Tag Archives: Elon Musk

People Are Flocking To Bluesky As X Makes More Unwanted Changes

Bluesky, ,

A handful of changes coming to X may be pushing users to its competitor. Bluesky, the decentralized social media platform, says it added 500,000 new users in a day this week. The new wave of signups could be related to several controversial changes on X in the last few days, The Verge reported.

This week, X users got a pop-up message notifying them that their posts will be visible even to users they’ve previously blocked. Those accounts still won’t be able to interact with their posts, but it’s a substantial change to how the block feature works that could open up users to harassment.

“Today, block can be used by users to share and hide harmful or private information about those they’ve blocked,” an official X account posted. “Users will be able to see if such behavior occurs with this update, allowing for greater transparency.”

It goes without saying that blocking is a safety issue, particularly for users facing harassment on a platform or people wanting to create distance between themselves and someone else in their life. But Elon Musk has expressed his distain for blocking, and this change to blocking was teased last month. After users got an explicit notification about it this week, Bluesky wasted no time in using it as a recruitment tool.

Mashable reported: We warned you that this change was coming – but X has just made it official: Blocking on Elon Musk’s social media platform, formerly known as Twitter, will no longer actually block users from viewing content — and now users appear to be fleeing X once again.

Essentially, a block on X will now just mean that a blocked user can’t interact with your posts. They can still see them, though, which was not the case before this change. The change to the block function was met with largely negative reactions, with even Musk supporters pointing out the user safety concerns that come with this shift.

And it appears that the change in the block function was enough for some users to flee to a new social media platform. X alternative Bluesky announced Thursday that it had gained half a million new users in the 24 hours since X made the formal announcement about the change. 

TechCrunch reported: Social networking startup Bluesky, which just reported a gain of half a million users over the past day, has now soared to the top five apps on the U.S. App Store and has become the No.2 app in the Social Networking category, up from No. 181 a week ago, according to data from app intelligence firm Appfigures.

In addition, the growth is not limited to the U.S. market, either. A number of countries are showing four-digit growth in downloads, compared to last Wednesday, leading Bluesky to enter the top 10 in countries like Japan, Thailand, and Taiwan, where it’s No. 1; Hong Kong, where it’s No.2; Canada and South Korea, where it’s No. 4; and Singapore, where it’s No. 8.

On X, users are understandably upset over the company’s decision to change how the block function operates. Soon, users with public accounts can have their X posts viewed by anyone, including those they blocked, unlike before. 

In my opinion, Bluesky is currently gaining a whole lot of people who don’t want to put up with X’s shenanigans anymore. This could – potentially – encourage those who are tired with Elon Musk’s X to stop using it.

X’s First Transparent Report Since Elon Musk’s Takeover

X,

Today, X released the company’s first transparency report since Elon Musk bought the company, formerly Twitter, in 2022, WIRED reported.

Before Musk’s takeover, Twitter would release transparency reports every six months. These largely cover the same grounds the new X report, giving specific numbers for takedowns, government requests for information, and content removals, as well as data about which content was reported and, in some cases, removed for violating policies.

The last transparency report available from Twitter covered the second half of 2021 and was 50 pages long. (X’s is a shorter 15 pages, but requests from governments are also listed elsewhere on the company’s website and have been consistently updated to remain in compliance with various government orders.)

While some numbers remain seemingly consistent across the reports, — reports of abuse and harassment are, somewhat, predictably high — in other areas, there’s a stark difference. For instance, in the 2021 report, accounts reported for hateful content accounted for nearly half of all reports, and 1 million of the 4.3 million accounts actioned. In the new X report, the company says it has taken action on only 2,361 accounts for posting hateful conduct.

The Hill reported the social platform X released its first transparency report since billionaire Elon Musk acquired the company nearly two years ago.

The Global Transparency Report, released Wednesday, provided data about user reports on content violating X’s rules and enforcement actions taken by the company, as well as government requests for information and content removals in the first half of 2024.

“Transparency is at the core of what we do at X,” a spokesperson said in a statement to The Hill. “As an entirely new company, we took time to rethink how best to transparently share data related to the enforcement of the policies that keep our community safe.”

X received more than 224 million user reports between January and June, according to the report. The largest share of user reports — nearly 82 million — were about abuse and harassment. 

