The Guardian: Twitter takes legal action after source code leaked online. “Twitter has revealed some of its source code has been released online and the social media platform owned by Elon Musk is taking legal action to identify the leaker.”
Wall Street Journal: Elon Musk Offers Employees Stock Grants Valuing Twitter at About $20 Billion. “Elon Musk said Twitter Inc. employees will receive stock awards based on a roughly $20 billion valuation, less than half of the $44 billion price he acquired the company for last year, according to an email reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.”
The Next Web: Big Tech gives EU access to thousands of user accounts each year. “Most of us share huge amounts of personal information online, and Big Tech companies are in many ways the gatekeepers of this data. But how much do they share with the authorities? And how often do governments request user data? According to new research by VPN provider SurfShark, the answer is a lot, and a lot again.”
CNN: Google was beloved as an employer for years. Then it laid off thousands by email. “Google (GOOGL), which for years ranked as the top company to work for in the United States, laid off thousands of workers by e-mail. And not just any employees: Decades-long veterans of the company, at least one employee on health leave, and even an employee in labor with her second child were all cut, with little explanation.”
Deadline: Twitter Responds To All Email Inquiries From The Press With A Poop Emoji, 51-Year-Old Owner Elon Musk Reports. “All inquiries from members of the press directed to Twitter’s official press email now receive the same automatic reply: a poop emoji. Elon Musk, who bought the social media company for $44 billion last year, relayed the update on his own Twitter feed over the weekend.” This is such a stupid waste of pixels I’m ashamed to be typing it. But I want evidence somewhere so that 40 years down the road nobody dismisses this story as apocryphal.
The Register: Shareholders sue Google, claim it hid anticompetitive ad practices. “Google parent Alphabet is facing a proposed class action lawsuit from investors unhappy that the company’s alleged advertising monopoly, and the subsequent DoJ investigation into this, led to ‘significant losses and damages.'”
Chicago Tribune: TikTok, Twitter fare only slightly better than fringe platforms favored by far right in Wiesenthal Center study of social media. “A report from the Simon Wiesenthal Center scoring social media platforms based on the proliferation of hate speech found that mainstream sites like TikTok and Twitter fared only slightly better than much smaller platforms like Telegram favored by far-right groups.”
CNBC: Google nixes paying out remainder of maternity and medical leave for laid-off employees. “Google is indicating to ex-staffers, who got laid off while on maternity and medical leave, that they won’t get paid for all of their remaining time off, according to former employees and written correspondence shared with CNBC.”
Economic Times (India Times): Google’s ‘castle and moat’ strategy is data hegemony: CCI tells NCLAT. “Fair trade regulator CCI on Thursday alleged that Google has created a digital data hegemony and called for a market space with ‘free, fair and open competition'”.
FTC: FTC Issues Orders to Social Media and Video Streaming Platforms Regarding Efforts to Address Surge in Advertising for Fraudulent Products and Scams. “With fraud on social media surging, the Federal Trade Commission has issued orders to eight social media and video streaming platforms seeking information on how these companies scrutinize and restrict paid commercial advertising that is deceptive or exposes consumers to fraudulent health-care products, financial scams, counterfeit and fake goods, or other fraud.”
Ars Technica: Report: Microsoft cut a key AI ethics team. “An entire team responsible for making sure that Microsoft’s AI products are shipped with safeguards to mitigate social harms was cut during the company’s most recently layoff of 10,000 employees, Platformer reported.”
CNBC: SEC and Justice Department reportedly investigating SVB’s collapse, including insider stock sales. “The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department are investigating how Silicon Valley Bank became the second largest bank failure in U.S. history, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. The probes, which are separate and in preliminary phases, include looking into stock sales that SVB executives’ conducted ahead of the tech-focused bank’s collapse, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.”
Ars Technica: TikTok accused of mishandling sexual harassment allegations. “TikTok has been accused of mishandling allegations of sexual misconduct and harassment against a senior manager in London, highlighting longstanding concerns about the working culture at the fast-growing social media platform.”
CNN: As Twitter failures go from bad to worse, users wonder how long it can stay online. “The service disruptions and random glitches highlight the larger tension for Twitter and its new owner. Musk has raced to slash staff, reportedly bringing the company’s headcount down from 7,500 employees to less than 2,000 now, in an urgent effort to cut costs for the company he purchased with a significant amount of debt. But in trying to cut his way to profitability, Musk risks making Twitter a less viable service.”
Vox: 9 questions about Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse, answered. “If you work in tech, you had probably heard of Silicon Valley Bank before now. If you’re not familiar with this seemingly regional bank, nobody’s blaming you. It had billions of dollars in deposits, but fewer than two dozen branches, and generally catered to a very specific crowd of startups, venture capitalists, and tech firms. Anyway, you’re here now — Silicon Valley Bank isn’t.”
