Twitter data appears to support claims new algorithm inflated reach of Elon Musk’s tweets, Australian researcher says

Dr Timothy Graham says his analysis shows that after the algorithm change was reported to have occurred, impressions of billionaire owner’s tweets went up 737%

Data collected by an Australian researcher via Twitter’s API appears to support media claims that the reach of the tweets of the platform’s billionaire owner Elon Musk have been artificially inflated.

On Wednesday, the tech news site Platformer reported 80 Twitter engineers had been engaged to tweak the platform’s algorithm after Musk noticed a tweet from the US president, Joe Biden, about the Super Bowl outperformed his own, despite Musk having more than three times the number of followers.

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Fury in Ukraine as Elon Musk’s SpaceX limits Starlink use for drones

SpaceX says satellite communications service ‘never, never meant to be weaponised’

A senior Ukrainian presidential aide has reacted with anger after Elon Musk’s SpaceX said it had taken steps to prevent its Starlink satellite communications service from controlling drones, which are critical to Kyiv’s forces in fighting off the Russian invasion.

Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s chief operating officer, said at a conference in the US that the surprise decision had been taken because it had never been the company’s intention to allow Starlink to be used “for offensive purposes”.

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Ex-Twitter exec details ‘homophobic and antisemitic’ abuse over handling of Hunter Biden story

Yoel Roth testifies before congressional committee that Elon Musk’s release of company’s internal records led to harassment

A former Twitter executive testified on Wednesday that he was forced to leave and sell his home following a campaign of “homophobic and antisemitic” harassment over the company’s handling of a New York Post story about Hunter Biden.

Yoel Roth, the former head of safety at Twitter, made the comments while speaking to a committee in the newly Republican-controlled House of Representatives, at a hearing convened to scrutinize the social network’s handling of a 2020 report on Joe Biden’s son.

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Musk tells court he lacked ‘specific’ funding to take Tesla private

CEO of electric carmaker says finance was ‘not an issue’ but he did not have binding commitments from investors

Elon Musk expected strong financial support when he tweeted that he would take Tesla private in 2018, but lacked specific commitments from potential backers, according to testimony he gave on his third day of questioning in a San Francisco federal court.

Musk is accused of defrauding investors by driving up the price of Tesla stock by tweeting on 7 August 2018 that he had “funding secured” to take the electric carmaker private.

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Musk tells Tesla trial: ‘Just because I tweet doesn’t mean people believe it’

The carmaker founder said Twitter was the most democratic way to communicate but tweets didn’t affect stock as he expected

Elon Musk testified on Friday as part of a trial over a 2018 tweet in which he claimed to have “funding secured” to take Tesla private, a tweet that shareholders allege cost them millions in trading losses.

The Tesla CEO appeared in a San Francisco federal courtroom and defended himself by saying that “just because I tweet something does not mean people believe it or will act accordingly”.

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‘A little off his rocker’: jurors grilled over views of Elon Musk for shareholder trial

Despite Musk’s claim he can’t get a fair trial in Twitter’s hometown, judge sits San Francisco jury for Tesla suit

The shareholder case against Tesla CEO Elon Musk got off to a slow start on Tuesday, as potential jurors who variously described the controversial tech billionaire as “narcissistic”, “unpredictable”, “a little off his rocker”, “a genius” and “another arrogant rich guy” were questioned about their impartiality by the judge.

But, by the end of the day, nine jurors had been selected to sit on the jury for the San Francisco trial, which hinges on whether Musk cheated investors of “billions” by asserting in 2018 tweets that he had “secured” financing to take the electric automaker private.

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Elon Musk seeks to move trial out of San Francisco, claiming he can’t get fair trial

Musk says negative local media coverage of shareholder lawsuit over 2018 Tesla tweet has biased jurors against him

Elon Musk has urged a federal judge to shift a trial in a shareholder lawsuit out of San Francisco because he says negative local media coverage has biased potential jurors against him.

Instead, in a filing submitted late Friday – less than two weeks before the trial was set to begin on 17 January – Musk’s lawyers argue it should be moved to the federal court in the western district of Texas. That district includes the state capital of Austin, which is where Musk relocated his electric car company, Tesla, in late 2021.

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Twitter restores suicide-prevention hotline feature after outcry

Top official confirms feature was removed but only temporarily, following Reuters report that prompted criticism of Elon Musk

Twitter has restored a feature that promoted suicide prevention hotlines and other safety resources to users looking up certain content, after coming under pressure from users and consumer safety groups.

The feature, known as #ThereIsHelp, placed a banner at the top of search results for certain topics, listing contacts for support organizations in many countries related to mental health, HIV, vaccines, child sexual exploitation, Covid-19, gender-based violence, natural disasters and freedom of expression.

In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 800-273-8255 and online chat is also available. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counselor. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org

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Tesla behind eight-vehicle crash was in ‘full self-driving’ mode, says driver

San Francisco crash is the latest in a series of accidents blamed on Tesla technology, which is facing regulatory scrutiny

The driver of a 2021 Tesla Model S told California authorities the vehicle was in “full self-driving mode” when the technology malfunctioned, causing an eight-vehicle crash on the San Francisco Bay bridge last month.

The crash on Thanksgiving Day resulted in two juveniles being transported to hospital and led to lengthy delays on the bridge. The incident was made public in a police report on Wednesday.

