Tag: Twitter

KISS’ Gene Simmons and Neil Young say they are quitting X/Twitter after Elon Musk anti-Semitism claims

The departures come after Elon Musk engaged with an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory on the social platform

The post KISS’ Gene Simmons and Neil Young say they are quitting X/Twitter after Elon Musk anti-Semitism claims appeared first on NME.

NME

KISS‘ Gene Simmons and Neil Young have announced that they are quitting X, formerly known as Twitter, after Elon Musk appeared to endorse an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.

Simmons did not specify exactly why he was leaving the social platform, but it’s likely due to Musk voicing his agreement with an anti-Semitic conspiracy that Jewish communities push “hatred against whites”, also known as the “great replacement” theory.

Musk replied to a post making the claims and stated: “You have said the actual truth.”

Simmons announced his departure by simply sharing: “Friends, I’ve decided to end my X/Twitter posting.”

 

Young announced his decision to leave the social platform on his website, sharing: “We are stopping all use of X we can control. For reasons that should be obvious to the richest man on Earth, we are taking this action against his company.”

Alongside the text was a picture of Twitter boss Musk with the caption: “Teslas should fly flags of love – not hate.”

The message continued: “For our many Palestinian friends and our many Jewish friends, we do need to start over in the present and release our terrible connections to the past. As bad as they are, they need to be forgotten so we can be free to move on in life together, all humanity, focused on saving our planet for future generations of all people.”

Musk’s reply even prompted a response from the White House, with a spokesperson describing the apparent endorsement as “unacceptable”.

“We condemn this abhorrent promotion of antisemitic and racist hate in the strongest terms,” said White House spokesperson Andrew Bates (via BBC).

Alongside Musk’s personal controversy, US companies like Disney and Warner Bros have pulled advertising from the platform amidst claims that ads were being placed alongside anti-Semitic content.

Musk has since said he will file a “thermonuclear lawsuit” against media watchdog Media Matters and others after the numerous companies paused their advertising.

The Tesla boss has denied that he is anti-Semitic and later said his comments did not refer to all Jewish people, but rather groups like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and other unspecified “Jewish communities”, according to the BBC.

The post KISS’ Gene Simmons and Neil Young say they are quitting X/Twitter after Elon Musk anti-Semitism claims appeared first on NME.

KISS’ Gene Simmons and Neil Young say they are quitting X/Twitter after Elon Musk anti-Semitism claims

The departures come after Elon Musk engaged with an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory on the social platform

The post KISS’ Gene Simmons and Neil Young say they are quitting X/Twitter after Elon Musk anti-Semitism claims appeared first on NME.

NME

KISS‘ Gene Simmons and Neil Young have announced that they are quitting X, formerly known as Twitter, after Elon Musk appeared to endorse an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.

Simmons did not specify exactly why he was leaving the social platform, but it’s likely due to Musk voicing his agreement with an anti-Semitic conspiracy that Jewish communities push “hatred against whites”, also known as the “great replacement” theory.

Musk replied to a post making the claims and stated: “You have said the actual truth.”

Simmons announced his departure by simply sharing: “Friends, I’ve decided to end my X/Twitter posting.”

 

Young announced his decision to leave the social platform on his website, sharing: “We are stopping all use of X we can control. For reasons that should be obvious to the richest man on Earth, we are taking this action against his company.”

Alongside the text was a picture of Twitter boss Musk with the caption: “Teslas should fly flags of love – not hate.”

The message continued: “For our many Palestinian friends and our many Jewish friends, we do need to start over in the present and release our terrible connections to the past. As bad as they are, they need to be forgotten so we can be free to move on in life together, all humanity, focused on saving our planet for future generations of all people.”

Musk’s reply even prompted a response from the White House, with a spokesperson describing the apparent endorsement as “unacceptable”.

“We condemn this abhorrent promotion of antisemitic and racist hate in the strongest terms,” said White House spokesperson Andrew Bates (via BBC).

Alongside Musk’s personal controversy, US companies like Disney and Warner Bros have pulled advertising from the platform amidst claims that ads were being placed alongside anti-Semitic content.

Musk has since said he will file a “thermonuclear lawsuit” against media watchdog Media Matters and others after the numerous companies paused their advertising.

The Tesla boss has denied that he is anti-Semitic and later said his comments did not refer to all Jewish people, but rather groups like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and other unspecified “Jewish communities”, according to the BBC.

