now extended to journalists who he claims also shared his location - which by the way Twitter itself uses to sell ads, although users can opt out of sharing it.

But this is a fundamentally flawed approach to moderation. I bet many of us wish we could suspend or ban social media accounts that post content we dislike.

It's not the first time Elon Musk has taken a very personal approach to content moderation. He refused to allow Infowars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones back on Twitter because he had used the death of children to further his career - and mentioned the loss of his own child, 10-week-old Alexander.

He has also suspended accounts which impersonated him.

Fundamentally, Elon Musk has shot down in flames his much-trumpeted commitment to "free speech". Free speech as long as it doesn't upset him personally, appears to be the message.

Mr Musk later spoke to journalists on Twitter Spaces, part of the social media app that allows live audio conversations.

His short appearance generated an audience of 30,000 but after answering a few questions about the ban he left and Twitter Spaces itself has since appeared to be suspended.

On Wednesday, Twitter suspended the account @ElonJet, as well as other accounts using publicly available information to track his private plane.

The owner of @ElonJet, Jack Sweeney, 20, also had his personal account blocked. Mr Musk has since vowed to take legal action against him, as well as "organizations who supported harm to my family".

Mr Musk said a "crazy stalker" had used live location sharing to find and accost a vehicle carrying his children in Los Angeles.

Twitter also suspended the official account of Mastodon, which has emerged as an alternative to Twitter since Mr Musk bought it for $44bn in October.

It came after Mastodon used Twitter to promote Mr Sweeney's new account on Thursday, according to the New York Times.

Links to individual Mastodon accounts also appeared to be banned. An error message notified users that links to Mastodon had been "identified" as "potentially harmful" by Twitter or its partners.

Oh and as for that incident involving Musk's son, two details I've seen people elsewhere point out:
- It allegedly occurred days after the most recent post by the jet tracking account
- There is nothing to confirm it happened other than Musk's word. Not even a police report.

Musk getting booed by thousands of people and then getting super not mad about it on Twitter is pretty hilarious.

I wonder if that made Musk realize that he isn't as popular as he thinks he is.

[bilateralrope]

Musk's tantrum continues.

Twitter pulls its Spaces group audio feature after Musk run-in with banned journalists

Paul Sawers@psawers
12:35 AM GMT+13•December 17, 2022

Twitter has apparently pulled its Spaces group audio feature, at least temporarily, after Elon Musk joined a group conversation that included journalists that had been banned from the platform.

The latest drama comes after Twitter suspended several prominent journalists who had covered an earlier story about the Elon Jet Twitter account that was banned for using publicly-available data to track Elon Musk’s private jet.

As it turns out, Twitter seemingly has a quirk that allows banned users to still participate in Twitter Spaces and converse with other members, and some of those who had been banned did just that. BuzzFeed reporter Katie Notopoulos started a group chat yesterday evening, and was joined by a number of journalists whose accounts had been suspended by Twitter, including the Washington Post’s Drew Harwell and Mashable’s Matt Binder, as well as Jack Sweeney, the creator of the Elon Jet Twitter account who had his own personal account suspended too.

Elon Musk joined the conversation, where he continued to criticize those who not only shared real-time location data of his private jet, but those who reported on the story. The exchange is available in various places online, including YouTube here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znFNKlzuTSc

After being pressed by journalists over some of his inconsistencies, Musk abruptly left the conversation, and shortly after the entire Spaces feature itself started playing up.

At the time of writing, it’s not possible to start a new Spaces conversation or join an existing one, certainly based on the various tests TechCrunch has done internally. In response to one Twitter user wondering what was going on with Spaces, Musk replied that it was “fixing a legacy bug,” and that it should be working again tomorrow.

Whether Spaces returns tomorrow or not, Twitter’s recent grand proclamations around Twitter 2.0 and its “continued commitment to the public conversation” could not seem any less sincere when juxtaposed with the events of the past 24 hours.

I'm guessing that Musk had already fired anyone who knew how to shut down a specific one of Spaces.

[Adam Reynolds]

One thing I would actually love to see is if these antics also get him indirectly fired from SpaceX. Musk needs a degree of security clearance for this role, given all of the government contracts as well as the sensitive nature of rocket tech in general. Could his antics actually get his security clearance revoked and thus get him fired?

