General Elon Musk Fukkery Thread
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Elon Musk’s Twitter Quietly Fired Its Democracy And National Security Policy Lead
Twitter’s public policy team continues to be decimated under Elon Musk, signaling a retreat from engaging with democratic, national security and human rights concerns across the world.
www.forbes.com
Elon Musk’s Twitter Quietly Fired Its Democracy And National Security Policy Lead
Thomas BrewsterForbes Staff
Associate editor at Forbes, covering cybercrime, privacy, security and surveillance.
Feb 24, 2023,01:36pm EST
Under Elon Musk, Twitter’s policy and safety teams have been drastically cut. OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Twitter’s public policy team continues to be decimated under Elon Musk, signaling a retreat from engaging with democratic, national security and human rights concerns across the world.
When Elon Musk arrived as Twitter’s new owner in fall last year, the company quietly laid off members of its public policy team, sacking various individuals crucial to protecting the midterms from disinformation and interference, as well as those helping defend human rights on the site. Amongst them was Neema Singh Guliani, its lead on democracy, national security and civil rights policy.
Guliani, a former ACLU lawyer covering privacy and surveillance, joined Twitter in September 2020 to head policy initiatives across the Americas, but left in November. At the time, Musk’s company was under scrutiny for how it was going to deal with disinformation coming from foreign sources like Russia, while Twitter’s owner was busy firing large swaths of the workforce.
As Forbes previously reported, under Musk, Twitter had laid off staff responsible for monitoring the midterm elections before the vote happened, raising concerns about Twitter’s ability to deal with mis- and disinformation threats both before and after Election Day. At the time, identities of those who had left the team dedicated to protecting democracy on Twitter were not reported.
Guliani, who’d also worked on counterterror and extremism policy at the DHS, announced on LinkedIn on Thursday she had taken on a new role with the U.S. Department of Commerce as a deputy assistant secretary, where she will work on the agency’s efforts to create “policy conditions for U.S. digital, financial, supply chain and other services industries to compete around the world.”
Neither Guliani nor Twitter commented on her departure. Two former Twitter employees said Guliani hadn’t chosen to leave but had been let go as part of layoffs to the public policy team in early November, one noting it was before the midterms. According to a LinkedIn post from December by a member of that division, half of the team had been cut by Musk.
The layoffs follow a broader trend at Musk-era Twitter of major cuts to policy and safety in favor of a “hard-core” crew focused on engineering and monetization. That has the potential to leave gaps in Twitter’s defense against domestic and foreign meddling in elections, while diminishing its standing on the global stage when it comes to issues like human rights.
One former employee said the November layoffs had a “huge impact on our capacity to deal with disinformation and interference” during the midterms. “All the elections support we provided is now gone,” they added.
The Musk-ordered shift away from policy issues has only ramped up in 2023, as other recent departures revealed on LinkedIn indicate a retreat from engagement with security and human rights concerns across the world.
U.S.-based human rights director Cynthia Wong departed in September and was followed a month later by 11-year veteran and chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde. In Dublin, the vice president of global public policy and philanthropy went in December, followed by global director of legal policy in January, then director of public policy for Europe this month. One of those laid off in the policy team layoffs said around a dozen were left on the team.
The policy team hasn’t been totally eradicated, however. Nick Pickles, a British native and former chief of privacy-focused nonprofit Big Brother Watch, was promoted to head of global government affairs in December.
While he fires those guiding Twitter’s response to global events, Musk remains keen to share his wisdom on geopolitics. In the last 48 hours, he tweeted at his Twitter advisor David Sacks, who blamed President Biden’s policies for pushing China and Russia closer together, while pontificating on the need for congressional action on making artificial intelligence equitable.
Hood Critic
The Power Circle
WORLDS LARGEST NON-PROFIT!Twitter laid off 'dozens' more workers on Saturday as Elon Musk continues to cut costs, report says
At least 50 employees have been affected by the latest job cuts including some engineers who keep Twitter's systems running, The Information reported.
www.businessinsider.com
This shyt ain't going to help as well.
