Twitter ‘verified’ check marks bought by Taliban appear to have been removed

Afghanistan’s hardline Islamist rulers had never carried a verification tick mark before the launch of Twitter Blue

Twitter account verifications bought by the Taliban appear to have been removed, after many expressed outrage that the social media platform had given its blue check marks to Afghanistan’s hardline Islamist rulers.

Twitter previously only gave blue “verified” check marks to accounts that were considered “active, notable and authentic accounts of public interest”. But since Elon Musk acquired the platform last year, users can buy them from the Twitter Blue service for a fee – an option at least two officials of the Taliban government in Afghanistan had exercised.

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Saudi prosecutors seek death penalty for academic over social media use

Court documents reveal reasons for Awad Al-Qarni’s arrest – even though rulers are major investors in social media platforms

A prominent pro-reform law professor in Saudi Arabia is facing the death penalty for alleged crimes including having a Twitter account and using WhatsApp to share news considered “hostile” to the kingdom, according to court documents seen by the Guardian.

The arrest of Awad Al-Qarni, 65, in September 2017 represented the start of a crackdown against dissent by the then newly named crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.

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Saudi Arabia jails two Wikipedia staff in ‘bid to control content’

Administrators jailed for 32 years, and eight years, as activists warn of ploy to infiltrate website

Saudi Arabia has infiltrated Wikipedia and jailed two administrators in a bid to control content on the website, weeks after a former Twitter worker was jailed in the US for spying for the Saudis.

One administrator was jailed for 32 years, and another was sentenced to eight years, the activists said.

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Cybersecurity firm links Piers Morgan Twitter hack to leak of 400m records

Former Australian prime minister Scott Morrison among politicians and celebrities whose details were in sample of allegedly hacked data published online

The former Australian prime minister Scott Morrison appears to have been caught up in a leak of partial data on 400 million Twitter users, along with celebrities including the model Cara Delevingne, US politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and pop singer Shawn Mendes.

Morrison’s Twitter account was included in a sample of data released by an alleged cybercriminal last week.

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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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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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Digital Services Act: inside the EU’s ambitious bid to clean up social media

The legislation aims to tackle problems as wide-ranging as misogyny, disinformation and consumer fraud

Nearly two decades after the birth of Facebook ushered in the social media era, the EU is introducing ambitious legislation designed to clean up the world’s biggest online forums.

Intended to tackle misogyny, protect children, stop consumer fraud, curb disinformation and protect democratic elections, the Digital Services Act (DSA) is wide-ranging. The UK is introducing its own statute, the online safety bill, but the EU’s rules are likely to have a bigger impact because they cover a bigger market, and the EU is more influential as a regulatory power.

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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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Chinese bots flood Twitter in attempt to obscure Covid protests

Activity indicates ‘first major failure’ to stop government interference under ownership of Elon Musk

Twitter has been flooded with nuisance posts designed to obscure news of the coronavirus lockdown protests in China, in an apparent state-directed attempt to suppress footage of the demonstrations.

Chinese bot accounts – not operated by humans – are being used to flood the social networking service with adverts for sex workers, pornography and gambling when users search for a major city in the country, such as Shanghai or Beijing, using Chinese script.

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Elon Musk says he will back Trump rival Ron DeSantis in 2024 if he runs for president

Billionaire says he prefers ‘someone sensible and centrist’ but that he had been disappointed by the Democrats so far

Elon Musk has said he would support Donald Trump’s arch rival, Ron DeSantis, in 2024 if the Florida governor were to run for president.

“Yes”, Musk said in a tweet when asked if he would support DeSantis in 2024, after suggesting he had not found his ideal candidate among Democrats.

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Don’t like Musk? Work for us! Tech firms woo ex-Twitter staff

Tech companies aim to pick up experienced engineering talent by appealing to dislike of Tesla chief executive’s methods

Put off by Elon Musk’s muscular management style? Move to us! That’s the pitch being used by talent-starved technology firms trying to lure thousands of former Twitter employees laid off by the social media company under its new owner.

Twitter has fired top executives and enforced steep job cuts with little warning following Musk’s tumultuous takeover of the social media platform. About half of the workforce – around 3,700 employees – has been laid off.

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Trump in apparent Twitter snub after Musk lifts ban – as it happened

Speaking of Trump and lawyers, another of his former top White House officials is going to South Carolina’s high court to stop a subpoena from a Georgia prosecutor looking into meddling in the state’s 2020 election, Politico reports:

The appeal to South Carolina’s supreme court by Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff for his final months in the White House, is the latest development in his lengthy battle to resist the summons from Fanni Willis. She’s the district attorney in Fulton county, which contains most of Atlanta, and has empaneled a special grand jury to look into attempts by Trump’s allies to interfere in Joe Biden’s election victory in the state.

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