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

[Ralin]

He should be. The US federal government is one of a quite small number of organisations who can afford significantly more expensive lawyers than he can, and has access to more direct methods of expressing its displeasure if he really tries their patience.

That was the joke.

[Tribble]

How much of that, if anything, is illegal?

Also, how intrusive are users finding it?

Is it something that stick out and is really annoying or just kind of there in the background?

Don’t really use social media, so I’m just curious lol

[bilateralrope]

How much of that, if anything, is illegal?

Also, how intrusive are users finding it?

Is it something that stick out and is really annoying or just kind of there in the background?

Don’t really use social media, so I’m just curious lol

The problem is more that they don't stand out. That it's sponsored content disguised as regular posts. I note that Google marks and advertising in its results as Sponsored.

I don't know exactly where the line is. I doubt Musk does either, so if this move is legal, I'm expecting to cross the line at some point.

[Tribble]

How much of that, if anything, is illegal?

Also, how intrusive are users finding it?

Is it something that stick out and is really annoying or just kind of there in the background?

Don’t really use social media, so I’m just curious lol

The problem is more that they don't stand out. That it's sponsored content disguised as regular posts. I note that Google marks and advertising in its results as Sponsored.

I don't know exactly where the line is. I doubt Musk does either, so if this move is legal, I'm expecting to cross the line at some point.

Ah ok, so the posts look like they could be from anyone where they’re actually ads. I can see where that would be annoying and problematic. lol

It looks like he’s either desperate or trying to destroy the company on purpose lol

[bilateralrope]

It looks like he’s either desperate or trying to destroy the company on purpose lol

Remember how he tried to back out of the purchase after signing the contract ?

The most likely explanation is that he has no idea what he's doing, don't realize it and thinks he's smarter than everyone else. Possibly with the addition of impulsive behaviour

[Tribble]

It looks like he’s either desperate or trying to destroy the company on purpose lol

Remember how he tried to back out of the purchase after signing the contract ?

The most likely explanation is that he has no idea what he's doing, don't realize it and thinks he's smarter than everyone else. Possibly with the addition of impulsive behaviour

Oh right yes, forgot about that lol.

Not exactly the best impulse but he could have done, not that I’m shedding any tears over it.

What do you think of the rebranding?

[bilateralrope]

It looks like he’s either desperate or trying to destroy the company on purpose lol

Remember how he tried to back out of the purchase after signing the contract ?

The most likely explanation is that he has no idea what he's doing, don't realize it and thinks he's smarter than everyone else. Possibly with the addition of impulsive behaviour

Oh right yes, forgot about that lol.

Not exactly the best impulse but he could have done, not that I’m shedding any tears over it.

What do you think of the rebranding?

He had a brand name that had become a verb. One that defined the terminology for any similar platforms. That's the kind of brand recognition few get. And he tried to throw it away because of his obsession with naming things X.

A move as stupid as the ramshackle, possibly illegal, X sign he placed onto the building. Which was held up by sandbags.

So a similar level of stupidity to the rest of his decisions.

[Ralin]

Also this all happened around the time he got extremely divorced and not mad from the combination of his wife leaving him over his transphobia and his daughter changing her name and cutting ties with him because the internet turned her transgender and socialist. In case you missed that part.

[Broomstick]

He should be. The US federal government is one of a quite small number of organisations who can afford significantly more expensive lawyers than he can, and has access to more direct methods of expressing its displeasure if he really tries their patience.

Governments don't need more expensive lawyers than him. Not when the facts and the law are on their side. They just need to be willing to pay legal expenses for long enough to grind through anything he does to draw out the process.

OK.

Let's try this: As rich as Musk is, he doesn't have the financial power of the United States Federal Government. The US is still richer than he is. And at this point also probably has better credit if the need to borrow comes up.

[bilateralrope]

Some insight into the legality of those new ads:

Elon Musk Seems Really, Deeply Committed To Making Sure The FTC Has More To Investigate

from the everything's-going-just-great dept
Tue, Oct 10th 2023 10:43am - Mike Masnick

From very early on in Elon Musk’s ownership of exTwitter a few things became clear regarding his understanding of the FTC. First, he clearly had no idea that the company has a consent decree with the FTC (the kind of thing you learn about during due diligence, which he waived in the purchasing process) and once he learned about it, he assumed he could just ignore it.

