Showing all posts about social media
Peiter Zatko’s whistleblowing Twitter report may not help Musk
27 August 2022
Earlier this week a whistleblower complaint to the United States Congress made by Peiter Zatko, who was head of security at Twitter until his departure in January, was made public. Some commentators saw Zatko’s report as a damning insight to the management of the social media service, which supported Elon Musk’s decision to abandon his takeover bid for the social networking service:
The disclosure, sent last month to Congress and federal agencies, paints a picture of a chaotic and reckless environment at a mismanaged company that allows too many of its staff access to the platform’s central controls and most sensitive information without adequate oversight. It also alleges that some of the company’s senior-most executives have been trying to cover up Twitter’s serious vulnerabilities, and that one or more current employees may be working for a foreign intelligence service.
Mike Masnick, writing for Techdirt, in a detailed analysis of Zatko’s complaint, suggests the report in fact backs Twitter’s position, and may not be the legal leg-up Musk is seeking. Musk, who claims Twitter did not reveal the true extent of spam accounts on the platform, launched legal proceedings against the company in July.
But, as Masnick points out, Musk’s lawsuit has nothing to do with spam accounts on Twitter:
The first and most important thing to remember is that, even as Musk insists otherwise, the Twitter lawsuit is not about spam. It just is not. I’m not going to repeat everything in that earlier story explaining why not, so if you haven’t read that yet, please do. But the core of it is that Musk needed an escape hatch from the deal he didn’t want to consummate and the best his lawyers could come up with was to claim that Twitter was being misleading in its SEC reporting regarding spam. (As an aside, there is very strong evidence that Musk didn’t care at all about the SEC filings until he suddenly needed an escape hatch, and certainly didn’t rely on them).
Musk insists Twitter claimed only five-percent of accounts on the platform were spam or fake. But the five-percent number derives from so-called mDAU accounts, being monetizable daily average users, which Twitter defines as a “valid user account that might click through ads and actually buy a product”. The mDAU accounts sound like a rarefied group of members, but the spam count only applied to them, not the platform as a whole.
Except it’s Musk here who is using clever wordplay to distract and mislead everyone. As we’ve described over and over again, the 5% number that Musk repeats in these screenshots is about mDAU. The 5% number is what Twitter reports is the amount of spam they believe incorrectly gets counted in mDAU. It’s Musk who keeps pretending the 5% number implies spam across the entire platform, which Twitter has never said it does. As we’ve explained multiple times now, Musk is trying to distract by pretending that the 5% claim is about spam on the entire platform. It never has been. It has always been an estimate of the amount that makes it through and is still counted in the mDAU. That is clear to anyone who’s actually read Twitter’s filing (both in the Chancery Court and at the SEC).
Masnick’s article is a longer piece, but well worth the read for anyone with an interest in Musk vs Twitter.
RELATED CONTENT
Elon Musk, social media, Twitter
Rejected authors finding publishers, film deals, on TikTok
19 August 2022
TikTok is proving to be a fertile ground for new music acts looking for a lucky break, with the video hosting app kick-starting the careers of numerous musicians so far.
And authors are also cashing in. Many writers who struggled to find publishers previously, are sometimes finding themselves at the centre of bidding wars between rival publishing houses, after taking a novel idea to TikTok to gauge interest in the premise.
American writer Alex Aster is an example, and in 2021 signed a lucrative publishing deal, and later film rights, for her YA novel Lightlark.
Aster didn’t expect much, especially when she checked in a few hours later to see that her post had only clocked up about 1,000 views. Maybe the books world was right, she thought. Maybe there wasn’t a market for Lightlark, a young adult story she had been writing and rewriting for years, to no interest from publishers. The next day, however, she woke up to see her video had been viewed more than a million times. A week later, Lightlark had gone to auction and she had a six-figure deal with Amulet Books. Last month, Universal preemptively bought the film rights for, in her words, “more zeros than I’ve seen in my life”.
Aster conceded an element of luck was involved though, describing the TikTok algorithm that eventually propelled her to success as “finicky”. Here’s hoping the algorithm will favour other writers.
RELATED CONTENT
books, publishing, social media, writing
Australian consumer watchdog to investigate Instagram
18 August 2022
Instagram’s recent efforts to mimic TikTok have not only angered users, but have also raised the hackles of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, who think the conduct of Instagram owner Meta might be stifling competition:
Australia’s consumer watchdog will examine whether social media behemoth Meta is throttling a potential competitor and entrenching its dominance by aping TikTok’s signature features on its own services, Facebook and Instagram. The next phase of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s long-running digital platform services inquiry will also consider the reverse scenario: whether the emergence of new platforms such as Chinese-owned TikTok and daily post app BeReal is reducing Meta’s power.
RELATED CONTENT
Alternatives to Instagram: what about Flickr?
1 August 2022
Image courtesy of Pexels.
Has Instagram (IG) jumped the shark? You’d be forgiven for thinking as much, following the stir-up caused by the latest (in a long of line of) changes to the popular Facebook owned photo and video sharing service. Long story short, IG wants to become more like TikTok. Whether their users like it or not. If you’re a content creator, this might be good news. If you’re a user, maybe not so much, especially perhaps if you’ve been using IG since the early days.