The post KISS’ Gene Simmons and Neil Young say they are quitting X/Twitter after Elon Musk anti-Semitism claims appeared first on NME.

Gene Simmons and Neil Young Announce Departures from Twitter

The musicians made separate decisions to leave the platform after Elon Musk backed an antisemitic conspiracy theory.

Gene Simmons and Neil Young Announce Departures from Twitter
Emma Carey

Consequence

Musicians Gene Simmons and Neil Young have separately announced their decisions to leave Twitter (which owner Elon Musk has renamed “X”). Their announcements arrive amidst a flurry of companies choosing to pull advertisements from the site after Musk backed an antisemitic conspiracy theory on the platform. Young — who made…

Please click the link below to read the full article.

Neil Young Stops ‘All Use of X We Can Control’ Over Elon Musk’s Antisemitic Comments

“For reasons that should be obvious to the richest man on Earth,” the singer wrote in the Neil Young Archives, “we are taking this action against his company”

Music – Rolling Stone

"For reasons that should be obvious to the richest man on Earth," the singer wrote in the Neil Young Archives, "we are taking this action against his company”

Neil Young Stops ‘All Use of X We Can Control’ Over Elon Musk’s Antisemitic Comments

“For reasons that should be obvious to the richest man on Earth,” the singer wrote in the Neil Young Archives, “we are taking this action against his company”

Music – Rolling Stone

"For reasons that should be obvious to the richest man on Earth," the singer wrote in the Neil Young Archives, "we are taking this action against his company”

Stephen King trolls Elon Musk over his new AI chatbot

“This X shit’s got to go”, King previously tweeted

The post Stephen King trolls Elon Musk over his new AI chatbot appeared first on NME.

NME

Stephen King has seemingly mocked Elon Musk on X/Twitter over the app’s new AI chatbot.

The renowned horror author, known for writing the novels behind the blockbuster movies It, The Shining and Carrie, took to the app to share his feelings about its recent name change.

Last week, King, 76, posted a tweet saying, “This X shit’s got to go” referring to the controversial rebranding of the 17-year-old social media app.

But on Sunday, Musk tweeted announcing his newest AI chatbot, Grok, and King responded to the tweet in a way that could be described as trolling.

King quoted Musk’s “Just released Grok” tweet with a simple, “Big whoop.” This seemed to amuse Musk who responded with two laughing emoji symbols and an offer, “Wanna try it?”, to which King hasn’t yet responded.

It’s not the first time King has expressed his opinion on some of the app’s changes, or started a conversation with X’s new owner and founder of SpaceX. Back in October, King complained about the new fee to keep the blue tick to show verification. It’s just one of the many radical changes Musk has made to the app, and something which many users found issue with.

King tweeted, “$20 a month to keep my blue check? Fuck that, they should pay me. If that gets instituted, I’m gone like Enron.” Musk replied to the tweet, negotiating a lower price with the Misery author: “We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers. How about $8?”

Musk continued his explanations in a further tweet: “I will explain the rationale in longer form before this is implemented. It is the only way to defeat the bots & trolls.”

Elsewhere, King faced divided opinion on Twitter last month when he promoted one of J.K. Rowling’s books.

The post Stephen King trolls Elon Musk over his new AI chatbot appeared first on NME.

Elon Musk now values X/Twitter at $19billion after buying site for $44billion

The new valuation is $1billion less than what he thought it was worth earlier this year

The post Elon Musk now values X/Twitter at $19billion after buying site for $44billion appeared first on NME.

NME

Elon Musk has confirmed that the social media platform formerly known as Twitter is now worth $19billion – less than half of the $44billion he paid to acquire it.

The billionaire and Tesla founder acquired the platform in April last year, where he spent $44billion in the purchase, and proceeded to enlist a complete overhaul of many of the features.

Now, under two years since he took over the site – which he has since rebranded as X – it has been confirmed that the brand is now worth less than half of what he initially paid for it.

The report was shared yesterday (October 30) in a new update from Fortune. In the article, it was revealed that Musk awarded all of the employees who weren’t fired in the takeover equity in the company. This, he said, was valued at $19billion – the equivalent of $45 a share.

