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Donald Trump’s abrupt firing of the head of the U.S. Copyright Office has generated confusion and doubt over his ability to terminate her, and also speculation about the role that a long-awaited report on AI may have played in his action.

Shira Perlmutter, who had been register of copyrights and director of the Copyright Office since 2020, was informed over the weekend that she was fired, according to sources familiar with what happened. The White House on Thursday fired the woman who appointed her, Librarian Of Congress Carla Hayden, who was named to the post by President Barack Obama.

This morning, two men delivered a letter to the Copyright Office stating that Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, would be appointed the acting librarian of Congress, according to a source. They also showed a separate email stating that Brian Nieves, a Justice Department official, was appointed deputy librarian, and Paul Perkins,...

CNN’s “Twitter: Breaking the Bird” continues its chronicle of the social media platform’s turbulent journey this Sunday with “Disaster.” Airing at 10:00 Pm Et, the episode centers on Jack Dorsey’s return as CEO, a move that many hoped would bring stability back to the company. Spoiler alert: it didn’t. Dorsey steps back into the CEO […]

Twitter: Breaking the Bird: Disaster...

CNN’s “Twitter: Breaking the Bird” continues its chronicle of the social media platform’s turbulent journey this Sunday with “Making It Big.” This episode follows the arrival of a new CEO who, curiously, brings back founder Jack Dorsey to help steer the company towards growth. It’s a period of transition and uncertainty, as the platform grapples […]

Twitter: Breaking the Bird: Making It Big...

Seth MacFarlane may not care for The Godfather, but he insists that he doesn’t know what the hell Peter Griffin was talking about.

On May 14, 2006, a very special Family Guy episode aired that would change the way Letterboxd users and Film Twitter power players would talk about prestige cinema for years — once New Zealand invented Letterboxd and Twitter became more than just Jack Dorsey posting into the void by himself, of course. In “The Griffin Family History,” Peter, Meg, Lois, Stewie and Brian spend what they believe to be their last moments alive before drowning in the family’s panic room arguing about Francis Ford Coppola’s magnum opus, the 1972 mob epic The Godfather, and, as the water rises, Peter explains his distaste for the film in the most confusing terms possible.

Flash forward to 2025, and Family Guy star and creator MacFarlane is apparently fed up with film buffs using his line,...

Mark Zuckerberg‘s now-infamous suck-up video has sparked a $30 million movement to “save social media from billionaire capture.”

A group of tech advocates and celebrities that includes Mark Ruffalo, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, Mozilla Foundation Executive Director Nabiha Syed, Mozilla Foundation President Mark Surman, New_Public Co-Director Deepti Doshi, and Future of Technology Institute Executive Director Sherif Elsayed-Ali (among many others) has banded together to create an “independently hosted [social media] infrastructure” built on Bluesky‘s At Protocol.

The initiative is called Free Our Feeds, and it wants to raise $30 million to “create an entire ecosystem of interconnected apps and different companies that have people’s interests at heart.”

“With Zuckerberg going full Musk last week, we can no longer let billionaires control our digital public square,” the group wrote on Free Our Feeds’ official website. “Bluesky is an opportunity to shake up the status quo. They have built scaffolding for a new kind of social web.

Bluesky has seen its user base soar since the U.S. presidential election, boosted by people seeking refuge from Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter), which they view as increasingly leaning too far to the right given its owner’s support of President-elect Donald Trump, or wanting an alternative to Meta’s Threads and its algorithms.

The platform grew out of the company then known as Twitter, championed by its former CEO Jack Dorsey. Its decentralized approach to social networking was eventually intended to replace Twitter’s core mechanic. That’s unlikely now that the two companies have parted ways. But Bluesky’s growth trajectory — with a user base that has more than doubled since October — could make it a serious competitor to other social platforms.

But with growth comes growing pains. It’s not just human users who’ve been flocking to Bluesky but also bots, including those designed...

Bluesky, the upstart social media platform, hit the important milestone of 25 million users early Friday morning.

