Grammy-winning singer Lizzo offered a "fresh take" on cancel culture on Twitter Sunday, arguing that the term is no longer being correctly applied.
"This may be a random time to say this but it’s on my heart.. cancel culture is appropriation," Lizzo tweeted. "There was real outrage from truly marginalized people and now it’s become trendy, misused and misdirected. I hope we can phase out of this & focus our outrage on the real problems."
Mumford & Sons co-founder Winston Marshall called it a "fresh take." Marshall experienced what it was like to be "canceled" last year when he tweeted his support for an anti-Antifa book. The backlash became so deafening that the banjo player decided to leave the band.
Several commenters agreed with Lizzo's description, arguing that while cancel culture used to mean consequences for individuals who may have deserved it, it is now being weaponized against good people that simply made mistakes. Others said it was effectively silencing those who have different opinions.
"Absolutely," user Jessica Ballinger tweeted. "There are very real issues that warrant outrage… I sometimes wonder if cancel culture stems from people feeling impotent against those bigger issues, so they go after simpler targets to feel better about themselves, like they did something." READ MORE...
A senior German official said on Thursday Twitter should join other tech firms in being directly monitored by the European Commission, saying the company’s erratic behaviour under new owner Elon Musk posed a threat to free speech.
Sven Giegold, the state secretary in charge of competition policy at Germany’s economy ministry, pointed to Twitter’s abrupt suspension of journalists’ accounts and restrictions on the access to some links.
In a letter to two European Commissioners, Giegold called on the EU to launch an investigation and said the Commission should act to prevent what he called Twitter’s “anti-competitive behaviour”.
Twitter did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The European Commission confirmed receiving the letter and said it would reply in due course, adding that it was following the developments at Twitter closely.
“General terms and conditions that change almost every hour, erratic justifications for extensive restrictions on links and the blocking of journalists threaten freedom of competition and pose a risk to freedom of expression, information and the press,” Giegold wrote on Twitter, while sharing his letter. READ MORE...
Elon Musk's poll, asking whether he should stand down as the boss of Twitter, appeared hours after he was photographed at the World Cup final in Qatar.
That photo tells us two things: firstly, Musk was standing beside Jared Kushner - the son-in-law of Donald Trump, the former US President whom Musk has tried, and failed, to entice back to the social network he now owns.
Musk knows that a bombastic Trump tweet would likely provide a controversial, but 'jackpot' moment for Twitter - and bring huge audiences to the platform.
Trump knows this too, of course, and has his own agenda - specifically his own social network, Truth Social, to which he has so far remained loyal.
Pardon the pun but Musk's trump card remains unplayed.
The second point about the photo? It proves Musk was geographically in the vicinity of Saudi Arabia - home to Twitter's biggest investors. Did he drop in, and did they - along with millions of people who use Twitter every day - pose some serious questions about his leadership during the past couple of months?
And then there's the matter of the poll itself. How we view the results - 57% of the 17.5m votes cast were in favour of Musk standing down as Twitter CEO - depends on what we think he wanted to achieve by it. READ MORE...
Elon Musk took to Twitter Friday morning to voice his opinion about the prisoner swap President Biden negotiated with Russia for the release of U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner.
On Thursday, Biden announced the U.S. would release Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who was sentenced 25 years for providing weapons used to kill Americans, in exchange for Griner. The deal notably excluded American Paul Whelan, an Iraqi war veteran who remains imprisoned in Russia since 2018. The Griner deal also excluded Marc Fogel, a Pennsylvania teacher in Russian custody.
Musk said Friday the U.S. should "never" leave behind one of its own servicemen.
"Never leave a marine behind. Never," Musk tweeted, responding to a user who inquired about his opinion.
The initial user asked: "Does it surprise anyone the Biden regime would leave a Marine behind after they abandoned Americans in Afghanistan?"
Musk’s criticism joined the chorus of Republican lawmakers and others who voiced concern Biden failed to free Whelan.
Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, took to Twitter demanding an answer from the Biden administration on why he excluded the Iraq war veteran from the deal.
