File – A pile of characters removed from a sign on the Twitter headquarters building are seen in San Francisco, Monday, July 24, 2023. One year ago, Elon Musk began transforming the social media platform into what is now known as X. (AP Photo/Godofredo A.Vásquez, File)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — One year ago, billionaire and new owner Elon Musk walked into Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters with a white bathroom sink and a grin, fired its CEO and other top executives and began transforming the social media platform into what is now known as X.

X looks and feels something like Twitter, but the more time you spend on it the clearer it becomes that it’s merely an approximation. Musk has dismantled core features of what made Twitter, Twitter — its name and blue bird logo, its verification system, its Trust and Safety advisory group. Not to mention content moderation and hate speech enforcement.

He also fired, laid off or lost the majority of its workforce — engineers who keep the site running, moderators who keep it from being overrun with hate, executives in charge of making rules and enforcing them.

The result, long-term Twitter watchers say, has been the end of the platform’s role as an imperfect but useful place to find out what’s going on in the world. What X will become, and whether Musk can achieve his ambition of turning it into an “everything app” that everyone uses, remains as unclear as it was a year ago.

“Musk hasn’t managed to make a single meaningful improvement to the platform and is no closer to his vision of an ‘everything app,’ than he was a year ago,” said Insider Intelligence analyst Jasmine Enberg. “Instead, X has driven away users, advertisers, and now it has lost its primary value proposition in the social media world: Being a central hub for news.”

As one of the platform’s most popular and prolific users even before he bought the company, Musk had a unique experience on Twitter that is markedly different from how regular users experience it. But many of the changes he’s introduced to X has been based on his own impressions of the site — in fact, he even polled his millions of followers for advice on how to run it (they said he should step down).

“Musk’s treatment of the platform as a technology company that he could remake in his vision rather than a social network fueled by people and ad dollars has been the single largest cause of the demise of Twitter,” Enberg said.

The blue checkmarks that once signified that the person or institution behind an account was who they said they are — a celebrity, athlete, journalist from global or local publication, a nonprofit agency — now merely shows that someone pays $8 a month for a subscription service that boosts their posts above un-checked users. It’s these paying accounts that have been found to spread misinformation on the platform that is often amplified by its algorithms.

On Thursday, for instance, a new report from the left-leaning nonprofit Media Matters found that numerous blue-checked X accounts with tens of thousands of followers claimed that the mass shooting in Maine was a “false flag,” planned by the government. Researchers also found such accounts spreading misinformation and propaganda about the Israel-Hamas war — so much so that the European Commission made a formal, legally binding request for information to X over its handling of hate speech, misinformation and violent terrorist content related to the war.

Ian Bremmer, a prominent foreign policy expert, posted on X this month that the level of disinformation on the Israel-Hamas war “being algorithmically promoted” on the platform “is unlike anything I’ve ever been exposed to in my career as a political scientist.”

It’s not just the platform’s identity that’s on shaky grounds. Twitter was already struggling financially when Musk purchased it for $44 billion in a deal that closed Oct. 27, 2022, and the situation appears more precarious today. Musk took the company private, so its books are no longer public — but in July, the Tesla CEO said the company had lost about half of its advertising revenue and continues to face a large debt load.

“We’re still negative cash flow,” he posted on the site on July 14, due to about a “50% drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load.”

“Need to reach positive cash flow before we have the luxury of anything else,” he said.

In May, Musk hired Linda Yaccarino, a former NBC executive with deep ties to the advertising industry in an attempt to lure back top brands, but the effort has been slow to pay off. While some advertisers have returned to X, they are not spending as much as they did in the past — despite a rebound in the online advertising market that boosted the most recent quarterly profits for Facebook parent company, Meta, and Google parent company, Alphabet.

Insider Intelligence estimates that X will bring in $1.89 billion in advertising revenue this year, down 54% from 2022. The last time its ad revenue was near this level was in 2015, when it came in at $1.99 billion. In 2022, it was $4.12 billion according to the research firm’s estimates.

Outside research also shows that people are using X less.

According to research firm Similarweb, global web traffic to Twitter.com was down 14%, year-over-year, and traffic to the ads.twitter.com portal for advertisers was down 16.5%. Performance on mobile was no better, down 17.8% year-over-year based on combined monthly active users for Apple’s iOS and Android.