The IG of 2011, when I joined, and the IG of 2022, are worlds apart. Checking my IG feed the other week, I couldn’t see a single photo from the people — many of whom I know personally — I follow. Instead the feed was littered with “recommendations”, content IG seems to think I “might like”. But reposted memes? Footage of some influencer I’ve never heard of walking into an elevator? Cats and dogs doing funny things? I wouldn’t mind, if I wanted to see that sort of “content”. Otherwise, no thanks.
After pressing many x buttons, and silencing one recommendation after another, some normality was restored to my IG feed. But to keep up with the people I choose to follow, I often need to go directly to their IG page to see their latest posts. In doing this, I’ve found photos I’d not seen earlier, when previously they’d appeared in the main feed.
But recommendations, intended to “help you discover new and interesting things on Instagram that you may not know exist”, are here to stay, says Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram, at Facebook/Meta. Recommendations “help creators reach more people”, and making them part of the IG feed, rather than lurking behind the explore tab, is necessary as IG “needs to evolve because the world is changing quickly.”
Mosseri is correct. The world is changing quickly. Video sharing app TikTok is encroaching on IG’s market share. Quickly, I might add. And this calls for drastic action. The solution appears to be, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Even if that means dragging a whole heap of IG users with no interest in TikTok, into a TikTok-like realm.
Accordingly, more video can be expected to feature in IG feeds, and precedence is now being given to creators, over users who just want to share photos with their friends. Like it or not, more content, in the form of recommendations, and other “interesting things”, you neither know nor care about, are coming your way.
That’s all well and good for the creators. Strictly speaking, I’m a creator. You wouldn’t be reading this if I wasn’t. But if you’re not an IG creator, and not interested in content from people you don’t know, what options do you have? If you’re looking elsewhere for an alternative free-of-cost, ease of use, IG copy, you’ll be disappointed. Even if an IG clone rose to prominence, it would likely follow IG’s path sooner or later. We might find a desert oasis far from the dark shadow IG casts, but not for long, alas.
Image courtesy of Yuliya Harbachova.
One possibility though may be Flickr, but there are a number of caveats.
Founded in 2004 by Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake, Flickr shared a trajectory similar to IG, being bought by a much larger company, Yahoo!, about a year after launching. One of the earliest online photo-sharing services, Flickr’s been around so long it pre-dates smartphones (as we know them) and smartphone apps. Like IG, the photos and videos you post to Flickr appear in a feed, which friends and followers can like and comment on. Unlike IG, you only see content from the people you chose to follow.
After early success though, Flickr suffered a near death experience several years ago. They were saved, virtually at the last minute, when California based image sharing company, SmugMug, bought them. Since then Flickr’s fortunes have been on the up. But does that make Flickr right for you?
For one thing, Flickr comes at a cost. While a free, ad supported tier, is available, members can only post two hundred photos or videos. To take advantage of Flickr’s full features, including, among other things, unlimited media uploads, you need a paid membership. A one-year plan costs about US$80. If you buy a two-year membership, the annual cost comes in at about US$72 per year. This works out to about US$1.45 a week, not even the price of a decent cup of coffee.
It’s worth noting the membership fee is not as expensive as it might seem. In a way, paid subscriptions can protect members. Should the company take a direction that upsets subscribers, they risk many leaving, and taking their money with them. Subscription free IG users meanwhile have no such leverage. You’re unlikely then to hear Flickr declaring the world is changing quickly, and they therefore must push tacky memes, and surely scintillating video clips of some self-indulgent influencer, upon you.
In that sense, Flickr is less a social network, and, while everyone is of course welcome, more a community of professional, and semi-serious amateur, photographers. Another difference is the size of the Flickr community compared to Instagram’s. IG is said to boast over a billion users. Short wonder content creators have an interest in the platform, and IG wishes to aggressively promote their work. Flickr, meanwhile, according to Photutorial, presently has 112 million members.
Chances are many people you know won’t be existing Flickr members, so you’d need to get your friends onboard, if you want to escape IG’s clutches. But if you’re looking for a place where you’ll only see content from people you chose, then Flickr might be worth taking a closer look at. Another option to consider is 500px. Like Flickr, it offers a free membership plan, allowing seven photos a week to be uploaded, to a maximum of two-thousand per account.
RELATED CONTENT
photography, social media, social networks, trends
Court battles loom after Musk cancels Twitter acquisition
11 July 2022
Few would have been surprised by Elon Musk’s decision to withdraw his takeover for Twitter, it seemed the writing had been on the wall for some time. But now the recriminations begin. Twitter directors have said they’ll commence legal action against the Tesla CEO to enforce the deal. At the least Musk may be slugged with a billion dollar fine. A billion dollars is probably coffee money for someone like Musk, but a slew of additional lawsuits may end up costing Musk far more than that.
In addition to the fine for the failed deal, Musk could face serious consequences from the SEC for his antics, which have had major impacts on the several public companies he manages as well as Twitter itself. Musk is an executive at the artificial intelligence firm Neuralink, the electric car company Tesla, the space travel company SpaceX, and the tunnel construction firm the Boring Company. He has in the past faced lawsuits from investors over his erratic behavior and its effects on the companies’ stocks.