Currently, Musk is fighting with the FTC to try to stymie their investigation, claiming (ridiculously) that the FTC’s consent decree doesn’t really apply to him and also that the current investigation is politically motivated, and not because he’s been publicly ignoring everything the company agreed to in the latest version of the consent decree. In response, the US government has had to point out that there are all sorts of reasons why this investigation is happening because Musk continually seems to put user data at risk, with little concern about the impact of his action (which is par for the course for Musk, who seems to assume that putting others at risk is the best way to do business).

Of course, now there’s one more thing for the FTC to investigate. Last week, people started noticing that there was a new format of ads on exTwitter, and they appear to violate some fairly basic FTC guidelines regarding making sure users know they’re seeing sponsored content. Traditional exTwitter ads look and act more or less like regular tweets, but have a notification that they are sponsored ads or “promoted” content. You can still respond to them, retweet them, or even block the user.

However, the new ad units… have none of that.

Multiple X users have reached out to Mashable over the past few days to report seeing a new type of ad in their For You feed that they had not previously come across on the platform. These new X ads don’t allow users to like or retweet the ad posts. In fact, the new ad format also doesn’t disclose who is behind the ad or that it is even an advertisement at all.

Mashable has confirmed this ad format with numerous users from across X and have seen a variety of different ads running this bizarre new format that just consists of written copy text, a photo, and a fake avatar that’s sole purpose is to make the ad look like an organically posted tweet.

And exTwitter is certainly allowed to remove the ability to treat ads like tweets, and take away the blocking/replying/etc features. But what they really can’t do (because no one can do this without violating some FTC rules) is hide the fact that they’re ads.

This isn’t some new thing either. The FTC’s power to go after unfair and deceptive practices has been in place for ages, and they’ve made it clear that this applies to the lack of disclosures for digital ads many, many, many times.

It sounds like these ads are not being run through exTwitter’s usual ad engine, but rather the company signed up with a chumbox provider. If you’re unfamiliar with chumboxes, we’ve written about them before (to tell you why Techdirt won’t use them, even though the companies reach out to us daily, and we’ve heard from other publishers that they’re actually surprisingly lucrative). They’re often seen at the end of news articles and promote extremely clickbaity headlines saying things like “the secret energy companies don’t want you to know” or “the one trick to losing weight.”

They’re awful.

And now they’re on exTwitter.

And they’re appearing without the required disclosures.

Given the entirely new format, one hopes that the lack of disclosure is simply an oversight (which is the most likely situation), but that doesn’t necessarily mean the FTC will simply give them a pass for it, as it’s still likely to be considered deceptive.

It seems clear that exTwitter is getting pretty desperate for ad revenue since its own ad revenue is in free fall, almost entirely because of ridiculous actions by Elon. In the past, Elon insisted that he hated ads (which, you know, is not a bad thing), and he wanted to diversify exTwitter’s revenue (which is also a good idea). But then he YOLOd the whole process by pissing off a huge percentage of the company’s advertisers while his grand revenue scheme to charge users has been a complete and utter disaster.

Also, just before the chumboxes showed up, exTwitter also cut a deal with Google to have Google sell some of its ad space as well. Basically, Elon has dismantled what had been a decent internal ads system, driving away 60% of the revenue almost entirely because of the terrible shit he did that puts brands at risk, and has been forced to sign up with the bottom feeder ad companies to try to generate something (anything) to bring in some ad revenue (while only making the experience of using the platform worse).

And whatever they bring in may just end up going to lawyers who will be needed to respond to the FTC’s investigation of how these ads are presented.

[Lord Revan]

Well it's been clear for quite a while that Musk seems to think rules don't apply to him or more correctly rules apply only when they're beneficial to him and not when they're not.

[bilateralrope]

Musk argues with EU commissioner over Israel/Hamas disinformation on X

"Your platform is being used to disseminate illegal content and disinformation."
JON BRODKIN - 10/12/2023, 4:58 AM

Elon Musk's X platform (formerly Twitter) faces penalties under a new European law if it doesn't take action to stop the spread of Israel/Hamas disinformation, an EU official warned Musk yesterday.

"Following the terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas against Israel, we have indications that your platform is being used to disseminate illegal content and disinformation in the EU," European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton wrote in a letter to Musk. "Let me remind you that the Digital Services Act sets very precise obligations regarding content moderation."

