Musk Cuts Hundreds of Contract Employees, Hints at Further Verification Components

Significantly, daily Elon is throwing out new concepts for what’s coming subsequent at Twitter, a few of which in all probability will eventuate, and others that’ll get misplaced within the shuffle. And there’s actually a whole lot of shuffling happening at Twitter HQ.

Right here’s the Elon Musk/Twitter replace for as we speak:

Extra Job Cuts

Over the weekend, Musk’s transition staff reportedly reduce 4,400 of the corporate’s 5,500 contract employees.

Twitter customers native contractors for numerous duties, together with content material moderation and website administration, however these are usually not staff, as such, so that they weren’t included within the authentic employees cull, which noticed Musk reduce half of Twitter’s staff final week (earlier than asking a few of them to come back again).

In accordance with stories, many of those contractors weren’t informed that their contracts could be canceled, they came upon after discovering that their entry to Twitter’s programs had been shut off.

The impacts that these newest cuts may have isn’t clear, nevertheless it appears as if Twitter’s moderation, and even day-to-day repairs, may begin to deteriorate in consequence.

Musk has been up-front about the necessity to reduce prices, with Twitter, apparently, dropping $4 million a day when he initially took over on the app. Job cuts will definitely tackle this, not less than partially, however you would need to additionally anticipate that dropping so many employees and contractors (now as much as round 8k roles in complete) should have some affect on the service.

If issues begin falling aside within the subsequent few weeks, this may very well be why.

On the identical time, Musk is now additionally participating in public back-and-forth with former Twitter employees, who’ve questioned his claims about mismanagement on the firm.

In abstract, employees relations at Twitter are seemingly not going nice in the meanwhile.

Delayed Verification

As has been nicely documented, Elon’s $8 checkmark program has, this far, been fairly messy, resulting in a spread of impersonations, misrepresentations, and doubtlessly defamation, amid confusion over the brand new blue ticks, and what they really imply.

The following chaos has even resulting in main inventory impacts for some big-name firms.

Consequently, Twitter’s now taken a step again, with the brand new program faraway from dwell deployment late final week. Musk has admitted that it ‘wants some tweaks’, however he does anticipate the $8 checkmarks to be made accessible once more by the top of this week.

Although possible with one vital replace:

So the brand new course of, which is seemingly designed to handle the aforementioned points with impersonation, will allow Twitter to offer an official linkage between, say, a media group and their precise employees within the app, with possibly a brand new variation of the ‘official’ grey tick, that might be displayed along with the blue checkmark.

How precisely that can work isn’t clear, however the concept is that it will present extra granularity to verification – so the blue checkmark isn’t seen as a sign of authority, as such, however as a marker of verified id in affiliation with a model.

In different phrases, imposters received’t so simply be capable to dupe individuals with parody accounts, as a result of they received’t have this additional seal of approval – no matter it might be – which might verify that this can be a consultant of stated group.

Which makes some sense, however in all probability simply sticking with the unique blue tick system, and reviewing the rules for that, would have been simpler.

However then, I assume, you wouldn’t be capable to cost $8 to herald some fast money – and for context, 140,000 individuals reportedly signed as much as the brand new $8 checkmark program within the days that it was accessible final week.

We’ll little question hear extra concerning the subsequent iteration of Twitter verification quickly.

Twitter x LinkedIn

This can be a extra left-field possibility, however Elon Musk additionally says that folks will quickly be capable to checklist their employment and training historical past on Twitter, increasing Twitter search into a complete new aspect.

Musk famous this in response to a person query about employment historical past and resumes, which Musk stated could be ‘coming quickly’ to the app.

That might add extra credibility, or not, to what a person is saying. For instance, if any person’s commenting on local weather change, and also you verify their Twitter resume and discover that they haven’t any historical past of local weather analysis expertise, possibly that lessens the worth of their enter.

Or possibly they only make it up. I don’t know, nevertheless it appears like Musk is making an attempt to department out into new areas, which can be aligned along with his broader view of id verification. Or it may very well be one other alternative to earn cash by way of job listings within the app.

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These are the large notes from Musk’s numerous feedback and updates over the weekend, apart from his ongoing provocation of battle between ‘the individuals’ and the ‘media elite’.

I’m not precisely positive the place this stems from, because the adverse protection round Musk’s Twitter takeover to date has associated to employees cuts, and the way in which wherein they had been dealt with, verification adjustments, and the rushed nature of the brand new $8 checkmark program, and issues on the app, which Musk himself stated simply final week may go bankrupt at some stage.

It looks as if these points have all been reported fairly precisely, even when they’re not flattering to Musk. However possibly I’m lacking one thing – or possibly, Musk simply advantages from inciting class warfare that pits his supporters towards his perceived enemies.