Nearly 67 million user reports were in regard to hateful conduct, and another 40 million were about violent conduct.

Engadget reported X has published its most detailed accounting of its content moderation practices since Elon Musk’s takeover of the company. The report, X’s first in more than a year, provides insight into how X is enforcing its rules as it struggles to hang on to advertisers who have raised concerns about toxicity on the platform.

The report, which details content takedowns and account suspensions from the first half of 2024, shows that suspensions have more than tripled since the last time the company shared data. X suspended just under 5.3 million accounts during the period, compared with 1.6 million suspensions during the first six months of 2022.

In my opinion, it seems that X has a haphazard way of determining what accounts to remove, which ones to place a label on, and a lot of potential problems with trying to encourage brands to stay on the platform.

Brazil Court Asks X For Documents

X,

The Brazilian Supreme Court on Saturday asked Elon Musk-owned social platform X to present documents validating its new legal representation in the country, as the firm’s lawyers now say it will comply with court demands to be allowed to resume operations in Brazil, Reuters reported.

X was shut down in Brazil in late August after it did not comply with orders from the top court related to hate speech and moderation in the social platform.

But in the last few days, X representatives have started to publicly vocalize intentions to address the court demands, even though the firm had previously said it would not meet them.

X lawyers said late on Friday that the platform had named a legal representative in Brazil, addressing a key demand imposted by the court.

In a Saturday decision, the Supreme Court judge Alexander de Moraes gave five days for X to provide commercial registries and other documents proving that X formally signed Rachel de Oliveira Conceicao as its Brazil legal representative

Brazilian law requires foreign companies to have a legal representative to operate in the country. The representative would assume the legal responsibilities for the firm locally.

Engadget reported X is reportedly reversing course after weeks of refusing to comply with conditions set by the Brazilian Supreme Court that would allow it to operate in the country again. 

According to The New York Times, the company’s lawyers said in a Friday court filing that X has named a legal representative in Brazil as demanded by justice Alexandre de Moraes and removed accounts that the judge had identified as a threat to democracy, along with paying the fine it owed. But the publication also reports that the Brazil Supreme Court has said X did not submit all the necessary paperwork, and now has five days to do so.

The paperwork X failed to submit is that which would prove it formally appointed a legal representative in Brazil, as required by Brazlilian law, according to Reuters. The company has been working to restore service to users in Brazil after it was blocked at the end of August, and briefly came back online earlier this week using Cloudflare’s DNS. But, it said that this was “inadvertent and temporary.” 

In a statement, an X spokesperson said at the time, “While we expect the platform to be inaccessible again in Brazil soon, we continue efforts to work with the Brazilian government to return very soon for the people of Brazil.

Mashable reported Elon Musk blinked first in a high-profile game of chicken between the tech billionaire and Brazil’s government.

Musk’s X quietly complied with demands from Brazil’s Supreme Court in a court filing Friday night, The New York Times reported. The hope is Brazil will soon lift its nationwide ban of the social media platform.

Now, all of a sudden, Musk has given in, according to The Times. The company’s lawyers reportedly noted that X had taken down the accounts in question, paid the required fines, and named a formal representative for the country.

In my opinion, it is good for the people of Brazil to once again have access X’s platform. Imagine how annoying it would be to wait for a billionaire to decide when he will comply with Brazil’s law regarding social media.

Elon Musk Backs Down In Brazil

Elon Musk

Elon Musk suddenly appears to be giving up, The New York Times reported.

After defying court orders in Brazil for three weeks, Mr. Musk’s social network, X, has capitulated. In a court filing on Friday night, the company’s lawyers said that X had complied with orders from Brazil’s Supreme Court in the hopes that the court would lift a block on its site.

The decision was a surprise move by Mr. Musk, who know owns and controls X, after he said he had refused to obey what he called illegal orders to sensor voices on his social network. Mr. Musk had dismissed local employees and refused to pay fines. The court responded by blocking X across Brazil lat month.

Now, X’s lawyers said the company has done exactly what Mr. Musk vowed not to: take down accounts that a Brazilian justice order removed because the judge said they threatened Brazil’s democracy. X also complied with the justice’s other demands, including paying fines and naming a new formal representative in the country, the lawyers said.

The Guardian reported Elon Musk fought the law. The law appears to have won.