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Investigation of Musk’s Neuralink targets federal oversight of animal testing

Sources tell Reuters law enforcement authorities are concerned about USDA’s record on animal welfare violations

Law enforcement officials investigating Elon Musk’s Neuralink over its animal trial program are also scrutinizing the US Department of Agriculture’s oversight of the company’s operations, after the agency failed to act on violations at other research organizations, according to several people familiar with the matter.

Reuters reported on 5 December that the USDA’s watchdog, the Office of the Inspector General, is investigating Neuralink, a medical device company that is developing brain implants, over potential animal-welfare violations. A federal prosecutor in the civil division at the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California requested the investigation, people familiar with the matter said.

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Elon Musk polls Twitter users over stepping down as CEO – business live

Elon Musk says he will honour the results of a Twitter poll asking whether the should resign as head of the social media platform

Telsa investors seem to pleased with the way that Musk’s Twitter poll is leaning towards his potential resignation, with shares up 4% in pre-market trading:

Economic data interlude:

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Federal investigators focus on emails between Trump lawyers and congressman – as it happened

Revelation casts light on direction of the criminal inquiry into the former president’s insurrection efforts

Joe Biden is at a town hall for veterans in New Castle, Delaware, choking with emotion when talking about his late son Beau, a former National Guard major for whom the center he was speaking at is named.

The president kept his comments tightly focused on the expansion of benefits and services for veterans resulting from the Pact Act, introducing a second world war pilot, and talking of the need to support and improve the physical and mental health of retired military members.

The Pact Act was the first step of being sure that we leave no-one behind.

We also need to pass the bipartisan government funding bill so we can deliver on the act’s promise.

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Twitter’s suspension of journalists sets ‘dangerous precedent’, UN warns

Pressure grows on Elon Musk as EU says social media platform could face sanctions over suspensions

The United Nations is “very disturbed” by Twitter’s abrupt suspension of a group of US journalists, a spokesperson has said, warning that the move sets a “dangerous precedent” – as the EU said the social media platform could fall foul of forthcoming digital regulations.

Stéphane Dujarric said on Friday the UN was “very disturbed” by the barring of prominent tech reporters at news organisations including CNN, the Washington Post and the New York Times who have written about Musk and the tech company he owns.

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Elon Musk loses title of world’s richest person to Bernard Arnault

Loss of top spot to LVMH chief executive comes after Tesla shares more than halve in value

Elon Musk has lost his crown as the world’s richest person, after further falls in the value of shares in his electric car company Tesla.

Forbes and Bloomberg, which track the wealth of billionaires, reported that Musk had lost the top spot to France’s Bernard Arnault, the chief executive of the luxury group LVMH.

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Twitter relaunches blue tick service with higher price for iPhone users

Those willing to pay $8 on the web or $11 a month via Apple’s app store will get more prominence

Twitter is relaunching its subscription service on Monday, offering users verified status for $8 (£6.50) a month or $11 a month on their iPhone.

The move follows a botched revamp of the service last month that resulted in a host of impersonator accounts appearing on the platform as some users took advantage of the chance to launch bogus “verified” accounts for major companies and public figures.

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Twitter sued for disproportionately firing female workers after Musk buyout

The proposed class-action lawsuit alleges that after the takeover, 57% of women were laid off compared with 47% of men

Twitter has been hit with another lawsuit in the wake of Elon Musk’s mass layoffs, with the latest legal action accusing the company of disproportionately targeting female employees for cuts.

The proposed class action, which was was filed late on Wednesday in San Francisco federal court, said that after Twitter was taken over by Musk, the world’s richest person, it laid off 57% of its female workers compared with 47% of men.

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Elon Musk accused of turning Twitter offices into bedrooms

San Francisco investigating Twitter after complaint says it converted rooms in its HQ into sleeping quarters

Twitter is under investigation by city officials in San Francisco following a complaint that the company allegedly converted rooms in its headquarters to sleeping quarters, an inquiry that has drawn scorn from Elon Musk.

As of Monday, the office has “modest bedrooms featuring unmade mattresses, drab curtains and giant conference-room telepresence monitors” with four to eight beds a floor, employees told Forbes. The changes appear to be part of Musk’s plan for “hardcore Twitter” in which he’s demanded workers dedicate “long hours at high intensity” after he fired nearly half the company’s workforce.

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Macron says he had ‘clear and honest’ discussion with Musk on Twitter policy

The French president had flagged concerns over the platform’s content moderation just a day before

Emmanuel Macron said he had a “clear and honest” discussion with Elon Musk about Twitter’s content moderation policies, just a day after the French president had flagged his concerns on the issue.

“Transparent user policies, significant reinforcement of content moderation and protection of freedom of speech: efforts have to be made by Twitter to comply with European regulations,” Macron said in a tweet after his meeting with Musk on Friday afternoon.

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Kanye West suspended from Twitter after posting swastika inside Star of David

Elon Musk intervenes after rapper posted image hours after airing antisemitic views in Alex Jones interview

Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, has been suspended from Twitter after he tweeted an image of a swastika blended with a star of David, less than two weeks after he returned to the platform.

The suspension took place hours after Ye praised Adolf Hitler and the Nazis in an interview on Infowars, a show hosted by the rightwing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

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EU raises prospect of big fine or ban if Twitter fails to follow new legislation

Elon Musk has been warned he has ‘huge work ahead’ to comply with the EU’s Digital Services Act

The European Union has raised the prospect of a substantial fine or ban for Twitter after warning that it must “significantly increase” efforts to comply with new online legislation.

Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, was told he had “huge work ahead” to comply with the EU’s Digital Services Act, which requires tech firms to tackle problems including abusive posts and disinformation.

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