All posts tagged: X..

UAW Files Federal Labor Charges Against Donald Trump and Elon Musk, Alleging They Tried to ‘Threaten and Intimidate Workers’

Published by skeptic

The United Auto Workers union, which represents some 400,000 workers in the automobile, aerospace, and agriculture industries, on Tuesday said that it filed federal labor charges against Donald Trump and Elon Musk. The charges follow what the UAW describes as “attempts to threaten and intimidate workers” that arose during a conversation between Trump and Musk, hosted on X Spaces Monday evening, in which Trump appeared to praise X owner Musk for firing workers who strike. “Well, you’re the greatest cutter,” Trump told Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX. “I mean, I look at what you do. You walk in and you just say, ‘You want to quit?’ They go on strike. I won’t mention the name of the company, but they go on strike and you say, ‘That’s okay. You’re all gone. You’re all gone.’” Musk did not respond specifically to Trump’s statements, but laughed as the former president spoke, and said he would “be happy to help out” on a government efficiency commission. US workers—both unionized and nonunionized—cannot be fired for engaging in …

Staffers Were Told Biden Was Leaving Race in Email Telling Them to Check X

Staffers Were Told Biden Was Leaving Race in Email Telling Them to Check X

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President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign staff didn’t receive official communication that he was dropping out until nearly 20 minutes after the announcement went up on social media. When they finally did get an email, it directed them to Biden’s post on X. “Team, sharing with you the letter from President Biden that was released just now. We will have more information later this afternoon,” Biden campaign managers Jen O’Malley Dillon and Julie Chavez Rodriguez wrote in an all-staff email timestamped at 2:03 pm Eastern. “Look out for an invite to an all staff call. We are so grateful to be part of this team with you all. More soon.” The email linked to a letter Biden had posted on X more than 15 minutes earlier, at 1:46 pm ET, announcing that he would no longer be seeking reelection. Politico reported that campaign aides had been whipping delegates at the very moment the letter was posted. The New York Times reported that aides as senior as Anita Dunn, who manages communications strategy for Biden, learned that …

Online abuse silences women in Ethiopia, study finds

Online abuse silences women in Ethiopia, study finds

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Addis Ababa, Ethiopia —  Research into online abuse and hate speech reveals most women in Ethiopia face gender-targeted attacks across Facebook, Telegram and X. The abuse and hate speech are prompting many Ethiopian women to withdraw from public life, online and off, according to the recent research. The Center for Information Resilience, a U.K.-based nonprofit organization, spearheaded the study. The CIR report, released Wednesday, says that women in Ethiopia are on the receiving end of abuse and hate speech across all three social media platforms, with Facebook cited as the worst. Over 2,000 inflammatory keywords were found in the research, which looked at three Ethiopian languages — Amharic, Afan Oromo and Tigrigna — as well as English. The list is the most comprehensive inflammatory word lexicon in Ethiopia, according to the researchers. Over 78% of the women interviewed reported feelings of fear or anxiety after experiencing online abuse. It is highly likely similar problems exist in areas of society that have not been analyzed yet, said Felicity Mulford, editor and researcher at CIR. “This data …

Jack Dorsey says he’s no longer on the Bluesky board

Jack Dorsey says he’s no longer on the Bluesky board

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It sounds like Bluesky’s most prominent backer is no longer on its board. On Saturday, Jack Dorsey posted on X about grants for open protocols from his philanthropic Start Small initiative. This prompted someone to ask Dorsey if he was still on the Bluesky board, and he responded with a terse “no.” Dorsey did not answer any of the follow-up posts asking him to explain his departure. It’s not clear when Dorsey left the board; as of Sunday morning, Bluesky’s corporate FAQ still identifies him as a board member. We’ve reached out to the company for confirmation. Dorsey first announced Bluesky in 2019, back when he was still CEO of Twitter. He wrote that Twitter (now X) was “funding a small independent team of up to five open source architects, engineers, and designers to develop an open and decentralized standard for social media.” Since then, Bluesky has become an independent public benefit corporation, led by CEO Jay Graber, with VC backing, and it opened to the general public in February. Dorsey appears to have deleted …

Threads reaches landmark 150 million active monthly users

Threads reaches landmark 150 million active monthly users

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Threads has announced it has reached the milestone of 150 million active monthly users. The social platform from Facebook and Instagram owner, Meta, was introduced as an alternative to Elon Musk’s X and since its launch in July, it has maintained steady growth. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg provided the update during his company’s Q1 earnings call this week, as Threads begins to test a feature to let users auto-archive posts after a set time. A selected number of people are taking part in the trial allowing users to manually select an individual post to archive or automatically store all posted content. Despite its status as a rival to X,  Threads may struggle to take on its rival due to its reduction in news content, which has gradually been dialed back. Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri stated late last year, said Threads would  “not amplify news on the platform” reducing its appeal to social media users who want to quit X. Unless Meta decides to muscle in on news and real-time information, the lifeblood of X, …

