Mark Ruffalo urges Elon Musk to evolve his approach to running Twitter after a week of turmoil at the social media company that saw layoffs, advertisers suspend ad spend and fear a new subscription plan that reinvents the platform verification tool.
In a series of tweets on Saturday and another on Sunday, the I know it’s true The actor directly hired Musk following an accusation from U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that the platform had “bricked” his profile. She tweeted that she had criticized Musk’s plans to open up the site’s Twitter verification tool – the “blue check” badge – to anyone willing to pay $8 a month for a Twitter Blue subscription.
“Elon. Please – for decency’s sake – get off Twitter, turn the keys over to someone who does this like a real job, and keep running Tesla and SpaceX,” Ruffalo said in a quote tweet of Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s allegation on Saturday. “You are destroying your credibility. It’s just not pretty.
Discussions about how the platform would deal with free speech issues – specifically moderating hate speech and criticism of Twitter’s new owner – have increased in the week since he officially took over the site. . Since then, Musk has fired key executives and furloughed thousands of employees around the world days before the 2022 midterm elections. This includes members of the human rights, accessibility, AI, Communications and Conservation Ethics, who tweeted about their firings on Friday, Tech Crunch reported.
In response to Ruffalo’s tweet, Musk replied that “not everything the AOC says is accurate.” (The Hollywood Reporter contacted Twitter for comment.)
While Ruffalo replied “maybe so,” the actor went on to point out that recent platform disruptions and changes to some features, like verification, make that harder to discern. “That’s why having robust filters for misinformation/misinformation and credible verified users has been a popular feature for people and advertisers alike,” he said. “We need those guarantees to make sure it’s accurate information, otherwise the app loses its credibility, just like you. And people leave.
With what is known about the Twitter Blue verification plan offered by Musk, anyone paying $8 a month could buy a verification badge without having to verify that their identity matches the one attached to their account. In 2009, Twitter was sued by Tony La Russa, a former MLB player and then St. Louis Cardinals manager, for claiming that someone had registered his name and started posting offensive comments.
Last week, Pacific Rim and The gray man actor Rob Kazinksy worried about how someone could impersonate the actor – as he says someone had done before – for interact with minors through the platform. (The actor, who didn’t say which platform it was connected to, said he didn’t have any social media at the time and one of those kids who was allegedly contacted by someone one pretending to be him had disappeared.)
On Sunday, Musk also addressed the issue of impersonation after several actors with verified accounts changed their profile names to his in a bid to highlight how regular Twitter users could potentially be confused or handled by the next platform verification extension. Actors impersonating Musk to make this point included Hot in Cleveland and One day at a time Valérie Bertinelli – who was fashionable as a result – Roswell and The night shift star Brendan Fehr and comedian and actress Kathy Griffin, whose account is currently suspended.
“Going forward, all Twitter accounts that engage in impersonation without clearly specifying ‘parody’ will be permanently suspended,” Musk tweeted.
Musk noted in his tweet thread that previously users received impersonation warnings before their accounts were suspended. He now suggests that not only is that policy no longer in effect, but that any name changes will be reconsidered. “We used to issue a warning before the suspension, but now that we’re rolling out widespread verification, there won’t be a warning,” he said. “Any name change will result in temporary loss of verified tick.”
In Fehr’s response to the account lockdowns early on Sunday, he confirmed he had changed his name before adding, “don’t worry, he’s still totally okay with anyone who tweets irresponsible lies and conspiracies, so it’s all good and makes sense.”
Users, former employees and advertisers have also raised concerns in the days leading up to the layoffs and since about the impact the company’s massive loss of employees would have on usability and security. of the platform. On Friday, Musk tweeted that Twitter had seen a “massive drop in revenue” and claimed the cause was “due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, though nothing has changed with content moderation and that we did everything we could to appease the activists.” .” (Advertising made up 89% of Twitter’s revenue last year.)
On Nov. 1, Policy reported that IPG’s Mediabrands, one of the Big Four advertising companies, was advising its clients to pause their ads on Twitter. In response to a Nov. 4 tweet suggesting these companies be “named and shamed,” Musk tweeted, “Thermonuclear name and shame is exactly what will happen if this continues.
Ruffalo responded to Musk on Sunday, writing, “These bodies are protecting their brands and their customers from the misinformation and bigotry that those you fired have protected us from. You have destroyed any means of protecting us from fake accounts. It’s just smart business. Please don’t get us started on ‘Nuclear Thermal’, Chief Tweet.”
Updated at 4:23 p.m. on Sunday, November 6: Added Musk’s tweet.
#Mark #Ruffalo #begs #Elon #Musk #quit #Twitter #takeover #Hand #keys