That is a 55 per cent drop in value from when he bought Twitter back in April 2022, however, according to some the report still has the chance of being an overly optimistic estimate. This comes as Rolling Stone reported that the mutual fund company Fidelity – which contributed over $300 million to Musk’s Twitter takeover – thinks the figures may be incorrect, and estimates that the company is now worth 65 per cent less than last year.

on Musk account on Twitter X is displayed on a smartphone on October 16, 2023. CREDIT: Nathan Stirk/Getty Images

Similarly, even if the $19billion valuation is accurate, the figure is still $1billion less than what Musk claimed he thought X/Twitter was worth back in March – when an internal email showed that he valued it at $20billion.

Following his takeover of the company, Musk has made countless headlines for the changes he has implemented. These include the removal of legacy verified blue ticks and plans to put X (formerly Twitter) behind a paywall in order to deter bots.

Earlier this month, he also stopped the site from displaying news story headlines, and later announced plans to hide the number of replies, retweets and likes on posts.

Elsewhere, the platform was sued under its X Corp title by a Florida-based legal marketing company that claims the platform’s rebrand infringes its trademark.

The post Elon Musk now values X/Twitter at $19billion after buying site for $44billion appeared first on NME.

Elon Musk says he will give $1billion to Wikipedia to change their name to ‘Dickipedia’

The X/Twitter CEO called it a “stiff & firm offer”

The post Elon Musk says he will give $1billion to Wikipedia to change their name to ‘Dickipedia’ appeared first on NME.

NME

Elon Musk has said he will give $1billion to Wikipedia to change their name to ‘Dickipedia’.

The feud with Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales seems to have started around October 17, where the British-American entrepreneur expressed the difficulty in verifying “real journalists” from “fakes” amidst the Israel-Palestine conflict. Musk has made a flurry of changes to the website this year, including the removal of legacy verified blue ticks and plans to put X (formerly Twitter) behind a paywall in order to deter bots.

“Fast moving claims and counter claims, and @elonmusk has removed all the core features that made it even remotely possible to tell real journalists from fakes,” wrote Wales.

In response, Musk wrote: “Please fix Wokipedia”, and has spent the following days criticising the online encyclopedia in a number of tweets.

On October 22, Musk wrote: “Have you ever wondered why the Wikimedia Foundation wants so much money? It certainly isn’t needed to operate Wikipedia. You can literally fit a copy of the entire text on your phone!

“So, what’s the money for? Inquiring minds want to know…”

 

Posting a photo of Wikipedia’s donation plea, he wrote: “I will give them a billion dollars if they change their name to Dickipedia,” going on to call it “a stiff & firm offer”.

Underneath Musk’s tweet questioning Wikimedia’s finances, a Community Note stated that “The Wikimedia Foundation is a charitable non-profit, providing free access to Wikipedia. While a text & English-only copy of Wikipedia is about 51GB, adding all media + supported languages brings it to 428TB. In 2022 Wikimedia had $154M in revenue with $145M in expenses.”

The Community Note then linked to the foundation’s 2022 financial report, which you can view here. The feature lets users provide context in order to fight against misinformation, where other users can vote whether the provided context is “helpful” or irrelevant.

The CEO then replied to a number of tweets, stating that Wikipedia was “inherently hierarchical”. X’s Community Notes, according to Musk, requires “people with historically different points of view” to “agree in order for Notes to be shown to the public”.

“Crucially,” he continued, “even I, as the controlling shareholder of the company, cannot change the outcome of a Note.”

Today (October 23), Wikipedia seemingly responded by posting a statement on X. “Wikipedia is the only website in the top-ten most-visited global websites to be run by a nonprofit – and at a fraction of the budget and staffing,” they said. “We are not funded by advertising, we don’t charge a subscription fee, and we don’t sell your data.”

The account then posted an updated version of an article posted in 2022, which you can read here.

Musk and Wikipedia have already sparred earlier this year; in May, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales criticised Musk for agreeing to restrict content on X/Twitter in the run-up to Turkey’s presidential election. Wales pointed to Wikipedia’s own legal battle with Turkey blocking access to the website in 2017, adding: “This is what it means to treat freedom of expression as a principle rather than a slogan.”

In response, Musk tagged the American-British entrepreneur in a tweet: “We’ve pushed harder for free speech than any other Internet company, including Wokipedia.”

The post Elon Musk says he will give $1billion to Wikipedia to change their name to ‘Dickipedia’ appeared first on NME.