SpaceX engineers have already filed a letter with the CEO stating that Musk is more of a hindrance than a help, because his antics are causing them more trouble than they are benefits.

[bilateralrope]

Twitter stiffs software vendor with $8 million left on contract, lawsuit says

Lawsuit: Twitter has refused to make required payments since Musk took over.
JON BRODKIN - 12/17/2022, 10:06 AM

A lawsuit says Twitter failed to pay a $1,092,000 invoice in a software contract that doesn't expire until late 2024, and that the Elon Musk-led company apparently intends to stiff the vendor on another $7 million worth of payments.

Imply Data, Inc. sued Twitter in California Superior Court in San Francisco County, alleging breach of contract. The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday (see complaint) and reported by Bloomberg today.

"For over four years, Imply has licensed its proprietary software to Twitter, and Twitter has paid Imply over $10 million," the lawsuit said. "Twitter has always been very pleased with Imply's product and its related maintenance and support services, so, in mid-2021, the parties extended the term of their software license and service agreement for an additional three years from October 1, 2021, through September 30, 2024."

In May, a few weeks after Musk struck a deal to buy Twitter, the company notified Imply Data that it would not renew the contract again but "acknowledged the License agreement would 'continue in full force and effect' until the end of its term on September 30, 2024," the lawsuit said.

Payments stopped after Musk took over

Twitter continued making quarterly payments on the contract until Musk completed the purchase in late October. "However, shortly after Musk's purchase of Twitter closed, Twitter refused to pay the outstanding quarterly invoice, which was due on November 30, 2022, and Twitter disclaimed any obligation to pay any future invoices from Imply, despite the unambiguous language in the software license and service agreement requiring Twitter to do so," the lawsuit said.

Imply makes a database based on Apache Druid open source software as well as products for managing and monitoring Druid clusters.

The New York Times reported on November 22 that Twitter was stiffing some vendors. Imply's complaint notes the press coverage of Twitter refusing to pay vendors and says, "This lawsuit involves one such egregious case."

Imply uploaded the $1,092,000 invoice to Twitter's vendor portal, and the invoice was approved by Twitter on October 5, the lawsuit said. "On November 28, 2022, when Imply accessed the vendor portal, Imply learned that Twitter had deleted the invoice and closed the License Agreement," the lawsuit said.

“We will not be paying Imply any longer”

Imply says Twitter "also uploaded an internal email chain to the vendor portal to support those actions." The lawsuit said this email chain included a message from Martin O'Neill, head of global strategic sourcing at Twitter, that stated, "A heads up that we will not be paying Imply any longer. If we can flag them in our AP system to not route any of their invoices for approval that would be great, thank you!"

The Twitter executive who received the email, Kristena Bravo, "forwarded that email to other Twitter employees and wrote: 'Can you please cancel all invoices for Imply currently pending in Oracle (if any) and deactivate the supplier using the email below as evidence?'" the lawsuit said.

After reviewing these emails, Imply asked Twitter about the status of the payment due November 30. "Twitter's account payable department notified Imply that the invoice had been 'cancelled' and that, if Imply had any concerns, Imply should 'reach out to [Imply's] Twitter business partner.' Imply has reached out to Twitter to discuss the cancellation of the invoice; however, Twitter has not yet responded in substance to that outreach," the lawsuit said.

Imply is seeking financial damages for breach of contract. "Imply anticipates that Twitter's breach will continue, with the amount in default increasing each quarter until the end of the License Agreement's term... Twitter's breach has damaged and will damage Imply in an amount that will be proven at trial, but which will likely be in excess of $8 million," Imply told the court.

Dispute over whether Twitter can terminate contract

The lawsuit also alleges breach of covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and anticipatory repudiation. The latter term describes when a party to a contract declares they do not intend to live up to their contractual obligations.

"Twitter has expressly, unequivocally, and absolutely repudiated and renounced the License Agreement by declaring that Twitter would not pay Imply and instructing its employees not to approve any invoices and to deactivate Imply from the vendor portal. Twitter has thereby breached the License Agreement," the lawsuit said.