The Digital Services Act applies to large online platforms and has requirements on content moderation and transparency. It provides for fines of up to 6 percent of a provider's annual revenue.

"Public media and civil society organizations widely report instances of fake and manipulated images and facts circulating on your platform in the EU, such as repurposed old images of unrelated armed conflicts or military footage that actually originated from video games. This appears to be manifestly false or misleading information," Breton wrote. He said that X needs "proportionate and effective mitigation measures to tackle the risks to public security and civic discourse stemming from disinformation.

As previously reported, Musk on Sunday recommended that X users follow two accounts known for spreading disinformation, one of which also was known for posting antisemitic comments. He deleted his recommendation after being criticized.

Possible investigation and financial penalties

Breton posted his letter to Musk on twitter.com. He asked for "a prompt, accurate and complete response to this request within the next 24 hours. We will include your answer in our assessment file on your compliance with the DSA. I remind you that following the opening of a potential investigation and a finding of non-compliance, penalties can be imposed."

A Financial Times article said that "researchers [have] raced to debunk false or misleading information" on X about the Israel/Hamas conflict, including posts that "have racked up millions of views and shares, include graphic imagery taken out of context, doctored photos and even videos of violent fighting that originated from a video game."

Breton said that Musk's platform must respond quickly to notices of illegal content. "We have, from qualified sources, reports about potentially illegal content circulating on your service despite flags from relevant authorities," Breton wrote.

Breton urged X to get in contact with Europol and other law enforcement agencies. "Given the urgency, I also expect you to be in contact with the relevant law enforcement authorities and Europol, and ensure that you respond promptly to their requests," Breton wrote. "Moreover, on a number of other issues of DSA compliance that deserve immediate attention, my team will follow up shortly with a specific request."

Musk: “We take our actions in the open. No back room deals”

Musk replied to Breton, writing, "Our policy is that everything is open source and transparent, an approach that I know the EU supports. Please list the violations you allude to on X, so that the public can see them. Merci beaucoup."

Breton responded, "You are well aware of your users'—and authorities'—reports on fake content and glorification of violence. Up to you to demonstrate that you walk the talk. My team remains at your disposal to ensure DSA compliance, which the EU will continue to enforce rigorously."

Musk continued to insist that Breton "post your concerns explicitly on this platform" in a post today. "We take our actions in the open. No back room deals," Musk wrote.

X safety team: We are “laser focused”

In a post last night, X's safety team said it is "laser focused and dedicated to protecting the conversation on X and enforcing our rules as we continue to assess the situation on the platform." X said it "remove[d] newly created Hamas-affiliated accounts and we're currently coordinating with industry peers through @GIFCT_official [Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism] to try and prevent terrorist content from being distributed online."

X further said that its "escalation teams have actioned tens of thousands of posts for sharing graphic media, violent speech, and hateful conduct. We're also continuing to proactively monitor for antisemitic speech as part of all our efforts. Plus we've taken action to remove several hundred accounts attempting to manipulate trending topics." It also said that community notes, in which users collaborate to add context to potentially misleading posts, "is a critical tool for helping to combat potential misinformation."

The Financial Times quoted Emerson Brooking, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, as saying that "the differences in the platform architecture that Elon Musk has put in place are making it so much harder to assess the credibility of a source."

Brooking pointed to the decision to give blue checks to anyone who pays $8 a month. The paid check marks "have made it easier to masquerade as a media outlet or an objective party, he said, while the algorithm now promotes the content of those paying users over that of others," the FT wrote.

Breton also posted a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg reminding him of the Digital Services Act rules, but that letter doesn't specifically threaten penalties.

Breton questions public interest policy change

Breton's letter to Musk said that X needs "to be very transparent and clear on what content is permitted under your terms and consistently and diligently enforce your own policies. This is particularly relevant when it comes to violent and terrorist content that appears to circulate on your platform. Your latest changes in public interest policies that occurred overnight left many European users uncertain."

The change that Breton referred to alters the "public interest exception" in which X determines that it is "in the public interest to allow people to view posts that would otherwise violate our policies." The previous policy said that exceptions could be given to posts from accounts that are verified or have more than 100,000 followers. The new policy removes the 100,000-follower exception and replaces "verified account" with "high profile account."