RELATED CONTENT
Elon Musk, social media, Twitter
Security of Australian TikTok users data queried by senator
5 July 2022
In the wake of a request from the United States Federal Communications Commission that Apple and Google remove TikTok from their app stores, James Paterson, an Australian opposition senator, has raised concerns about the security of Australian TikTok users’ data, in a letter posted on Twitter.
Even though TikTok servers are based in America and Singapore, there are fears Chinese government officials may have access to the data of Australian TikTok users.
Australian users’ data is stored in servers in the US and Singapore, which raises questions about whether that data is subject to the same security concerns. Liberal Senator James Paterson has publicly put it to TikTok to address those concerns. “Australian TikTok users deserve to know whether their private information is equally exposed,” Mr Paterson wrote on Twitter.
RELATED CONTENT
Notes feature will transform Twitter to content creation platform
27 June 2022
Social networking service Twitter looks set to make the transition from microblogging platform to content creation platform, with the trailing of a new notes feature. Twitter notes — currently being tested by users in Canada, Ghana, Britain, and America — allows posts of up to two thousand five hundred words at a time to be written.
It reminds me a little of the notes feature Facebook used to offer, that I used early on, when I still used Facebook. It’s a smart move on Twitter’s part, as it stands to significantly increase engagement on the platform. Presently users need to direct followers to external resources, such as their blog, if they want them to read posts exceeding two hundred and eighty characters.
Writers who do not have a website of their own look to particularly benefit from the notes feature, should Twitter decide to roll it out.
RELATED CONTENT
content production, social media, Twitter
Anonymous PRGuy17 Twitter account owner reveals identity
25 June 2022
Jeremy Maluta, speaking to Australian political commentator and You Tube host Jordan Shanks-Markovina, has identified himself as the owner of the PRGuy17 Twitter account.
The moves comes as a result of legal action by Avi Yemini, a conservative journalist, and a recent application to the Australian Federal Court, asking Twitter to reveal details of who was operating the previously anonymous account.
Yemini believed PRGuy17 was in the employ of Dan Andrews, the premier of Victoria, on account of tweets supporting Andrews, and his handling of the COVID-19 enforced lockdowns, but Maluta has denied the claim:
“I’m just a normal everyday person. I don’t want to be a celebrity,” he said. “This has meant being really careful about what I put online.” “I’m OK with putting my name out there, but I just … want to have a bit of privacy too.” “I can confirm I don’t work for [Premier] Dan Andrews or any political thing whatsoever. Those theories are completely cooked.”
RELATED CONTENT
politics, social media, Twitter
Mars Junction, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss’ new band
14 June 2022
If you know the Facebook origin story, and or saw David Fincher’s 2010 film The Social Network, then you’ll know who Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss are. Long story short, they once tried to hire a young Mark Zuckerberg to help them build a social network called originally called HarvardConnection, but later renamed ConnectU.
Short story really short, Zuckerberg liked the concept, but didn’t think much of the Winklevoss twins, whom he studied with at Harvard University, and quietly began developing Facebook. The Winklevosses accused Zuckerberg of stealing their idea, and launched legal action against him. But watch The Social Network, it may not be one-hundred percent accurate, but it’ll give you an idea of what happened.
Following the Facebook debacle, the Winklevosses went on to establish Winklevoss Capital Management in 2010, a company offering seed-funding to start-ups. Several years later they founded Gemini, a cryptocurrency exchange.
And in July 2021, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss formed Mars Junction, “a hard-hitting rock band”, and if this footage from a show recorded by Arch Nem a few days ago is anything to go by, they’re going off. The mosh pit is chock full of fans wearing Mars Junction t-shirts. Truly, how many other bands can boast similar such images from their gigs?
Between being at Harvard, their start-up experience, rowing for the United States in the 2008 Olympics, cryptocurrency, and now hard-hitting rock, it’s about time the Winklevosses were given a movie of their own…
RELATED CONTENT
Cameron Winklevoss, music, social media, Tyler Winklevoss
Legal bid to name owner of anonymous PRGuy17 Twitter account
7 June 2022
The Australian Federal Court has given social networking service Twitter fourteen days to hand over subscription information for the PRGuy17 account, that may reveal the identity of the anonymous operator. The order is in response to a defamation case being bought against PRGuy17 by conservative media journalist Avi Yemini.
PRGuy17, whose avatar displays Simpsons character Troy McClure, built a following during the pandemic, often in vociferous defence of Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and critical of various conservative political leaders and mainstream news media. Yemini filed proceedings in the Federal Court in February promising to unmask the identity of the Twitter account. Yemini, a journalist at far-right media outlet Rebel News, was critical of the Andrews government’s management of the pandemic and clashed with the account on Twitter.
Subscription data includes any name and email address details used to create the PRGuy17 account, along with internet protocol (IP) addresses used by the account’s operator. It remains to be seen how useful any of this data may be in uncovering the identity of the person operating the page.
RELATED CONTENT