"This was likely not a simple ‘choose him or her’ situation. But if it was, you choose the guy that served our country, Paul Whelan. We should get an explanation from this administration immediately," Crenshaw wrote.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Illinois, echoed: "What about retired marine who has been unjustly detained for years, Paul Whelan? Surely an arms dealer is worth two innocent people?" READ MORE...
ROSEMONT, Illinois, Nov 4 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden said on Friday that Elon Musk had purchased a social media platform in Twitter that spews lies across the world.
Twitter laid off half its workforce on Friday but said cuts were smaller in the team responsible for preventing the spread of misinformation, as advertisers pulled spending amid concerns about content moderation.
Biden said at a fundraiser: "And now what are we all worried about: Elon Musk goes out and buys an outfit that sends - that spews lies all across the world... There’s no editors anymore in America. There’s no editors. How do we expect kids to be able to understand what is at stake?" READ MORE...
Part of what has made New York Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez such a political star is her total lack of fear of speaking truth to power—and that includes one of the richest, and arguably most powerful, men in the world, Elon Musk.
AOC has been mercilessly dragging the new billionaire owner of Twitter, who acquired the platform last month for $44 billion in a purported bid to strengthen "free speech" and make the virtual "town square" a place where discourse is exchanged more freely.
In practice, this has mostly resulted in free-flowing racial, ethnic and anti-LGBTQ+ slurs and disinformation by the far-right figures to whom he has become a hero, and a desperate plan to charge verified users for their blue check marks.
If charging public figures for their only means of ensuring rogue account holders don't imitate and speak for them online seems antithetical to Musk's stated goals, you're not alone. READ MORE...
Advertisers plan to boycott Twitter if Elon Musk allows Donald Trump back on the platform after he took control on Thursday night, The Wall Street Journal reported.
After paying $44 billion to close the deal he tried to walk away from, Musk swiftly fired four top executives including CEO Parag Agrawal and finance chief Ned Segal.
Advertisers are now weighing in as concerns over former President Donald Trump being reinstated grow.
Kieley Taylor, the global head of partnerships at advertising agency GroupM, told The Journal that letting Trump tweet again would be a red line for some major brands. READ MORE...
Elon Musk shrugged off naysayers on Friday morning, excitedly tweeting 'let the good times roll' after officially taking over at Twitter and firing three senior executives.
Within hours of taking the keys, Musk fired CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal and top counsel Vijaya Gadde - the woman responsible for banning President Trump after the January 6 riots.
Photos show Musk chatting casually with Gadde and other employees at the HQ's coffee bar, hours before the gauntlet came down.
Gadde, widely considered the 'head of censorship' at Twitter, had been vocal in her criticism of Musk; she cried during a meeting in April after he first announced plans to buy the company.
Musk had publicly slammed her for squashing links to stories about Hunter Biden's incriminating laptop before the 2020 election.
She walked away with a sizeable payout - a total of $72million in stocks that she owned, salary and benefits and stocks that had not yet vested when she was in her position but which are now paid out as part of the deal. READ MORE...
Billionaire Elon Musk bizarrely arrived at Twitter's San Francisco headquarters carrying a kitchen sink ahead of closing his $44bn deal to purchase the micro-blogging site.
“Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in!” the Tesla CEO tweeted.
Mr Musk changed his Twitter profile to refer to himself as “Chief Twit” and his location as Twitter headquarters.
A court has given him until Friday to close his April agreement to acquire the company after he earlier tried to back out of the deal.
Mr Musk, the world's richest person, agreed to buy the company for $54.20 a share in April, but by July had indicated that he had changed his mind, citing bot and spam issues.
He renewed his attempt to acquire the company earlier this month.
Mr Musk reportedly told Twitter employees during his visit that he does not plan to cut 75 per cent of the staff after acquiring the company. READ MORE...
A now viral clip of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., made the rounds on Twitter as people across the political spectrum criticized the progressive political figure.
On Wednesday, protestors crashed Ocasio-Cortez’s town hall in Queens, shouting at her and holding signs. While protestors began chanting "AOC has got to go," Ocasio-Cortez sat on the stage and pretended to dance to the beat of the chants.
Eventually, a majority of the room turned on the protestors, allowing Ocasio-Cortez to speak. READ MORE...