"Verified" became a less useful description when Musk decided that anyone who pays for a subscription should get a blue check mark regardless of whether they are noteworthy figures. The new policy on public interest exceptions does not define "high profile" but maintains the previous requirement that, to qualify for a rules exception, the account must represent "a current or potential member of a local, state, national, or supra-national governmental or legislative body."

X's safety team explained the change by writing, "We know that it's sometimes incredibly difficult to see certain content, especially in moments like the one unfolding. In these situations, X believes that, while difficult, it's in the public's interest to understand what's happening in real time. People on X can also control what media they see. In the 'Content you see' settings you can choose whether or not to see sensitive media."

Looks like the EU is finally starting to take action. Musk might think he's winning now, but the real fight will be in the courts, not on Twitter. Musk running his mouth now will only make things worse in court.

[Highlord Laan]

I hope he keeps it up. I'd love to see the fascist sucking little shit lose billions and be forced to kneel.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I hope he keeps it up. I'd love to see the fascist sucking little shit lose billions and be forced to kneel.

Technically he already has with the way the value of the stock has tanked since he took over.

[bilateralrope]

X will start charging new users in two countries $1 per year

Does a dollar prove that you are Not A Bot? Elon Musk thinks so.
By Alex Heath, a deputy editor and author of the Command Line newsletter. He’s covered the tech industry for over a decade at The Information and other outlets.

Oct 18, 2023, 1:15 PM GMT+13|45 Comments / 45 New

If you want to join X, the service formerly known as Twitter, via its website in New Zealand and the Philippines, be prepared to fork over $1 a year for the privilege.

The subscription, part of a so-called “Not A Bot” program, is beginning in those two countries and is designed to “bolster our already significant efforts to reduce spam, manipulation of our platform and bot activity,” X said Tuesday in an unsigned post on its help center. In addition, new web users in New Zealand and the Philippines will have to verify their account with a phone number, the post says. Fortune first reported that Musk was going to charge new users $1 a year shortly before X’s announcement went live.

X’s post doesn’t explain why the new $1 subscription is only for new users joining via the web and not the mobile app, or why Not a Bot is only being rolled out in two countries. A guess would be that X has seen more bot activity from these regions than others, and that it’s much easier to create a bunch of fake accounts via the website. “New users who opt out of subscribing will only be able to take ‘read only’ actions,” such as viewing posts and watching videos, according to the company.

(Confusingly, the “Not A Bot” terms and conditions indicate that people will be able to also subscribe from X’s iOS and Android apps, even though the main post on X’s help center only specifies web.)

Elon Musk

@elonmusk
·
Follow
Replying to @xDaily
Correct, read for free, but $1/year to write. It’s the only way to fight bots without blocking real users.

This won’t stop bots completely, but it will be 1000X harder to manipulate the platform.
1:24 PM · Oct 18, 2023

This new program is in addition to X’s main subscription of $8 a month. Musk has been clear from the beginning of his Twitter takeover that he thinks charging will impede bot armies, though it’s estimated that a very, very small percentage of users are paying. Meanwhile, he has been bragging about how time spent on X has never been higher.

Update October 17th, 8:34PM ET: Added post from Elon Musk.

I wasn't aware that New Zealand and the Philippines were major bot hubs. Oh wait, that's Musk talking, so probably a lie. This move probably has nothing to do with bots and everything to do with trying to squeeze money out of users.

At least he's testing an idea of his before rolling it out globally this time. Though I wonder if he'll pay attention to the results.

[bilateralrope]

Elon Musk wants your “entire financial life” on X by 2024

X's success as an everything app will "exceed" China's WeChat, Musk says.
ASHLEY BELANGER - 10/28/2023, 4:34 AM

One year into Elon Musk's ownership of X, the finances of the platform formerly known as Twitter remain shaky. But the ongoing money troubles haven't stopped Musk from forging ahead with his plan to turn X into a bank, a move he said last November would be key to helping the platform avoid bankruptcy. On an earnings call yesterday, Musk told X employees that he predicts X's payments system will launch by the end of 2024, The Verge reported.

“It would blow my mind if we don’t have that rolled out by the end of next year,” Musk said, confirming that “when I say payments, I actually mean someone’s entire financial life. If it involves money, it’ll be on our platform. Money or securities or whatever. So it’s not just like 'send $20 to my friend.' I’m talking about, like, you won’t need a bank account.”