The site continues to profit from people looking for an alternative to X (formerly Twitter), with Bluesky achieving phenomenal growth since Election Day. According to a Nov. 13 post by Bluesky CEO Jay Graber, the site had 6 million users in late August, nearly 11 million in late October and hit 15 million users on Nov. 15. It added another 5 million users in just five days, hitting 20 million users by Nov. 19.

User growth has slowed a little in recent weeks. Rivals such as Meta-owned Threads have cloned some of the more popular Bluesky features. But Bluesky has continued its upward trajectory mainly at the expense of X. Social media users have been ditching Elon Musk-owned X as the site is seemingly drowning in bots, extreme content, crypto scams, ads, pornography, racism, transphobia and misinformation.

Helping Bluesky establish itself...

Threads is looking to keep up with its competition by instituting a change that will give its users more control over the content they see. In a post on the Meta-owned X rival, Instagram Head Adam Mosseri announced that Threads is “rebalancing ranking to prioritize content from people you follow.”

Initially, the Threads recommendation engine operated similarly to the current Instagram algorithm by promoting posts from accounts users don’t follow. In theory, that organizational heuristic encouraged the organic discovery of relevant content.

The focus on discovery has worked wonders for TikTok, but one of Threads’ more direct competitors has flourished by moving away from that approach. Bluesky, the decentralized X alternative initially backed by ex-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, has won over users by granting them more control over the algorithms that dictate their feeds. One of Bluesky’s biggest Dau upticks came after it showed off a...

In the two years since Elon Musk bought Twitter, he managed to kill its value, hemorrhage huge swaths of revenue, alienated its advertisers, and triggered a user exodus to alternative platforms. Today, users on X — the artist formerly known as Twitter — can expect to encounter a right-wing sinkhole of artificially boosted content, gratuitous AI slop, and something akin to the experience of a foie gras goose being force fed Musk’s cringiest memes at the top of their feeds.

Elon slapped a new name on his acquisition, delivered a sloppy product,...

The logo of social media platform Bluesky. (Graphic by The Desk)

Over the past two weeks, a relatively new social media platform called Bluesky has become the service of choice for disgruntled users of X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, following the outcome of the U.S. presidential election.

The service has exploded in popularity, growing from around 6 million registered users last month to more than 21 million accounts as of mid-Sunday. The momentum is not slowing down: Staffers at the startup social media platform have been working around-the-clock to keep the website online, troubleshooting bugs and spinning up new servers in an effort to accommodate all that growth.

The reason for the defection boils down to a few things: X (Twitter) has become increasingly user-unfriendly over the past two years, ever since technology mogul Elon Musk acquired the company. The platform’s ever-shifting policies (most of which...

Updated, with Trump comment: Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski said that they met with Donald Trump on Friday, in what they described as an effort to restart communications with the president-elect after years of criticism and warning about his rhetoric and potential return to office.

At the opening of Morning Joe, Brzezinski said that, after expressing their desire to meet with Trump, they were given the opportunity “to do just that” on Friday. It was the first time they had seen him in seven years, she said.

Scarborough said, “We talked about a lot of issues, including abortion, mass deportations, threats of political retribution against political opponents and media outlets. We talked about that a good bit. It is going to come as no surprise to anyone who watches this show, has watched it over the past year or the past decade, that we didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of issues,...

Bluesky is gaining momentum quickly.

The micro-blogging social media platform, considered by some to be an alternative to the Elon Musk-led X (formerly Twitter) and the Meta-owned Threads, gained 1.25 million additional new users in the past week following the U.S. presidential election, via CNBC.

The bulk of the new users are coming from the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom, the company confirmed on Wednesday (November 13).

“We’re excited to welcome everyone looking for a better social media experience,” Bluesky CEO Jay Graber told CNBC in a statement.

Keep reading to find out more…

Bluesky is currently No. 1 in Social Networking on Apple’s App Store.

A description, via the App Store: “Bluesky is The New Social Network for people who stay online and up-to-date. News, jokes, gaming, art, hobbies, and whatever you’re into is happening here. Short text posts make for a quick read during coffee,...

Jamie Lee Curtis is no stranger to fighting against the horrors of film as one of the genre's most well-known Scream Queens, but it looks like there is one terror she can't deal with anymore and that's Elon Musk's social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. The actress is the latest Hollywood celebrity to depart X after it turned into what some believe is a toxic environment run by the tech-billionaire, businessman, and now politician under Donald Trump.

