Elon Musk, rip-off King!

[carmenjonze]

The world is already in chaos.

No one does anything about it.

Or, only those already deemed the nobodies are doing anything about it.

When has this not been the case?

[ProfX]

SpaceX filled a need no one else would, and if not for them, we'd be relying on the Russians to get back and forth from the ISS. Now, IMHO, that was due to public underinvestment in NASA, but, it was what it was. All I will say is space privatization can have its downsides. I like Ad Astra because it's very realistic about the future. The Moon now has a Mall with a Starbucks and a food court on it. All I can say is I have nothing against the commercialization of space, but I view it as like the commercialization of academia. Hope it doesn't squeeze out the stuff that's not profitable, i.e. "pure" research and science, and space exploration and colonization for its own sake. Call that "the Gene Roddenberry" vision ... it was utopian.

Tesla. Well, who knows. Maybe he provided a face for electric vehicles, but monopolies are bad, and increasingly there is more choice in the market for EVs. That's good. Especially as the guy is notoriously anti-union, and his self-driving systems were not always up to hype.

I'm glad the Starlink space junk problem isn't being ignored. The Internet from everywhere on Earth isn't a bad thing, I have known folks stuck in remote Amazonian jungles or at the top of the Himalayas, there are places on Earth you can't get a cell signal. Once again, that said, space junk not only interferes with terrestrial astronomy, but is a growing hazard for satellites and manned launches.

As for Twitter ... even if he was a genius and saint all wrapped in one ... sole ownership of that means of information just ain't good. The one ray of hope I notice is Europe won't let him get away with abandoning content moderation. The U.S. may not care, but they do.

The robber barons of the past used to concentrate on only one sector at a time. I'm not sure I like so much in this guy's hands.

[Libertas]

[carmenjonze]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
@AOC

Lmao at a billionaire earnestly trying to sell people on the idea that “free speech” is actually a $8/mo subscription plan

https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1587647032457449473

[ap215]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
@AOC

Lmao at a billionaire earnestly trying to sell people on the idea that “free speech” is actually a $8/mo subscription plan

https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1587647032457449473

My rep & favorite congressional person always right on point. ❤

[ZoWie]

It is pretty funny when you think about it. So is the California initiative process. I'd love to pitch a script for one of those funny but subversive comedies about the whole thing, a la Wag the Dog. Unfortunately, the people who benefit the most from the whole joke are also the ones who decide which scripts go, so it would be a waste of time. We'll make up some more super-heroes instead. They test well with the core demographic.

[lucytalk]

my guess is elon will have 2 twitters. 1 where the blue check marks talk with each other only (maybe the non checks can read only or not at all) the other where non check marks and blues talk to each other.

again just guessing.

[gounion]

my guess is elon will have 2 twitters. 1 where the blue check marks talk with each other only (maybe the non checks can read only or not at all) the other where non check marks and blues talk to each other.

again just guessing.

I'm curious - has Musk's latest actions changed your view of him any?

[carmenjonze]

Look at this POS person.
__________

Will Oremus
@WillOremus

Here's the first official communication from Twitter's new leadership to its staff, a week after Musk took over: a fun game where you get to find out if you're laid off or not based by 9am tomorrow, based on whether the email pops up in your Twitter account or personal account.



If you've never been in a mass-layoffs situation at a tech company, it's hard to comprehend this behavior. But I've been through something similar, which is one of the dozens of reasons I do not respect fatcat Apartheid Era cutthroats like Elon Musk.

People tend to think of tech companies as 6-figure fatcat dudebros with the fashy haircuts and $280 khakis.

The people who these kinds of measures really affect are the EAs, the low-level operations and early career people, the temps and contractors who aren't even ON staff, the interns...

And depending on how old one is -- e.g. past age 32 -- not even the dudebros with the fashy haircuts and $280 khakis are safe. No one stays 28 forever.

This is such a crappy situation.

[carmenjonze]

my guess is elon will have 2 twitters. 1 where the blue check marks talk with each other only (maybe the non checks can read only or not at all) the other where non check marks and blues talk to each other.

again just guessing.

I could not see a two-tiered Twitter working, not even financially. It's hard to imagine blue checks paying to be a blue check, especially since so many bluchecks already have the follower count, e.g. usually 10K+

I get the sense he's just trying to run the company in the ground, or keep it in a cage to help his fellow rich WN friends.

[ap215]

And here comes the lawsuits.

Employees sue Elon Musk’s Twitter after staff are informed that layoffs are set to begin

(CNN Business) — Elon Musk will begin laying off Twitter employees on Friday morning, according to a memo sent to staff, as several Twitter employees file a class action lawsuit alleging the layoffs are in violation of labor law.

The email sent Thursday evening notified employees that they will receive a notice by 12 pm ET Friday that informs them of their employment status.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/03/tech/twi ... index.html

[carmenjonze]

Look at this freak.

The way this is being done is probably illegal, but hey, it’s some entitled megalomaniac rich white man so he is supposed to be above the law über Alles.

F. this guy.

Mass Layoffs Are Underway At Twitter - Buzzfeed News

Overnight, some staff found themselves locked out of their laptops and tweeted that they had lost their jobs. Musk himself was silent about the layoffs, instead tweeting out this non sequitur last night: “Tiny talk is talk so small it feels like it’s coming from your own mind.” Twitter did not respond to BuzzFeed’s request for comment.