X (FKA Twitter) announces test rollout of $1 subscription fee for new users

“It’s the only way to fight bots without blocking real users,” said Elon Musk

The post X (FKA Twitter) announces test rollout of $1 subscription fee for new users appeared first on NME.

NME

X, formerly known as Twitter, has announced that it is testing a subscription fee which will require new users to pay $1 (82p) to sign up.

The social platform, which rebranded to X back in July, shared a statement on its support account this morning (October 18) announcing the planned testing of a new feature in New Zealand and the Philippines, which will require new accounts to pay to post and interact with other users.

“Starting today, we’re testing a new program (Not A Bot) in New Zealand and the Philippines,” the post read. “New, unverified accounts will be required to sign up for a $1 annual subscription to be able to post & interact with other posts. Within this test, existing users are not affected.

“This new test was developed to bolster our already successful efforts to reduce spam, manipulation of our platform and bot activity, while balancing platform accessibility with the small fee amount. It is not a profit driver.”

The post concluded: “And so far, subscription options have proven to be the main solution that works at scale.”

Twitter has been free to use since it launched in 2006. It’s currently unclear if or when the plan will be rolled out to other countries.

The sign-up fee is also different to the £11 a month X Premium subscription, which gets users a blue checkmark along with the ability to write longer posts and edit after being shared.

According sources who spoke to Fortune, new users will need to pay the $1 fee to engage in basic functions like tweeting, replying and liking.

Shortly after the announcement, Elon Musk tweeted that you can “read for free, but $1/year to write”.

“It’s the only way to fight bots without blocking real users,” he added. “This won’t stop bots completely, but it will be 1000X harder to manipulate the platform.”

The news comes after Musk announced earlier this month that he plans to hide the number of replies, retweets and likes on posts shown on X/Twitter.

The post X (FKA Twitter) announces test rollout of $1 subscription fee for new users appeared first on NME.

Elon Musk now looking to hide reply, like and retweet numbers on Twitter/X

“This will greatly improve readability”

The post Elon Musk now looking to hide reply, like and retweet numbers on Twitter/X appeared first on NME.

NME

Elon Musk has announced that he plans to hide the number of replies, retweets and likes on posts shown on X/Twitter.

The announcement of his new plans to modify the social media platform comes days after the site stopped displaying news story headlines for some users.

Prior to this latest update, users were able to see the full headline – or a headline that had been adapted for social media – above a short description that provided further information about the piece in question. These were known as ‘Cards‘.

Musk revealed the plans to get rid of the action buttons on a subscriber-only post to the platform.

It read: “Those ugly URL cards with repetitive text were making my eyes bleed. So much better now! Next, we’ll remove all the action buttons with their superfluous interaction counts from the main timeline. Just view count will show, unless you tap into a post. This will greatly improve readability.”

This is the latest slate of updates the tech billionaire is set to bring to the platform – which he bought last year for $44billion.

Last month, he announced that the site will likely start charging its users. Currently, X charges users for its subscription service X Premium that offers advantages such as a verified account checkmark. It costs $11 (£8.87) per month in the US for iPhones and £11 per month in the UK.

Although unconfirmed, Musk told Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a meeting that a subscription would probably cost “a few dollars” a month for users [via the Guardian].

Musk explained that a paywall would help the business keep bots at bay and generate money lost by a “60 per cent” drop in advertising revenue on the platform.

Elon Musk leaves at the Turkish House after meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ahead of the 78th session of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in New York, United States on September 17, 2023. (Photo by Fatih Aktas/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Elsewhere, the platform was sued under its X Corp title by a Florida-based legal marketing company that claims the platform’s rebrand infringes its trademark.

The lawsuit filed by X Social Media on Monday, October 2 alleges that Musk‘s decision over the summer to change Twitter’s name to X has caused consumer confusion, particularly over the use of the letter “X” in its brand design.

In legal documents seen and shared by Reuters , representatives of the Florida-based firm X Social Media claim that the title “X Social Media” is owned by the company under a trademark and has been operating under that name since 2016.

This not the first time Musk has been sued by a company or person. His ex-partner, Grimes, is reportedly suing him over custody rights to their youngest child, Techno Mechanicus.

The artist, real name Claire Boucher, filed a “petition to establish parental relationship” last Friday (September 29), according to TMZ, and claimed that Musk isn’t letting her visit him.

The post Elon Musk now looking to hide reply, like and retweet numbers on Twitter/X appeared first on NME.

Exit mobile version