NaijaProdigy Redux
Veteran
She got laid off this recent round
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
Girl Scouts injured after man crashes Tesla into cookie stand outside a California Walmart, officials say
Two Girl Scouts and a 78-year-old woman were transported to the hospital with injuries, according to local outlets.
www.businessinsider.com
Even the Musk Loyalist Who Slept in Office Wasn't Spared in Latest Twitter Layoffs
Looks like she can finally get a real night's sleep.
www.thedailybeast.com
Even the Musk Loyalist Who Slept in Office Wasn't Spared in Latest Twitter Layoffs
Alec KaramBreaking News Intern
Published Feb. 26, 2023 3:25PM ET
REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke
Esther Crawford, the head of Twitter payments, has been fired. The tech company laid off at least 50 employees Saturday night in the latest company cull, including Crawford, an Elon Musk-loyalist who had withstood the company’s rocky transition, Platformer reported. In November, after Musk took over Twitter, Crawford posted a photo of herself sleeping in the office in an attempt to show her dedication to the company. “Since some people are losing their minds I'll explain: doing hard things requires sacrifice (time, energy, etc),” she explained in a Twitter thread at the time following widespread backlash. After Musk’s takeover, Crawford “began angling for a bigger role” in the company, The Verge reported in January. Unfortunately for her, that didn’t work out—but she can go back to sleeping on a regular mattress, at least.
Spidey Man
Superstar
Even the Musk Loyalist Who Slept in Office Wasn't Spared in Latest Twitter Layoffs
Looks like she can finally get a real night's sleep.www.thedailybeast.com
Even the Musk Loyalist Who Slept in Office Wasn't Spared in Latest Twitter Layoffs
Alec Karam
Breaking News Intern
Published Feb. 26, 2023 3:25PM ET
REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke
Esther Crawford, the head of Twitter payments, has been fired. The tech company laid off at least 50 employees Saturday night in the latest company cull, including Crawford, an Elon Musk-loyalist who had withstood the company’s rocky transition, Platformer reported. In November, after Musk took over Twitter, Crawford posted a photo of herself sleeping in the office in an attempt to show her dedication to the company. “Since some people are losing their minds I'll explain: doing hard things requires sacrifice (time, energy, etc),” she explained in a Twitter thread at the time following widespread backlash. After Musk’s takeover, Crawford “began angling for a bigger role” in the company, The Verge reported in January. Unfortunately for her, that didn’t work out—but she can go back to sleeping on a regular mattress, at least.
Twitter laid off 'dozens' more workers on Saturday as Elon Musk continues to cut costs, report says
At least 50 employees have been affected by the latest job cuts including some engineers who keep Twitter's systems running, The Information reported.
"The new round of layoffs comes after a week in which Twitter made it difficult for employees to communicate with each other. Slack, the company's internal messaging service, was taken offline, preventing employees from chatting with each other or looking up company data. Some employees discovered on Saturday night that they were logged out of their corporate email accounts and laptops, which was the first hint that layoffs had begun.
The report suggests that by Sunday morning, it was clear that the scope of the cuts was significant. Twitter employees used the platform to post farewell messages, while remaining workers scrambled to use encrypted messaging services like Signal to determine who else was left. The fresh round of job cuts hit product managers, data scientists, and engineers who worked on machine learning and site reliability."
"Musk had told employees in late November that there were no more plans for staff reductions. However, the billionaire has continued to conducts mass layoffs leaving a fraction of Twitter's workforce."
"According to a report in a newsletter-based publication Platformer, Twitter has shut off its internal communication system Slack and employees posted on the anonymous workplace chat app Blind that the company had stopped paying its Slack bills.
The move left employees baffled and no one worked throughout the day on Friday as they were suddenly unable to communicate, reports Platformer. Employees also lost access to Jira, a tracking software that allows engineers to ship code and monitor progress."
I feel like at this point he's purposely doing shyt that looks like a bad idea, on the assumption that no rational plan of action can save the shytstorm he's created and thus if he does something crazy and it works he'll be seen as a genius.
Yea i just read some of this truly disgusting but not surprising