The cuts led to an outpouring of sadness on Twitter from current and former employees. James Glynn, a senior curation lead at Twitter’s London office, where he worked on countering disinformation, announced being laid off and said he was sorry for the staff that didn’t get fired. “Elon will run those left behind into the ground with his hair-brained ideas. Any kind of Twitter we knew before is dead,” he wrote.

A lawsuit has already been filed challenging the layoffs, Bloomberg reported. On Thursday, before the round of cuts began, Twitter staff in California filed a class action for violation of the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which requires companies to give 60 days advance notice of mass layoffs. Three of the employees filing the suit said that they were locked out of their Twitter accounts on Thursday, “which they understood to signal that they were being laid off,” the filing says.

Good.

Bankrupt him.

[carmenjonze]

And here comes the lawsuits.

Employees sue Elon Musk’s Twitter after staff are informed that layoffs are set to begin

(CNN Business) — Elon Musk will begin laying off Twitter employees on Friday morning, according to a memo sent to staff, as several Twitter employees file a class action lawsuit alleging the layoffs are in violation of labor law.

The email sent Thursday evening notified employees that they will receive a notice by 12 pm ET Friday that informs them of their employment status.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/03/tech/twi ... index.html

This creep is trying to throw the US elections next week and he is going to get away with it.

I am going to go by Twitter headquarters later on this morning. Probably nothing will be happening except some extra security and maybe some press. But I feel really bad for what this person is doing to them, even including the dudebro hipsters that everyone blames for ruining this city. This is exactly why I have said for decades the tech industry workers need union representation like any other sector. It’s not always about munny. It’s about forcing these megalomaniacs to abide by basic labor rights.

[gounion]

Look at this freak.

The way this is being done is probably illegal, but hey, it’s some entitled megalomaniac rich white man so he is supposed to be above the law über Alles.

F. this guy.

Mass Layoffs Are Underway At Twitter - Buzzfeed News




Good.

Bankrupt him.

Companies have changed how they deal with the mass layoff act. Most of them simply pay the workers 2 months severance these days, and the layoffs are still immediate.

[carmenjonze]

Companies have changed how they deal with the mass layoff act. Most of them simply pay the workers 2 months severance these days, and the layoffs are still immediate.

Yes, seen it happen especially in this sector for decades, now. I hope these lawsuits can gain some traction.

[Toonces]

I thought that maybe Elon was good at business but I'm now beginning to question even that.

He's a poser. No idea why people still believe he's some sort of genius.

[carmenjonze]

__________

Elon Musk
@elonmusk

Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists.

Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1588538640401018880

[carmenjonze]

Oh my goodness, advertisers don’t want to pay out the nose to another platform full of n#zis and bots!?!?!?!

[Drak]

__________

Elon Musk
@elonmusk

Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists.

Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1588538640401018880

Activist groups are not pressuring advertisers. Elon is just another conservative snowflake. It’s always someone else’s fault. Twitter is now toxic.

Under the 1A, advertisers have the right to pull advertising, Elon.

[gounion]

No one on the right really understands the free speech clause of the Constitution. Well, the leaders do, but the purposefully lie about it.

There is no free speech in corporations.

The free speech clause only enjoins the GOVERNMENT from abridging speech.

I can't remember how many conservatives, when we cracked down on their rule-breaking on our message boards, swore we were taking away their Constitutional rights to free speech, and were going to sue us.

None ever did.

Conservatives can READ the Constitution, they just can't understand it.

[ProfX]

Mr. Free Speech Absolutist has a long history of deleting and removing posts critiquing his business practices, whether by employees or activists.

And that was even before he became Head Twit of the network. He's a hypocrite.

[ZoWie]

There is no legal claim to unfettered speech on a private platform.

There is no legal claim to free speech in the workplace.

Musk had said all along that he was going to lay off 50-70 per cent. I don't know why anyone's surprised. He's taking the company private. He wants a soap box for himself and his plutocrat buddies. He's never made any secret about this.

Carmen has it right about who gets hurt the most. A lot of people went into tech because it looked like the next moon shot program and it would keep hiring everybody forever. Well, that didn't last either. Similar bad scenes are being scripted and shot in corporate campuses countrywide.

Coming up, we have this obsession in the schools about STEM - Science Technology Engineering Math. They're conditioning a generation of kids to train as system analysts, but the hiring is going to dry up everywhere. A few schools around here have added an A, which stands for arts. Well, good, but arts are not a job. They are a life choice.

[ProfX]

It's not like they weren't already underfunding the social sciences and the humanities, ... at least the people like Rick Scott who claim certain of those programs (i.e. anthropology) should be eliminated or abolished is small.

A philosophy degree isn't a ticket to six figures either, but I don't think we remember Plato and Aristotle for their earning potential.

At least the economists can find their ticket to the big money - usually by leaving academe and working for Wall Street.

BTW, if you're doing pure science and not busy creating the next biotech startup, don't think you're going to be Scrooge McDuck working as an astronomer.... it also matters what kind of science you're doing.

[ZoWie]

Well, sure. I'm glad academe is about something other than putting more money into the usual owning class's pockets.

It's nice that something is.

I doubt Van Gogh was in it for the money either, even though his brother was in the biz.

I'd rather leave a lasting contribution to civilization than a few megabucks for my heirs to snort up their noses.

[Drak]

I know a guy who thinks freedom of speech means that you have to listen to what others have to say, and you have to be subjected to their art because It’s good for you. Like you don’t have a choice. He seems pretty confused about what freedom means.