In a Friday piece for Time magazine, the outlet’s national correspondent Charlotte Alter dismissed Elon Musk’s quest for free speech on Twitter as a white male "obsession," and merely an entrepreneurial way to acquire influence and power in the world.
She also claimed that Musk’s idea of free speech is about the right to spread "disinformation" and has nothing to do with the Founding Fathers' original intent.
Alter began her piece by insinuating that Musk should have put his $44 billion into something more worthwhile than what he sees as "free speech," a phrase she put in scare quotes throughout the piece.
She wrote, "They say that something is worth what someone will pay for it. If that’s true, then protecting ‘free speech,’ which Elon Musk has cited as a central reason he agreed to buy Twitter for $44 billion this week, may be worth twice as much as solving America’s homelessness problem, and seven times as much as solving world hunger."
She added, "It’s worth more (to him, at least) than educating every child in nearly 50 countries, more than the GDP of Serbia, Jordan, or Paraguay."
The author then proceeded to wonder why a rich techie like Musk would even care about freedom of speech and how it "had become paramount concern of the techno-moral universe."
She asked, "Why does Musk care so much about this? Why would a guy who has pushed the boundaries of electric-vehicle manufacturing and plumbed the limits of commercial space flight care about who can say what on Twitter?"
She then cited professor of communication at Stanford University Fred Turner for the answer, who agreed, "It does seem to be a dominant obsession with the most elite." He stated, "[F]ree speech seems to be much more of an obsession among men," and part of "the entrepreneurial push: I did it in business, I did it in space, and now I’m going to do it in the world." READ MORE...
Twitter's board has armed itself against a possible hostile takeover - a day after billionaire Elon Musk made a $43bn (£33bn) offer to buy the platform.
It has adopted what is known as a "limited-duration shareholder rights plan", also known as a "poison pill".
The move will prevent anyone from having more than a 15% stake in the company.
It does this by allowing others to buy additional shares at a discount.
The Twitter board detailed its defence plan to the US Securities and Exchange Commission and put out a statement saying it was needed because of Mr Musk's "unsolicited, non-binding proposal to acquire Twitter".
A takeover bid is considered hostile when one company tries to acquire another against the wishes of that company's management - in Twitter's case, its executive board.
Josh White, former financial economist for the Securities and Exchange Commission, told the BBC that a poison pill is "one of those last lines of defence against a hostile bid takeover".
"We call it the nuclear option," he said.
Mr White says the board has made it clear "that they don't feel like it's a high enough value for the company". READ MORE...
Twitter does not want to become a plaything of the world’s richest person.
So on Friday, it turned to a tried-and-tested corporate defense mechanism invented in the 1980s — the heyday of the corporate raider — to block a potential takeover attempt by Elon Musk and buy its board some time.
The mechanism, known as a poison pill, has a simple intention: to make it less palatable for a potential buyer to pursue the target company if the buyer accumulates shares above a certain threshold.
In Twitter’s case, if Mr. Musk bought more than 15 percent of the company, Twitter would flood the market with new stock that all shareholders except Mr. Musk could buy at a discounted price.
That would immediately dilute Mr. Musk’s stake and make it significantly more expensive for him to buy the company. Mr. Musk currently owns a little more than 9 percent of Twitter’s stock.
Twitter said its plan would be in place for just shy of one year. The tool will not stop the company from holding talks with any potential buyer, and will give it more time to negotiate a deal that Twitter’s board believes best reflects the company’s value. READ MORE...
Tesla boss Elon Musk has offered to buy Twitter, saying he is the right person to "unlock" the social media platform's "extraordinary potential".
In a surprise announcement, Mr Musk said he would pay $54.20 a share for Twitter, valuing it at about $40bn. It recently emerged that Mr Musk was Twitter's biggest shareholder after he built up a large stake in the firm. He said that if his offer was not accepted: "I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder".
Twitter's share price rose by 5.3% to $48.32 in early trading.
A filing with the US financial regulator appeared to show text and/or voice messages from Mr Musk to Twitter's board, showing that he had raised the idea at the weekend that the business should go private.