Curtis took to her Instagram page and posted an image of her now deactivated X handle with a caption that reads, "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Courage to change the things I can. And the wisdom to know the difference." This is a reference to the Serenity Poem, which is a cornerstone of Alcoholics Anonymous and is credited to theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. Perhaps...

The reelection of Donald Trump as president last week brought a wave of jubilation to X (formerly Twitter). The influencers and megadonors who supported the Republican nominee delighted in the defeat of his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, while giddily speculating about the extremist agenda he would pursue once in office. The site’s owner, billionaire Trump ally Elon Musk, who had drastically overhauled the platform to amplify far-right misinformation and hate speech, was particularly pleased. He announced in a post on Monday that the Super Pac through which he...

‘General Hospital’ (Gh) spoilers thinks it looks like there are some good things already happening since Donald Trump was elected as the 47 President of the United States.

The stock market and bitcoin saw a big jump, the leader of Hamas wants an immediate ceasefire, and people are waiting for celebrities to keep their campaign promise and move to Canada.

‘General Hospital’ Spoilers: Nancy Lee Grahn Loses It On X (Twitter) After Donald Trump Victory Over Kamala Harris, Vows To Leave Platform For Ever!

Then there’s ‘General Hospital’s’ Nancy Lee Grahn (Alexis Davis). She’s a great actress, and over the years she’s been very vocal on Twitter, now X, about the evils of anyone she disagreed with.

But now that Trump was reelected and there won’t be any censorship to suit her delicate ears, she’s leaving X. Her reason? Elon Musk freedom of speech.

How...

A prominent fixture on X (formerly Twitter) since launching her account in March 2009, “General Hospital” star Nancy Lee Grahn (Alexis Davis) has announced that she is ceasing posting on the social media platform, effective immediately, citing Elon Musk, owner of the social media giant, as her reason.

Although never referring to Musk by name, Grahn said in a statement posted to her more than 200,000 X followers on Wednesday, “I’ll no longer be posting on a platform controlled by a meglamanical [sic] oligarch now that r [sic] country has committed suicide. It feels unsafe.”

In a separate post shared hours earlier, Grahn preemptively indicated she would be shutting down all of her social media accounts, saying, “I have done all I can do. I will be deleting all my social media in protection of my daughter. I’m so sorry. May God help us all.”

Grahn’s earlier post came shortly after...

One of Kick‘s biggest growth strategies has been capitalizing on Twitch‘s mess-ups. Whenever Twitch makes much-hated policy decisions, or waffles yet again on how much it’ll compensate creators, Kick pops up with a strategically deployed message: on its platform, things are different.

Now, Bluesky is doing the exact same thing to X.

Elon Musk‘s dumpster fire of a site has seen yet another mass exodus this month after introducing two much-hated changes: first, it’s nuking the block feature by allowing users you’ve blocked to see your posts anyway, for some reason; and second, it changed its Tos so all material uploaded to X—videos, posts, photos, art, writing samples, anything—is now automatically licensed “for use with and training of our machine learning and artificial intelligence models, whether generative or another type.”

For many users who’ve clung to what remains of Twitter’s bones,...

Since Elon Musk took control of X, formerly known as Twitter, in 2022, investors have lost billions of dollars. Now, they are speaking out against the tech mogul for his faulty business decisions.

Musk purchased the platform for $44 billion using bank loans. However, after he laid off 75% of its staff, changed the app’s name, sought more advertisements and altered user guidelines, the company lost billions of its value.

“Elon’s done a tremendous amount of wealth destruction since he’s purchased Twitter,” Tesla investor Ross Gerber told The Washington Post. “For the people who put capital into [Elon] for any amount, trying to explain to people how he lost [so much money] is not a fun conversation.”

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Gerber has given Musk a six-month deadline to increase Tesla’s stock before he pulls his business. He said he...

Elon Musk took Twitter private in 2022, but he didn’t do it alone: The deal was backed by his wealthy allies in Silicon Valley, embattled hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, and holding companies based in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, according to a court document ordered unsealed by federal judge on Tuesday, first seen by the public late Wednesday night.