In January, Musk took his first steps toward this ambitious goal by registering Twitter Payments LLC with the US Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. This was a necessary step for Twitter to start transmitting money between users in all states and US territories, and according to The Verge, Musk confirmed that he expects to get the rest of the money-transmitting licenses "in the next few months."

But Musk's vision goes beyond enabling payments within the US. X CEO Linda Yaccarino confirmed in a blog post yesterday that while X has already secured money-transmitter licenses "in several states," X is "moving toward launching a global payment system."

"More soon!" Yaccarino's blog promised.

When Musk announced his vision to turn X into an "everything app" where users go to text, call, pay, shop, bank, and post online, financial services experts told Ars that the hurdles Musk would face were "pretty high." X would need to earn trust from both users and regulators, with the former already having plenty of banking solutions to choose from and the latter becoming increasingly critical of novel digital payment entities.

Experts predicted that "the choke points of finance might restrict" Musk from achieving his dream of turning X into what he described at a November conference last year as "the most valuable financial institution in the world."

But one way to win over users, experts said, was to monetize activity on X and then incentivize users to keep their funds on the platform by turning their user account into what Musk described last year as "a high-yield money market account, so that having a Twitter balance is the highest-yield thing that you can do.”

Half of that plan is already in motion, as X began paying creators on the platform last year. Yaccarino's blog post said that so far, X has "paid out more than $20 million to our creator community," and a post from the X account said that "maximizing prosperity for content creators" remained among the platform's primary goals heading into 2024.

On the earnings call, Musk reiterated that his plan for X was to fully realize the roadmap that he and David Sacks initially wrote for PayPal in 2000. Musk told X employees that he remained baffled that PayPal never completed that roadmap, saying that he thinks people will be surprised “just how powerful it is" once X picks up the ball that PayPal dropped.

"For some reason, PayPal, once it became eBay, not only did they not implement the rest of the list, but they actually rolled back a bunch of key features, which is crazy," Musk said on the call. "So PayPal is actually a less complete product than what we came up with in July of 2000, so 23 years ago.”

What may have held PayPal back from completing the roadmap were the potential risks involved. Elon Musk biographer Ashlee Vance explained that in the earliest days of online banking, Musk felt that financial institutions were too hesitant to embrace true innovation. This hesitancy, Musk seemed to feel, left open opportunities for people like him, who are willing to take risks and chase innovation in the financial sector. On the earnings call, Musk told X employees that his efforts to turn Twitter into an everything app will one day "exceed" China's everything app (called WeChat) and is happening at "the fastest rate of innovation maybe ever for any Internet company,” The Verge reported.

Last year, Musk said that he expected to launch X as an everything app within three to five years. If X launches payments by the end of 2024, it will officially have what experts said are the key ingredients of an everything app: communications features like texting, calling, and posting online; financial features like enabling creator payouts and offering bank accounts; and e-commerce features likely expanding on Twitter Shops.

But Musk's everything app dreams would easily be crushed if X doesn’t draw enough users looking for the platform to invalidate their favorite apps and become the one online interface to rule them all. Currently, X is struggling to engage users with new features like calling or creator payouts. Total X users are slightly down, and time spent on the platform keeps falling, market research firms this month told Ars.

Yaccarino, who was brought on board to help Musk steer X toward profitability, remains optimistic about the platform's outlook for 2024. She seems to expect that X users will soon see the platform as so much more than the place they used to go to read tweets. In her blog, she said that rebranding Twitter into X was about evolving "past a legacy mindset" and reimagining "how users around the world consume, interact, watch, and, soon, transact—all in one seamless interface."

Regarding X's global payments features currently in development, though, Yaccarino's blog might raise some regulators' eyebrows, as it's still unclear what payment rails X plans to use. Enforcers have grown increasingly wary of novel fintech solutions enabling speedy payments—especially when those services occur outside normal banking regulations—which is why some fintech companies have begun calling for clearer regulations to support more innovation.

"We want money on X to flow as freely as information and conversation," Yaccarino said.

Trying to do this was part of what got him kicked out of Paypal. Including the part where he renamed it to X.

Hopefully X/Twitter goes dark before anyone signs up for Musk financial services.

[Broomstick]

So... let me get this straight....

A private entity that reserves the right to kick people off the platform for whatever reason(s) wants everyone in the world to put their entire financial life into the hands of the entity? The same entity that can't seem to keep scammers and child pornographers off the platform?

What happens to your Xtwitter money if Musk boots you off?