The platform bowed to one of the key demands made by Brazil’s supreme court appointing a legal representative in the country. It also paid outstanding fines and took down user accounts that the court had ordered to be removed on the basis that they threatened the country’s democracy.

However, the battle is not quite over. The supreme court said X had not filed the proper documentation showing that it had appointed Rachel de Oleveria Conceicao as its Brazilian representative. It gave the company five days to present documents validating her appointment,

Musk has been at loggerheads with supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes since April after he ordered the company to take down more than 100 social media accounts that had been questioning whether the far-right president Jair Bolsonaro had really lost the election in 2022.

The Verge reported Brazilian fan account owners might have a reason to rejoice, as X could be returning to Brazil. According to the New York Times, in a court filing Friday night, the company agreed to abide by the Supreme Court’s request in order to have the countrywide ban lifted.

The company has spent the last three weeks fighting the ban and continuing to distribute content from members of the far right community in Brazil. This led to X being blocked by Brazilian ISPs, and eventually trying to get around the blocks with some help from Cloudflare.

In my opinion, Elon Musk could potentially have decided to go along with the Brazilian supreme court. Things could have been easier for him if he simply complied with what the Brazilian supreme court asked of him.

US SEC Says It Intends To Seek Sanctions Against Elon Musk

Elon Musk,

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said on Friday it intends to seek sanctions against Elon Musk after he failed to appear for court-ordered testimony for the regulator’s probe into his $44 billion takeover of Twitter, Reuters reported.

In a filing in San Francisco court, the SEC said the sanctions motion would seek an order to show cause for why Musk should not be held in civil contempt for waiting until three hours before the scheduled Sept. 10 testimony and advise he would not show up.

Musk, whose businesses include the electric car maker Tesla and rocket company SpaceX and who is the world’s richest person, went to Florida’s Cape Canaveral that day to oversee the launch of SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn Mission.

But the SEC said that as SpaceX’s chief technical officer, Musk “surely was already aware” of the planned launch because the company had discussed it two days earlier. It said Musk’s actions violated a May 31 court order compelling his testimony.

NBC News reported the maker of Cards Against Humanity has sued Elon Musk’s SpaceX accusing it of trespassing on and damaging company-owned property in Texas. 

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Texas court, asks for $15 million to cover damages including what the company calls the destruction of natural vegetation.

The dispute involves a plot of vacant land near Brownsville, Texas, far from the Cards Against Humanity corporate headquarters in Chicago. The game maker bought the land in 2017 in what it said was a stunt to obstruct the plan by then-President Donald Trump to build a wall among the U.S.-Mexico border. No wall was ever built on the property, where the company keeps a “No Trespassing” sign, according to the company.

But the land is near SpaceX’s operations, known as Starbase, and according to the lawsuit, SpaceX has ben using the land without permission for about six months as a staging area for construction: clearing vegetation, parking vehicles, storing gravel and running generators.

TechCrunch reported Elon Musk, the CEO of X and various other companies with “X” in their names, is in regulators’ crosshairs after skipping testimony this month in an investigation related to Musk’s takeover of Twitter.

The SEC’s legal counsel offered to reschedule Musk’s hearing to the following day, September 11. But Musk’s attorney declined, agreeing only to cost dates in October.

Musk’s court-mandated appearance stems from the SEC’s probe looking into whether the billionaire followed the law when disclosing his purchases of Twitter stock before acquiring the company for $44 billion in 2022. The probe also seeks to uncover whether Musk’s statements concerning the deal were misleading; the SEC alleges that Musk waited at least 10 days too long to disclose he was buying Twitter shares.

In my opinion, it sounds like the SEC is very interested in speaking with Elon Musk. That said, it does not appear that Mr. Musk has any intention of speaking with the SEC.

Musk’s xAI Has Discussed Deal For Share of Future Tesla Revenue

Elon Musk,

Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI has discussed where it would get some Tesla revenue in exchange for providing the carmaker access to its technology and resources, the latest example of the growing interconnectedness of Musk’s companies, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Under a proposed arrangement as described to investors, Tesla would license xAI’s artificial-intelligence models to help power its driver-assisted software, called Full Self Driving, and share some of the revenue with the startup, according to people familiar with the matter. xAI would assist in developing other features for Tesla, including a Siri-like voice assistant inside its electric cars and software to power its humanoid robot Optimus, the people said.