The list of shareholders was made public thanks to a motion filed by nonprofit group Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press on behalf of independent tech journalist Jacob Silverman, who...

After a federal court forced its hand, Elon Musk’s X Corp. has disclosed a list of shareholders for its parent company.

Investors named in the document, unsealed on Wednesday evening, include entities linked to Sean “Diddy” Combs, Bill Ackman, Larry Ellison and Marc Andreessen.

The disclosure stems from a lawsuit filed by former Twitter employees accusing Musk of violating their arbitration agreements by failing to pay them certain fees after he bought the site. It lists nearly 100 groups with a stake in the company, such as Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal al Saud, as well as his investment vehicle Kingdom Holding Company, and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey.

The filing gives a peek into the investors who funded Musk’s $44 billion purchase of the social media platform, widely considered among the most prominent global town squares due to its international reach.

X challenged having to publicly share the names of its stakeholders in the case.

There are a few cardinal rules that every screen character should live by: Don’t go in the basement. Never get off the boat. Never go against the family. And for fuck’s sake, never, ever go to a private island where a tech bro and his toxic buddies like to chill out, even if there are bottomless mimosas, psilocybin-microdose bonding, and the billionaire owner looks like Channing Tatum. Especially if he looks like Channing Tatum.

We’ll clarify why in a second, though the less you know about Blink Twice going in,...

Venice Film Festival Artistic Director Alberto Barbera has announced via X that he is quitting the platform in response to recent statements by its owner Elon Musk.

“After the latest statements by the owner of Twitter , I have definitely lost the desire (already weakened) to remain on a platform, the objectives and purposes of which I no longer share,” Barbera wrote.

Ringrazio tutti coloro che mi hanno seguito in questi 12 anni di frequentazioni, la maggior parte delle quali sono state di grande interesse e piacevolezza. Ci ritroveremo forse altrove, negli spazi della rete non ancora asserviti alle 'stranezze' di qualcuno.

— Alberto Barbera (@AlbertoBarbera2) August 8, 2024 Alberto Barbera’s post announcing he is quitting X

The Venice artistic director did not detail which exact statements by Musk – who acquired X (formerly Twitter) in October 2022 – had driven him to make the move.

Musk has been courting controversy in...

Melinda French Gates says there is a new generation of billionaire activists who aren’t really philanthropists.

Speaking to The New York Times, the ex-wife of Bill Gates — who recently rocked the philanthropic world when she announced she was leaving the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has given away nearly $80 billion since it was founded in 2000 by the former spouses — was asked her opinion on a new generation of billionaires that includes Tesla Motors CEO and X Corp. owner Elon Musk, Twitter founder and Square CEO Jack Dorsey, American hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, and PayPal co-founder and venture capitalist Peter Thiel.

“[T]he people you just named have not been very philanthropic yet,” she responded during the interview, which was published online Sunday. “They use their voice and they use their megaphones, but I would not call those men philanthropists.”

The Nyt interviewer put French Gates and her ex-husband,...

Molten, a cloud technology firm backed by a number of Hollywood and tech luminaries, has set a deal to provide rights management services to The CW.

The multi-year pact comes three years after Molten raised $7 million in seed funding from investors including actor, producer and entrepreneur Ashton Kutcher, former Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and CAA co-founder Michael Ovitz. The company’s integrated offering spans rights, content and royalties management.

In reaching terms with Molten, The CW was looking for a more efficient way to determine every type of right or license the network had available or sold for all titles in all time periods. Such diligence would need to encompass every global territory and every language across the past, present and future. Rights management, traditionally an analog process that has progressed to spreadsheets, is undergoing a transformation due to the advent of artificial intelligence tools. As all networks look to...

Nothing goes unnoticed by the trained eye, and Elon Musk has been practicing it more since he took control of X/Twitter. When Fallout 4 was being booed over its latest update, he saw something that the community failed to see. However, what he noticed may not be a pearl of great price.

In-game bugs have been bugging players for a long time, and Bethesda is trying to give them quality updates. But that doesn’t seem to work the charm on the community, so the fans are turning their heads toward the mods provided by Nexus to improve their game experience.