Twitter may argue it had a right to terminate the contract early. Imply's complaint said there is a dispute between the companies as to "whether Twitter had the unilateral right to terminate the License Agreement before the end of its term." Imply is seeking a declaratory judgment that Twitter doesn't have that right.

We contacted Twitter about the lawsuit, but the company reportedly dismantled its public relations team after Musk took over.

The first of many vendors forced to sue over what they are owed.

I don't know what Imply does, so I can't judge how screwed Twitter is if Imply would suddenly stop providing whatever it provides.

[Prannon]

Just a quick cursory look says that Imply works with analytics software. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imply_Data

So, we're talking the details about your tweet's engagement if you click on the special link, telling you how many people viewed it, what interactions they had with it, and such as that.

I imagine that most users would not notice it being gone, unless it was powering things like reply/fave/retweet counts that folks use to ratio stuff. If it's just the more backend engagement analytics, then they probably bet they can do without it.

[bilateralrope]

Some details about the stalker that allegedly jumped on a car one of Musk's kids was in. The excuse Musk used to ban the account tracking his jet, along with so many other people:

Musk’s alleged stalker identified; no evidence of ElonJet tracking, report says

The alleged stalking incident occurred at a gas station near Grimes' house.
ASHLEY BELANGER - 12/20/2022, 6:44 AM

Last Wednesday, Elon Musk seemed absolutely convinced that an alleged “crazy stalker” used a Twitter account tracking his private jet to accurately pinpoint the Twitter CEO’s live location at a gas station outside the Los Angeles International Airport. Posting a video of the alleged stalker, claiming his son was in the car, and blaming @ElonJet for endangering his family, Musk banned the Twitter account and threatened legal action against the account’s creator, Jack Sweeney.

Police have since investigated the incident, and the alleged stalker, Brandon Collado, has come forward. On Saturday, Collado reportedly even tweeted directly at Musk to say, “I am the guy in the video.”

But so far, police told The Washington Post, there’s “no evidence to suggest the man police were investigating had used the jet-tracking account.” The Post also found no evidence that either of Musk’s kids were in the car when the incident occurred. Police told The Post that no arrests had been made, and no crime reports had been filed by Musk or his security team.

Twitter, Musk, and Sweeney could not immediately be reached by Ars for comment. [Update: Sweeney told Ars that he has received no legal notices from Musk so far, suggesting that at this point, any legal action from Musk would just make Musk "look worse." Sweeney finds it "kind of suspicious" that the incident happened almost a day later, so far from the airport, and seemed to follow internal Twitter Slack discussions—that an employee shared with Sweeney—which suggested that Twitter was considering restricting visibility of his @ElonJet account starting December 2. For now, his account remains suspended, and Sweeney told Ars that he removed the Twitter app from his phone to prevent the company from tracking his device. The whole experience has turned him off to Twitter almost entirely, he said. "I don't know if I would want to use Twitter because they would just be watching everything I would do," Sweeney said.]

According to The Post, the incident occurred approximately 23 hours after Musk’s jet landed at an airport near a gas station in south Pasadena. The gas station is about 26 miles from the airport but right down the street from Musk’s ex-girlfriend Grimes’ house.

Collado told The Post that he had “an interest” in Musk and Grimes, whose real name is Claire Elise Boucher. Collado claimed that he stopped by the gas station after working as an Uber Eats delivery driver and visiting a friend in Boucher’s neighborhood. Once he got to the gas station, Collado claimed that Musk’s security worker confronted him “without reason.” Afterward, police arrived and told Collado that police would be filing a report after he answered questions. Collado told The Post that he has not heard from police since.

Collado apparently believed that Grimes was sending him coded messages via her Instagram posts and that Musk had been tracking Collado in real time, perhaps even blocking Collado from receiving Uber Eats delivery orders. In his tweet to Musk, which seems to have since been deleted, The Post reported that Collado claimed that Musk has “connections to me” and has “stalked me and my family for over a year.”

Uber did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment on Collado’s current status as an Uber Eats delivery driver.