Mr Musk had been invited to join the board, but Twitter announced on Sunday he had decided against it.
In the messages published in the filing, Mr Musk said he was not "playing the back-and-forth game" and said of his offer: "It's a high price and your shareholders will love it." He said he would have to sell his shares if the deal did not go through. "This is not a threat, it's simply not a good investment without the changes that need to be made," he added.
Victoria Scholar, head of investment at Interactive Investor, said: "This is a deeply hostile move from Elon Musk who has threatened to 'reconsider' his 9.2% stake in the company if his 100% acquisition offer is rejected." In his filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Mr Musk said he had invested in Twitter because "I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy.
"However, since making my investment I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company." He added: "Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it."
Twitter said its board "will carefully review the proposal to determine the course of action that it believes is in the best interest of the company and all Twitter stockholders".
Mr Musk is the world's richest man, according to Forbes magazine, with a net worth of $219bn mostly due to his shareholding in electric vehicle maker Tesla. He also leads the aerospace firm SpaceX. READ MORE...
Former US President Donald Trump's social media app Truth Social became available for download in Apple's App Store on Sunday night, but some people had trouble creating an account. Despite this, it hit No. 1 in the App Store's top charts early Monday.
People who downloaded the app reported seeing error messages when they tried entering a birthdate, e-mail or phone number to create an account. "Something went wrong. Please try again," the message read.
Others reported they were placed on a waitlist after signing up. "Due to massive demand, we have placed you on our waitlist," read the message, which included a waitlist number. People who preordered Truth Social had the app automatically downloaded to their iPhones.
The app's release underscores Trump's plans to return to social media after being booted from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube last year. The companies made the rare move to bar Trump, who was president at the time, from its platforms because of concerns that his remarks could spark violence following the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riots.
Truth Social, which looks similar to Twitter, is also another example of an alternative social media app like Parler, Gettr and Rumble that conservatives have flocked to because of censorship concerns. Facebook and Twitter have long denied that they intentionally suppress conservative content. The companies have rules against hate speech and inciting violence, but users don't always agree with how they interpret these policies.
The Trump Media and Technology Group first announced it was launching Truth Social in October as part of an effort "to stand up to the tyranny of Big Tech."
CEO Devin Nunes, a former Republican congressman, told Fox News on Sunday that the app would roll out this week to more people in the Apple App Store. The company has a goal of making the app fully operational by the end of March at least within the US, he told Fox News.
On Feb. 15, Trump's son Donald Trump Jr. posted what he said was the former president's first post on Truth Social: "Get Ready! Your favorite President will see you soon!" About 500 people have reportedly started using an early version of Truth Social, Reuters reported last week.
WHAT’S A MARS ROBOT to do with its downtime? The hard-working Perseverance rover takes a break from searching for signs of habitability on Mars every once in a while to just stare at the sky. But in a fortuitous turn of events, something stared back: Deimos, the smaller of the planet’s two moons.
NASA’s Perseverance rover captured the gorgeous footage of the moon sparkling in the sky earlier this year — and NASA did us all a favor and released the video via the rover’s Twitter account.
“Sky watching is fun no matter where you are,” the Perseverance team writes on Twitter. “I took this short time lapse movie to watch for clouds, and caught something else: look closely and you’ll see Deimos, one of two moons of Mars.”
“Perseverance was busying capturing images of Mars’ clouds when it caught something else: Deimos,” Inverse’s Passant Rabie wrote in August. “This is the smaller of the two Martian moons and is shaped a bit like a potato.”
DEIMOS: A BRIEF HISTORYDeimos, named for the Roman god of panic, is one of the smallest moons in the Solar System, measuring a mere seven miles in diameter. That is smaller than the length of Manhattan.Deimos orbits Mars once every 30 hours and has a sibling moon, Phobos, that’s somewhat closer to Mars. American astronomer Asaph Hall spotted both the moons in 1877.The moons seem to be made of the same materials, but their origin remains murky. They could be captured asteroids, but other evidence suggests that they could be pieces of Mars kicked up by an impact. Some scenarios even suggest that Deimos formed from a larger former moon. READ MORE...