Fallout 4 Appears to Have Attracted a Different Kind of Attention Fallout is among the favorite games of the Tesla CEO.

Bethesda might not be good at appeasing all the fans, but the company did that with the X-boss, Elon Musk. Musk himself is a gamer and has confirmed in some interviews that Fallout,...

Jack Dorsey is breaking up with Bluesky. The co-founder of Twitter (now known as X) has abdicated his position on the Bluesky board and deleted his account on the decentralized X alternative he initially backed.

Dorsey’s support helped Bluesky gain ground as an X alternative during the chaotic early months of Elon Musk‘s reign as “Chief Twit.” The decentralized social media protocol seemed to be maintaining its momentum at the start of 2024, when it grew its base to include nearly five million users. Dorsey’s sudden resignation from the board upset that harmony. As the former Twitter boss severed ties with Bluesky, he called X “freedom technology” and advised his followers to put their trust in it.

Days later, Dorsey expanded on his falling out with Bluesky during an interview with Mike Solana of Founders Fund. The 47-year-old tech exec explained that he initially envisioned Bluesky as a...

The 2024 Super Bowl featured many celebrity spectators, from Taylor Swift rooting for her Kansas City Chiefs tight end boyfriend Travis Kelce, to Paul Rudd, Lady Gaga and Beyoncé and Jay-Z with the power couple seated near the co-founder and former CEO of Twitter (now known as X) Jack Dorsey.

On the social media platform Dorsey co-founded, it was his T-shirt that soon became the subject of chatter. The tee in question featured the Nirvana smiley face logo with text that read “Satoshi.”

Just In: Jack Dorsey spotted wearing a Satoshi #Bitcoin shirt at the #SuperBowl...

On Super Bowl Sunday, Bluesky showed off its signature feature. Days after leaving its invite-only period, the decentralized X alternative rolled out a special feed for users who wanted to follow the Big Game without hearing about Taylor Swift.

Bluesky aims to provide a more customizable experience than X by letting users — not algorithms — determine the posts that show up on their feeds. The social network showed off that feature during Super Bowl Lviii, when it offered a pair of second-screen experiences catered to different cultural tastes. For the Swifties, Bluesky offered “Taylor’s Version” of the feed, which was filled with updates about Swift and her relationship with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.

A separate feed eschewed Taylor Swift commentary altogether. “The real distinction is that some football fans have strong feelings about *not* seeing any Ts-related content in their football news, and the first feed can provide that for them,...

Usher came to the Super Bowl to celebrate nearly 30 years of making love in this club, and that’s exactly what he did — he turned Allegiant Stadium in Vegas into his own personal seduction lair. His Super Bowl halftime show was a splashy tribute to millennial pop glitz, with a slew of hits from the 2000s and guest stars to match, running from Alicia Keys to Ludacris to will.i.am to the show-stealing Lil Jon. Usher tagged the show to the 20th anniversary of his classic Confessions, without reaching...

Spotify’s Chief Financial Officer Paul Vogel is stepping down, the company said on Thursday — the news arrives three days after the streaming service announced plans to layoff off 17 percent of its global workforce.

Vogel joined Spotify in 2016 and was appointed Spotify’s CFO in 2020. He’ll remain at the streaming platform until March 31, 2024.

The shakeup at the company this week comes as Spotify looks to rein in its spending and improve its profit margins. While Spotify is the largest music streaming service in the world and has grown its...

NBCUniversal, Warner Bros. Discovery, Disney, Lionsgate, Paramount, and Apple are all suspending ads from X (formerly Twitter) after owner Elon Musk made antisemitic comments on the platform.

Reps for NBCUniversal, Warner Bros. Discovery, Disney, Paramount Global, and Lionsgate all confirmed to IndieWire the companies have suspended ads, but none have issued a statement specifically condemning Musk’s remarks. Sony Pictures is also not currently advertising on X, an individual with knowledge told IndieWire. Disney’s film “Wish” opens in theaters on November 22. Lionsgate this weekend is releasing the new “Hunger Games” prequel movie “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.” It’s unclear how much advertising or how many ad dollars are being suspended.