“Even though the cultural relevance of Twitter was already starting to decline,” before Musk took it over, “it’s as if the platform no longer exists. And it’s been a death by a thousand cuts,” Enberg said.

“What’s really fascinating is that almost all of the wounds have been self-inflicted. Usually when a social platform, starts to lose its relevance there are at least some external factors at play, but that’s not the case here.”

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — One year ago, billionaire and new owner Elon Musk walked into Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters with a white bathroom sink and a grin, fired its CEO and other top executives and began transforming the social media platform into what is now known as X.

X looks and feels something like Twitter, but the more time you spend on it the clearer it becomes that it’s merely an approximation. Musk has dismantled core features of what made Twitter, Twitter — its name and blue bird logo, its verification system, its Trust and Safety advisory group. Not to mention content moderation and hate speech enforcement.

He also fired, laid off or lost the majority of its workforce — engineers who keep the site running, moderators who keep it from being overrun with hate, executives in charge of making rules and enforcing them.

The result, long-term Twitter watchers say, has been the end of the platform’s role as an imperfect but useful place to find out what’s going on in the world. What X will become, and whether Musk can achieve his ambition of turning it into an “everything app” that everyone uses, remains as unclear as it was a year ago.

“Musk hasn’t managed to make a single meaningful improvement to the platform and is no closer to his vision of an ‘everything app,’ than he was a year ago,” said Insider Intelligence analyst Jasmine Enberg. “Instead, X has driven away users, advertisers, and now it has lost its primary value proposition in the social media world: Being a central hub for news.”

As one of the platform’s most popular and prolific users even before he bought the company, Musk had a unique experience on Twitter that is markedly different from how regular users experience it. But many of the changes he’s introduced to X has been based on his own impressions of the site — in fact, he even polled his millions of followers for advice on how to run it (they said he should step down).

“Musk’s treatment of the platform as a technology company that he could remake and his vision rather than a social network fueled by people and ad dollars has been the single largest cause of the demise of Twitter,” Enberg said.

The blue checkmarks that once signified that the person or institution behind an account was who they said they are — a celebrity, athlete, journalist from global or local publication, a nonprofit agency — now merely shows that someone pays $8 a month for a subscription service that boosts their posts above un-checked users. It’s these paying accounts that have been found to spread misinformation on the platform that is often amplified by its algorithms.

On Thursday, for instance, a new report from the left-leaning nonprofit Media Matters found that numerous blue-checked X accounts with tens of thousands of followers claimed that the mass shooting in Maine was a “false flag,” planned by the government. Researchers also found such accounts spreading misinformation and propaganda about the Israel-Hamas war — so much so that the European Commission made a formal, legally binding request for information to X over its handling of hate speech, misinformation and violent terrorist content related to the war.

Ian Bremmer, a prominent foreign policy expert, posted on X this month that the level of disinformation on the Israel-Hamas war “being algorithmically promoted” on the platform “is unlike anything I’ve ever been exposed to in my career as a political scientist.”

It’s not just the platform’s identity that’s on shaky grounds. Twitter was already struggling financially when Musk purchased it for $44 billion in a deal that closed Oct. 27, 2022, and the situation appears more precarious today. Musk took the company private, so its books are no longer public — but in July, the Tesla CEO said the company had lost about half of its advertising revenue and continues to face a large debt load.

“We’re still negative cash flow,” he posted on the site on July 14, due to a about a “50% drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load.”

“Need to reach positive cash flow before we have the luxury of anything else,” he said.

In May, Musk hired Linda Yaccarino, a former NBC executive with deep ties to the advertising industry in an attempt to lure back top brands, but the effort has been slow to pay off. While some advertisers have returned to X, they are not spending as much as they did in the past — despite a rebound in the online advertising market that boosted the most recent quarterly profits for Facebook parent company, Meta, and Google parent company, Alphabet.

Insider Intelligence estimates that X will bring in $1.89 billion in advertising revenue this year, down 54% from 2022. The last time its ad revenue was near this level was in 2015, when it came in at $1.99 billion. In 2022, it was $4.12 billion.