Fuck off Musk

[Mr Bean]

So... let me get this straight....

A private entity that reserves the right to kick people off the platform for whatever reason(s) wants everyone in the world to put their entire financial life into the hands of the entity? The same entity that can't seem to keep scammers and child pornographers off the platform?

What happens to your Xtwitter money if Musk boots you off?

Fuck off Musk

You forgot X formerly known as Twitter is currently famous for being sued by basically half it's former staff for not paying severances and 10+ companies and vendors for non-payment

Yes lets give the person famous for not paying people the money they are owed your money.

[LaCroix]

Again?
He really can't let go of his pipe-dream of a financial hub called X...

[Ralin]

So... let me get this straight....

A private entity that reserves the right to kick people off the platform for whatever reason(s) wants everyone in the world to put their entire financial life into the hands of the entity? The same entity that can't seem to keep scammers and child pornographers off the platform?

What happens to your Xtwitter money if Musk boots you off?

Fuck off Musk

To be clear, that's several steps beyond the financial services WeChat provides in China. And way I understand it the government made them put like a trillion yuan in a non-interest generating account as security to make sure they're good for it. And they're still mostly acting as an intermediary for the actual banks.

[Ralin]

Edit: Double-posted

[bilateralrope]

Creators confused by Elon Musk’s plan to “incentivize truth” on X

Change comes amid EU probe of verified users spreading disinformation on X.
ASHLEY BELANGER - 10/31/2023, 6:45 AM

After researchers flagged verified users on X (formerly known as Twitter) as top superspreaders of Israel/Hamas misinformation and the European Union launched a probe into X, Elon Musk has vowed to get verified X users back in check.

On Sunday, Musk announced that "any posts that are corrected by @CommunityNotes"—X's community-sourced fact-checking feature—will "become ineligible for revenue share."

"The idea is to maximize the incentive for accuracy over sensationalism," Musk said, warning that "any attempts to weaponize @CommunityNotes to demonetize people will be immediately obvious, because all code and data is open source."

Immediately, X users flooded Musk's post with questions, wondering if X could distinguish between Community Notes that provide context or verify the accuracy of posts rather than fact-checking the posts. Others pointed out that in the true spirit of Twitter, sometimes Community Notes are added for humor. Many users seem concerned that these other uses of Community Notes might trigger demonetization.

X did not respond to Ars' request to respond to users' top questions.

So far, Musk has ignored most users commenting on X, but he has responded directly to at least two users, providing further comments regarding this update and another big one soon to come.

One user posted that the change seemingly means that there may be more money rewarded to creators who aren't spreading misinformation or writing sensational posts, suggesting that "if someone is making a lot of money by purposely spreading misinformation, they are taking away money from every other creator who isn't purposely spreading misinformation for money, as the sharing pool is a set amount."

Musk did not confirm whether this was an accurate characterization of the update, only reiterating that "the goal is to incentiv[ize] truth." X has recently reported that it has paid $20 million to creators since launching monetization efforts, but no one knows for sure how much went to X users spreading misinformation. A user behind the World of Statistics account joked that the new policy might mean that any time someone disputes statistics shared from global researchers, their account might be penalized.

Another user suggested that it appeared "strange" that seemingly all of X's code and data is open source except for information regarding "delisting and throttling of accounts." To this criticism, Musk confirmed that X is already working to be more transparent about delisting and throttling, saying that he expected that information to be open source by the end of the year. Musk claimed that currently "most of the reach reduction" users are experiencing is due to "suboptimal code, rather than malice."

"There are so many hidden layers to the system, some of which we are still discovering," Musk said.

Some users praised Musk for demonetizing creators corrected by Community Notes—even going so far as suggesting that Musk should consider reducing the reach of any X users who are frequently corrected by Community Notes or adding a ticker on users' profile pages showing how often their posts are corrected.

As of this writing, X has not yet updated its X creators monetization standards to include this new policy. Those standards currently specify that creators can be prohibited from monetization for other kinds of conduct—including "fraud and deception," like creating posts that "mislead people into engaging with or compensating you"— or for certain violating content that "makes false, misleading, or unsubstantiated claims about a product or service, and which have the potential to cause harm."

It also remains unclear if Musk's plan to demonetize creators spreading misinformation will extend to other ways that these creators could monetize the platform—like receiving tips or charging subscription fees to Super Followers. X's monetization standards do stipulate, however, that losing eligibility for content monetization could—"depending on context, severity, and history of violative behavior"—result in X pausing or permanently revoking "your access to other X products that enable you to get paid by X."

