Twitter chaos: 84-hour working weeks, ad-free articles gone, more

Twitter chaos continues, following the purchase of the social network by Elon Musk. From engineers being asked to work crazy hours, to Musk pulling the plug on a Twitter Blue contract with more than 300 web publishers.

Musk appointed himself as absolute dictator of Twitter by disbanding the original board of directors, and replacing it with a single director: himself …

Background

Musk started quietly buying up Twitter shares, was offered and accepted a seat on the company’s board, changed his mind a day later, offered to buy the company, Twitter resisted, then accepted before Musk tried to back out, Twitter sued, then it was all going ahead again, leaving Musk’s bankers sweating, amid claims that Twitter ordered evidence to be burned, and each side claiming that the other is under federal investigation.

Musk officially took over the platform on October 27, immediately firing key execs. One of his next decisions was reportedly to decide that Twitter verification would be for sale, requiring a $19.99/month subscription to Twitter Blue.

Since then, the fun continues …

Managers told to work 12-hour days, 7 days a week

CNBC reports that Musk is demanding that managers work 12 hours a day, seven days a week, in order to hit tight deadlines for changes. He’s using the threat of 50% layoffs to bully staff into complying.

Managers at Twitter have instructed some employees to work 12-hour shifts, seven days a week, in order to hit Musk’s aggressive deadlines, according to internal communications. The sprint orders have come without any discussion about overtime pay or comp time, or about job security.

Task completion by the early November deadline is seen as a make-or-break matter for their careers at Twitter.

The atmosphere of fear is such that employees are no longer working together as teams, each individual instead trying to protect their own position. Slack channels where teams would help each other have reportedly gone silent.

Moderation frozen ahead of midterms

The US midterm elections, like the presidential ones, are a prime time for hoaxes and general disinformation. It’s a time when moderation is vital to ensure voters aren’t fooled by fake claims. Yet Bloomberg reports that moderators have been frozen out.

Elon Musk has frozen some employee access to internal tools used for content moderation and other policy enforcement, curbing the staff’s ability to clamp down on misinformation ahead of a major US election.

Most people who work in Twitter’s Trust and Safety organization are currently unable to alter or penalize accounts that break rules around misleading information, offensive posts and hate speech, except for the most high-impact violations that would involve real-world harm, according to people familiar with the matter. Those posts were prioritized for manual enforcement, they said.

Twitter Blue ad-free articles gone

One of the Twitter Blue perks was ad-free access to more than 300 US publishers through a deal known as Ad-Free Articles.

Twitter would pay publishers an amount roughly equivalent to the ad revenue for a view, and in return subscribers would be able to read pieces on Twitter Blue Publisher sites without ads.

Twitter has cancelled this feature overnight, with just one day’s notice. Publishers were sent an email announcing the change.

Starting tomorrow, we will stop displaying the “Twitter Blue Publisher” label on any Tweets containing your articles. We will no longer be sending a Twitter Blue token when people on Twitter access articles from your properties. This will prevent the ad-free experience on your site from loading.

Subscribers have lost a valued feature, and publishers have had to go through a great deal of integration work to support the feature, only to have it made worthless overnight.

Photo: Taylor Deas-Melesh/Unsplash

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