[Software] Live blog: Twitter chaos - Elon Musk makes some big policy moves

[Mark.]

After a protracted process, in which the world's richest man tried to pull out numerous times, Elon Musk finally purchased Twitter on October 28 for $44 billion. It's been a wild and unpredictable ride ever since.

Anyone keeping up with Musk's on-again, off-again, and finally on-again Twitter purchase would be forgiven for thinking that with it being finalized that would be the end of the drama.

In fact, it was just the start. In the two weeks since Musk bought Twitter, there have been mass layoffs, high-profile departures, an exodus of users and advertisers, and features that have been dumped as quickly as they were added.

It's hard to keep up with it all, so we've fired up this live blog to keep you updated with what's happening with the social media network, and to try to figure out what's happening and what it means for Twitter users around the world.

Reversals and big decisions

Like virtually every other bit of strategy Twitter owner Elon Musk has introduced to the beleaguered social media platform, they all - even the biggest ones - play out on Twitter.

After booting comedian Kathy Griffin and other parody and humor accounts, Musk said he was reinstating(opens in new tab) Griffin, Jorden Peterson, and the satirical online newspaper, The Babylon Bee.

Musk also made it clear that he is considering bringing Former President Donald Trump back, though the "decision has not yet been made.

Perhaps the even bigger news is the unveiling of a new Twitter policy, which Musk initially teased with a tweet that said "Freedom Fridays..."(opens in new tab)

The new policy quickly followed in another tweet.

"New Twitter policy is freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach.
Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted & demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter. You won’t find the tweet unless you specifically seek it out, which is no different from rest of Internet."

Part of this appears to be allowing "hate" speech on the platform but hiding it. That still means people could see it (though maybe only if they conduct a Twitter or Google search). While this move will surely concern some and freak out advertisers, Musk's plan is to not monetize any of these tweets.

A larger question remains. How will Musk and his team identify "Negative/hate tweets"? Those details weren't included. Nor did Musk explain how and when a tweet might be so incendiary that it would be, say, too hateful and be removed from the platform, or get its author banned.

The flurry of tweets came shortly after reports that Musk had reversed his decision(opens in new tab) to lock Twitter's doors on Friday and, apparently, ordered some people back to work.
-Lance Ulanoff

Memes aside, however, Elon Musk isn’t as seemingly blasé about the situation in private. There are reports that Twitter has once again suspended staff’s badge access and that its offices are temporarily closed. Twitter’s staff have been told that offices will reopen on Monday, November 21, though they haven’t been told why access is currently restricted.

The current theory is that Elon Musk and senior staff at Twitter are worried that employees who have not committed to Twitter 2.0 will sabotage the platform on their way out. On top of that, it sounds like they’re also trying to work out who is leaving (and needs their office access revoked) and who is staying. 

According to a Twitter post(opens in new tab) made at 9:42pm ET on November 17 (02:43am GMT / 12:43pm AEST on November 18) by Zoë Schiffer(opens in new tab) – the managing editor of Platformer – because only the names of people who said “Yes” to Twitter 2.0 have been collected it’s not immediately clear who has actually left.

We imagine Elon Musk and his cronies will also be trying to convince staff leaving critical teams to stay – especially the teams that would then have zero members without them. If discussions are ongoing this would likely add even more confusion to the situation as Musk wouldn’t want to revoke access for Twitter staff who end up staying with the company. 

18:37:31 - November 18, 2022

Well, it turns out many people at Twitter weren't enthusiastic about the prospect of working even harder than they are now on Musk’s “Twitter 2.0”. Reportedly hundreds of staff have been posting farewell messages on Twitter’s internal Slack channels after the 5pm ET deadline passed.

According to anonymous sources who spoke to The Verge(opens in new tab) this new batch of resignations means that several “critical” teams at Twitter have lost all or nearly all of their members. This apparently includes Twitter’s traffic and frontend teams that ensure engineering requests are sent to the correct backend services, as well as the entirety of Twitter’s core system libraries team – with one employee admitting about the latter that “you cannot run Twitter without [them].”

But based on his Twitter timeline, Elon Musk is apparently pretty relaxed about the whole situation. In a tweet following this new employee exodus(opens in new tab), he said that “The best people are staying, so I’m not super worried.”

He later followed up with several memes, including one showing Twitter posing in front of its own grave.

Morning folks, we’re back with the latest Twitter news, and boy have quite a few things happened.

Following the mass layoffs that occurred at Twitter two weeks ago – when Elon Musk fired an estimated half of the platform’s workforce – he issued a demand to those that remained on Wednesday (November 16): commit to the new “extremely hardcore” work culture or leave.

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