The terms of any revenue-sharing agreement between xAI and Tesla would depend in part upon how extensively Tesla relied on xAI’s technology as opposed to its own, the people said. xAI executives have discussed an even revenue split from Tesla’s FSD, one of the people said.

After this article was published, Musk replied on X to a user’s summary of it by saying: “Haven’t read the article, but the above is not accurate,” and that “there is no need to license anything from xAI.” Shortly after, he posted “WSJ is talking nonsense.”

Reuters reported Elon Musk denied a report that his artificial intelligence startup xAI has held talks for a share in future Tesla revenue in return for giving Musk’s electric vehicle maker access to xAI’s technology and resources.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday that Tesla would license xAI’s artificial-intelligence models to help power its driver-assistance software, full self driving technology and share some of that revenue with the startup, according to the proposed arrangement as described to investors.

“Tesla has learned a lot from discussions with engineers at xAI that have helped accelerate achieving unsupervised FSD, but there is in need to license anything from xAI,” Musk posted late on Saturday on his social media platform X, including a voice assistant in its electric cars and software to power its humanoid robot Optimus.

TechCrunch reported Elon Musk has denied a report that one of his companies, Tesla, has discussed sharing revenue with another of his companies, xAI, so that it can use the startup’s AI models.

Writing on his social media platform X, (formerly Twitter) Musk said he hadn’t read the WSJ story, but he described a post summarizing the report as “not accurate.”

Musk founded xAI as a competitor to OpenAI (which he founded but eventually left).  TechCrunch reported earlier this year that as part of the pitch for xAI’s $6 billion funding round, the startup outlined a vision where its models would be trained on data from Musk’s various companies (Tesla, SpaceX, The Boring Company, Neuralink, and X), and its models could then improve technology across those companies.

Tesla shareholders have sued Musk over the decision to start xAI arguing that Musk has diverted talent and resources from Tesla to what is essentially a competing company.

In my opinion, I think Elon Musk is going to do whatever he wants to with his various companies. It is unclear to me what – exactly – he wants to do with them.

X Says It’s Closing Operations In Brazil

X,

X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, said today that it’s ending operations in Brazil, although the service will remain available to users in the country, TechCrunch reported.

The announcement comes amidst a legal battle with Brazil’s Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who sought to block certain accounts on X as part of an investigation into election disinformation and “digital militias.”

In a post from X’s global government affairs account, the company said Moraes has “threatened our legal representative in Brazil with arrest if we do not comply with his censorship orders.”

Media platform X said on Sunday it would close its operations in Brazil “effective immediately” due to what it called “censorship orders” by Brazilian judge Alexandre de Moraes, Reuters reported.

X, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, claims Moraes secretly threatened one of the company’s legal representatives in the South American country with arrest if it did not comply with legal orders to take down some content from its platform.

The social media giant published pictures of a document allegedly signed by Moraes which says a daily fine of 20,000 reais ($3,653) and an arrest decree would be imposed against X representative Rachel Nova Conceicao if the platform does not fully comply with Moraes’s orders.

“To protect the safety of our staff, we have made the decision to close our operation in Brazil, effective immediately,” X said. 

Brazil’s Supreme Court, where Moraes has a seat, told Reuters it would not speak on the matter and would not confirm or deny the authenticity of the document shared by X.

The X service remains available to the people of Brazil, the platform said on Saturday.

The social media platform X will close its office in Brazil amidst a legal battle with the South American nation’s Supreme Court over a purported secret order to remove some posts from the site in Brazil, according to a statement posted by the company on X, The Hill reported.

“The decision to close the X office in Brazil was difficult, but, if we had agreed to @alexandre’s (illegal) secret censorship and private information handover demands, there as no way we could explain our actions without being ashamed,” Musk wrote on X.

X posted a screenshot of the order from Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who’s been investigating digital militias that have been accused of spreading fake news and hate messages during he government of far-right former President Jair Bolsanaro.

Earlier in the year, Moraes directed X to block some of those accounts. X complied and then Musk said he would reactivate the accounts on X that the judge had ordered blocked. Musk called Moraes’s decision regarding X “unconstitutional”.

In my opinion, I doubt that Elon Musk and Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes are going to make peace together. They both seem adamant on getting their way.