Musk’s weekend of reversing decisions

Whether Musk will ultimately press charges against Collado has yet to be reported, but Musk’s response to prevent future harm to his family seemed to be to control everything within his power. That resulted in some seemingly knee-jerk Twitter policy changes that remain controversial.

The day after the alleged stalking incident, Musk tweeted, “Any account doxxing real-time location info of anyone will be suspended, as it is a physical safety violation. This includes posting links to sites with real-time location info.”

Some exceptions included sharing your own location, tweeting from a live event (like Musk did from the World Cup), and “posting locations someone traveled to on a slightly delayed basis.”

As the week dragged on, Musk seemed to grow less interested in pursuing legal action against Collado and more interested in suspending Twitter users Musk seemed to hold partly accountable for the stalking incident. That included journalists Musk accused of committing a crime by being “aware of the violent stalker” and choosing to dox “the real-time location of my family." The Post reported that there did not appear to be reports of a stalker before Musk’s tweets, but police said that Grimes previously filed a restraining order in 2018 against a different man accused of stalking her at her home, Raymond Barrajas.

Digging into Musk’s claims about the alleged stalking incident, Post reporter Drew Harwell soon joined other tech journalists suspended from Twitter for linking to @ElonJet. Harwell quickly challenged Musk over his Twitter suspension, accessing a Twitter Spaces chat and pushing back on Musk’s claims that he’d doxxed Musk’s location. Rather than clarify, Musk abruptly left, and soon after, the Twitter Spaces feature was temporarily inaccessible to all users.

Over the next few days, Musk conducted a poll that, by popular vote, immediately reinstated accounts of all the journalists that he had banned over their @ElonJet tweets. But that didn’t mean he was going to change the new live location policy, which is still active. If anything, his impulsiveness seemed to continue. Over the weekend, the Twitter CEO made more unpopular policy decisions, controversially banning any Twitter user from posting links to competing social networks, such as Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, and Truth Social.

That policy change caused the suspension of Washington Post journalist Taylor Lorenz—which coincidentally happened shortly after she tweeted at Musk for comment on the alleged stalker incident.

At first, Lorenz said she wasn’t sure why she was suspended, but later she claimed that she was retroactively penalized for tweeting links to her Instagram and Mastodon accounts. Her account was soon reinstated after Musk reversed the short-lived policy and promised Twitter users that he would conduct polls before any new major policy changes.

“The policy that I allegedly retroactively violated by promoting my Instagram and Mastodon account, has now been deleted from Twitter’s website,” Lorenz tweeted once her account was back online.

Musk has yet to acknowledge The Post's report, but he launched another poll before his busy weekend ended. This one asked Twitter users if he should step down as CEO. He seemed serious when he promised to follow through on whatever the poll said.

After Twitter voted yes to urge Musk to step down, journalist Ben Dreyfuss tweeted that since the poll was posted at 4:20 pm, perhaps it wasn't all that serious to the Chief Twit whether he stayed or left.

“Elon Musk will end his tenure as Twitter CEO the way it began: with a 420 joke," Dreyfuss joked.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I thought this needed sharing:

Elon Musk
@elonmusk
Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll.
Yes
57.5%
No
42.5%
17,502,391 votes
·
Final results

[bilateralrope]

I wonder if anyone who voted yes expects Musk to abide by the poll results.

I know I don't.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

He might have to the way he's running it into the ground.

[Ralin]

He might have to the way he's running it into the ground.

Have to is a relative term.

I saw a screenshot of someone telling him he should restrict it to people with paid blue check marks. So now there's a poll tax.

I'm leaning towards thinking this is theater for him already having decided to appoint a new CEO. But can't rule out him just flailing about being extremely divorced and NOT MAD.

[LaCroix]

There is no way he didn't already have some Yes-man lined up for scapegoat duty just in case the poll went that direction.
He either gets a public confirmation to ride on, or he can get out, which to him most likely means he MIGHT get out of legal liability for things that happen after he "left".

Unless people (and courts) would consider the fact that the scapegoat CEO would undoubtably get a dozen messages per day about what Elon wants to be done, immmediately...

"Never call for a vote you do not know the exact outcome of beforehand" is pretty much CEO 101...