Elon Musk wants to charge new users for posting on X

Elon Musk wants to charge new users for posting on X

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X owner Elon Musk has plans to make new users of the social media platform, formerly known as Twitter, pay for the privilege of posting. In the days when X was still Twitter — that is, before Musk was forced to buy it in October 2022, then renaming it X in the summer of 2023 — much of the platform’s features were entirely free. Since then, more and more of its utilities have disappeared behind the paywall. Most notably, users can now pay for blue checkmark verification, which had been granted free by Twitter staff to celebrities, journalists, and other public figures after confirming their verified identities. Other once-free tools are now part of the platform’s premium version. Will posting on X soon cost? In a post on X (fittingly), Musk has now suggested another soon-to-be-paid feature: posting. The account X Daily News shared evidence that X might charge users before they can reply, like, or bookmark a post, a policy that was previously only active in New Zealand and the Philippines. Replying to the …

Substack’s Notes feature is getting more Twitter-like capabilities

Substack’s Notes feature is getting more Twitter-like capabilities

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Substack is adding new capabilities to its Twitter-like Notes feature that bring it more in-line with the social network now known as X. The company announced on Tuesday that users can now post videos directly to Notes in the Substack app and on the web. Users can now also embed Notes on external webpages. The launch of the new features come a year after Substack introduced Notes in April 2023, during a time when companies were aiming to attract users who were fleeing Twitter after Elon Musk took the reigns of the social network in late 2022. Notes let users share posts, quotes, comments, images, links and ideas in a Tweet-like format, The short-form content is displayed in a dedicated Twitter-like feed. Starting today, users can post videos directly to Notes by recording a video or selecting one from their phone’s camera roll or their desktop. The company says more writers and creators are using its video tools and starting new shows on the platform, so it wants to make it possible for them to …

ShareChat’s valuation drops below billion in new funding

ShareChat’s valuation drops below $2 billion in new funding

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Social media startup ShareChat’s valuation has cratered below $2 billion from nearly $5 billion following a new funding round, a source familiar with the situation told TechCrunch, marking a steep decline for the nine-year-old Indian startup that boasts over 400 million users in the South Asian market. The Bengaluru-based startup, which operates a popular social network supporting a dozen Indian languages as well as a short-form video app, announced on Monday that it had raised $49 million in a convertible round. It did not disclose the valuation at which the funds were raised but strongly denied that its new valuation was below $2 billion, asserting there was “no valuation” attached to the round. Existing investors including Lightspeed, Temasek, Alkeon Capital, Moore Strategic Ventures and HarbourVest have invested in the new round, the startup said. Their debt will convert to equity at a valuation below $2 billion in the next round, according to a source with direct knowledge of the terms. The source requested anonymity to speak candidly. TechCrunch reported in December that ShareChat was facing …

Meta to pay Threads creators for engaging content based on performance

Meta to pay Threads creators for engaging content based on performance

Published by skeptic

Meta has decided to experiment with a bonus payment initiative for creators who provide engaging content on Threads, its rival app to Elon Musk’s X. An invite-only program will contact eligible users with a pop-up notification with Instagram’s help centre detailing further information on how this venture will work. Creators may be able to earn a cash reward  “based on the performance of your Threads posts and based on the number of posts you create. For example, you may need to create a certain amount of posts to earn a bonus amount per post.” The site also outlined how Threads posts with “less than 2,500 eligible views” will not qualify for payouts. At present, there is no indication of how long the program will operate but it is another signal that Meta is backing Threads as it strives to compete with X. Amid uncertainty about Elon Musk’s social media app last year and premature reports of its demise, Threads burst onto the online scene when it launched in July. Since then, its growth hasn’t quite …

X is giving blue checks to influential users (which is what blue checks were supposed to be all along)

X is giving blue checks to influential users (which is what blue checks were supposed to be all along)

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X is giving free blue checks to users who have more than 2500 “verified” followers (or, people that subscribe to X Premium). So, basically this means that if you are a popular poster, you will get a blue check. This also means that these lucky people are frantically posting to make it clear that they didn’t buy a blue check — the blue check was foisted upon them. “Some personal news: I’m now a serial small business founder in Arizona who posts about fatherhood, faith and what it takes to get a roofing company to $100 million ARR,” a newly minted blue check, Tom Gara, posted. “This is punishment for posting too much,” another reluctant blue check, Katie Notopoulos, wrote. Back in days of yore, Twitter’s blue check indicated that a user was influential in some way. Now, this may sound foreign in the age of the paid blue check, but believe me: I was there, way back in the olden times of 2022, when X was Twitter, and Twitter had real advertisers, rather than …