Outside research also shows that people are using X less.

According to research firm Similarweb, global web traffic to Twitter.com was down 14%, year-over-year, and traffic to the ads.twitter.com portal for advertisers was down 16.5%. Performance on mobile was no better, down 17.8% year-over-year based on combined monthly active users for Apple’s iOS and Android.

“Even though the cultural relevance of Twitter was already starting to decline,” before Musk took it over, “it’s as if the platform no longer exists. And it’s been a death by a thousand cuts,” Enberg said.

“What’s really fascinating is that almost all of the wounds have been self-inflicted. Usually when a social platform, starts to lose its relevance there are at least some external factors at play, but that’s not the case here.”

The post Twitter takeover: 1 yr later, X struggles with misinformation, promoting and utilization decline appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

BBC Dragon’s Den star Steven Bartlett said he’s looking for someone to fill a position for “the most interesting job” he has ever hired for which requires someone to film his every move.

The British entrepreneur is also known for his wildly popular podcast, ‘The Diary Of A CEO.’

Bartlett, who is the founder and CEO of Social Chain, an integrated social media company, has shared an advertisement on his LinkedIn profile, searching for a full-time videographer who is “able and willing to follow [him] around the clock and record pretty much everything” for a new YouTube series.

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No degree is necessary as Bartlett says he mainly cares about “your attitude, your work-ethic, your desire to learn and that you’re a good fit for our existing team culture.”

While videography experience is preferred, he and his team are also “willing to teach the right person, with the right attitude the skills they need for the role.”

Additionally, he says he “would love to give this role to someone who has a desire to start their own business in some capacity one day – hopefully this exposure will help you learn about the inner workings of various businesses.”

In the job advert, Bartlett goes on to describe what the job would entail which includes everything from travelling around the world to following him to the gym.

The six details he gives reveals you’ll go everywhere Bartlett goes – “including on international trips to international offices and when we take The Diary Of A CEO to LA and New York.”

You’ll be behind the scenes in his businesses and get to see and record how they are building these companies – Flight Story (Bartlett’s marketing company operating between London, Manchester & LA), thirdweb (software company based predominantly in San Francisco and New York), Team DOAC (The Diary Of A CEO team of 30~ based in London) and more.

The job will require to document the process of launching and creating his new Flight Story HQ – a 12,000 sq ft industrial building taken from The Truman Brewery in the heart of Shoreditch.

Other projects the videographer will get to work on include, The Money School, their prison project and supporting the British Red Cross in Turkey.

Not all situations will be professional as Bartlett wants recording to continue while he is at the gym, training for soccer-aid, DJ-ing and all the other “random things” he gets up to.

Applying is easy, as the businessman says simply send 3 bullet points explaining why you’re the right person for the role to work@stevenbartlett.com and include a link to your Linkedin profile in your email.

Successful applicants will be contacted this week for an interview.

READ NEXT:

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SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) – San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin announced Tuesday that his office had settled with home services website Angie’s List on a lawsuit over allegations of false advertising.

Prosecutors sued Angie’s List back in 2018 for alleging the site was conducting background checks on the “primary owner / owner or responsible manager of all certified service providers”. According to the lawsuit filed by then District Attorney George Gascon, these statements are “likely to mislead” consumers into believing that even if they haven’t, the people who come to their homes have had a background check.

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In a statement announcing the settlement, the prosecutor’s office said past customers will be compensated and the site will be banned from making similar claims in the future.

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“This deal protects consumers who make important safety decisions about who to let into their homes,” said District Attorney Chesa Boudin. “Rather than providing accurate information so consumers can make informed decisions about who to trust, Angie’s List advertising misled consumers. I commend the hard work of our lawyers in bringing about this settlement to protect the San Franciscans from further deception. “

The nearly 30-year-old site, which recently changed its name to Angi, agreed as part of the settlement to repay 50% of subscription fees to customers who signed up for their services while Angie’s List ran the misleading ads: 23. 2016, through February 8, 2017. The company also issued an injunction preventing it from future deceiving customers about its background checks and will pay $ 50,000 civil penalties for its illegal practices.

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Both parties signed the agreement on Monday. Angi made no statement at the time of going to press.

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