Currently, the European Union is investigating X over its handling of Israel/Hamas disinformation, alleging that X may not be complying with Digital Services Act requirements to assess and mitigate risks of dissemination of disinformation. The EU told X it had until Halloween to answer all of the European Commission's questions regarding disinformation on X or face financial penalties.

With X still in a chaotic financial state, it seems likely that X's update to creator monetization standards could be an effort to show the Commission that X is working to limit disinformation spread on the platform.

But while addressing regulators' concerns is a must, X likely also cannot afford to overlook creators' questions about this new policy for long. This update comes at a vulnerable time when Musk's efforts to monetize X—by transforming it into an "everything app" including a global payments system—seem to largely hinge on creators confidently banking on the platform.

Monetizing X also depends on driving up subscriptions by adding perks for verified users—not taking perks away. The latest perks dangled before X users include an edit button for users paying $3 monthly for a basic subscription and an ad-free experience for those paying $16 monthly for a premium subscription.

It sounds like Musk is just throwing things out there, hoping that the EU will back off if he makes the right promise. Even if he has no intent or ability to follow through.

[bobalot]

Looks like Musk is spreading anti-semitic/white nationalist shit on twitter.

I wish this asshole would fuck off to mars soon.

[LaCroix]

IBM has cancelled all ads due to this, others are probably soon to follow.

Just as X was starting to break kinda even, on a good day...

[bilateralrope]

Elon Musk on X antisemitism controversy: “Don’t advertise. Go f*** yourself”

Musk says X advertiser backlash is "going to kill the company."
JON BRODKIN - 11/30/2023, 1:53 PM

Elon Musk addressed an antisemitism controversy in characteristically unwise fashion during a public interview today, telling businesses to "go fuck yourself" and to stop advertising on the social network formerly named Twitter.

Musk spoke on stage at The New York Times' DealBook Summit in an interview conducted by journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin. Sorkin asked Musk about trying to gain back advertising from businesses that pulled ads from X after Musk posted a favorable response to an antisemitic tweet.

"I hope they stop. Don't advertise," Musk said in response to Sorkin's question (see video).

Perplexed, Sorkin asked, "you don't want them to advertise?"

"No," Musk responded. "What do you mean?" Sorkin asked.

"If somebody is going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money? Go fuck yourself," Musk said.

Sorkin replied, "but," and trailed off. Musk wasn't done. "Go fuck yourself. Is that clear? I hope it is. Hey, Bob!" Musk said. Musk was apparently addressing Disney CEO Bob Iger, who previously said at the conference that advertising on X "was not necessarily a positive" association and so Disney "decided we would pull our advertising."

Musk: Ad boycott is “going to kill the company”

Even before the latest controversy, Musk's X platform was struggling financially. Sorkin pressed Musk on the economics of pushing away advertisers, pointing out that X CEO "Linda Yaccarino is right here and she's got to sell advertising."

Musk responded that the advertising boycott is likely to kill the company. "What this advertising boycott is going to do is it's going to kill the company, and the whole world will know that those advertisers killed the company and we will document it in great detail," Musk said.

When Sorkin pointed out that advertisers see things differently, Musk replied, "oh yeah? Tell it to Earth." Sorkin continued: "They're going to say, Elon, that you killed the company because you said these things and they were inappropriate things and they didn't feel comfortable on the platform. That's what they're going to say."

"And let's see how Earth responds to that," Musk replied.

Despite that exchange, Musk said he regretted making the post that kicked off the advertiser boycott. "I should in retrospect not have replied to that one person and should have written in greater length what I meant," Musk reportedly said. "But those clarifications were ignored by the media and essentially I handed a loaded gun to those who hate me and arguably to those who are antisemitic. And for that I'm quite sorry, that was not my intention."

Musk also called it, "one of the most foolish—if not the most foolish—thing I've done on the platform."

On November 15, Musk replied, "You have said the actual truth" to an X post that said Jewish communities are "pushing hatred against whites." A White House spokesperson condemned Musk's post as "abhorrent promotion of antisemitic and racist hate."

Sounds like he's finally realized the trajectory ex-Twitter is on. But he's still stuck in his echo chamber, blaming anyone but himself.