The companies’ moves follow similar decisions by tech companies like Apple and Ibm to suspend ads on X, as Axios first reported. Media Matters in a report revealed that posts from Apple, Ibm, Oracle, Bravo (NBCUniversal), and...

European Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton has written to Elon Musk calling on him to remove disinformation related to the Israel-Hamas War from his platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

‘Following the terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas against Israel, we have indications that your platform is being used to disseminate illegal content and disinformation in the EU,” Breton wrote in a letter which he also posted on X on Tuesday evening.

“Let me remind you that the Digital Services Act sets very precise obligations regarding content moderation,” it continued.

If X fails to comply with the disinformation regulations included in the European Union’s Digital Services Act, the platform faces penalties, including fines of up to 6% of its total worldwide annual turnover.

In an interestingly timed announcement, Breton then posted some 14 hours later on his X account that he had joined burgeoning rival social media platform Bluesky,...

Leslie Jones revealed that she had to fight to get one percent of her co-star's salary in 2016's Ghostbusters.

In her memoir Leslie F*cking Jones (as excerpted by Rolling Stones), the SNL alum revealed the racist backlash she received for staring in the all-female-led remake of the supernatural '80s classic directed by Paul Feig. She also discussed how she made "way less" than her co-stars Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, and Kate McKinnon. “It was made clear to me at times during the process that I was lucky to even be on that movie, but honestly, I was thinking, ‘I don’t have to be in this muthaf**ka,’ especially as I got paid way less than Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig,” Jones wrote.

Related: Leslie Jones Reveals Chris Rock Went to Counseling After Will Smith's Oscar Slap

Jones continued, writing, “No knock on them, but my first...

Leslie Jones recalls how the toxic backlash to her casting in the 2016 reboot of Ghostbusters nearly destroyed her mentally.

Per Rolling Stone, Jones wrote an excerpt in her new memoir Leslie F*cking Jones: A Memoir where she recounts her experience on the Paul Feig comedy that served as a female-led reimagining of the 1984 classic. Jones recalls the backlash not only from critics regarding the female cast but primarily from racist trolls on social media who singled out the star for playing the lone non-scientist in the team.

Related: Kraven the Hunter, Ghostbusters Sequel Release Dates Delayed to 2024

"Ghostbusters came out July 11, 2016, but before it had even hit the movie theaters it had been the subject of intense online abuse—and no surprise that I was the one who got most of the hate," Jones said. "For a start, sad keyboard warriors living in their mothers’ basements hated the fact...

Leslie Jones is opening up about the true cost of starring in 2016’s “Ghostbusters.”

The “SNL” alum revealed in memoir “Leslie F*cking Jones” (as excerpted by Rolling Stone) that while she endured racist backlash, she also made “way less” than her co-stars Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, and Kate McKinnon. The female-led take on the supernatural ’80s classic was directed by Paul Feig.

“It was made clear to me at times during the process that I was lucky to even be on that movie, but honestly, I was thinking, ‘I don’t have to be in this muthafucka,’ especially as I got paid way less than Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig,” Jones wrote. “No knock on them, but my first offer was to do that movie for $67,000. I had to fight to get more (in the end I got $150K), but the message was clear: ‘This is gonna blow you up — after this,...

In looking back at the abuse and death threats she received for her role in the all-female “Ghostbusters” movie of 2016, Leslie Jones writes in her new autobiography, “I can’t believe anyone would do this s–t to someone.”

In an excerpt from “Leslie F*cking Jones: A Memoir” published by Rolling Stone on Tuesday, she recalls how she received so many racist and misogynist comments on Twitter that then CEO Jack Dorsey had to put a special team on her account to try to stem the hateful tide. It also launched an investigation from Homeland Security.

The movie, which was supposed to post her boost her post- “Saturday Night Live” career, only gave her “heartache and one big-a– controversy,” she noted in the excerpt.

“‘Ghostbusters’ came out July 11, 2016, but before it had even hit the movie theaters it had been the subject of intense online abuse—and no surprise...

“I don’t like this movie,” the journalist said, “and you’ve got five minutes to prove to me that it is worth watching.” The cast of Ghostbusters was on a press junket somewhere in Europe, and some guy with a German or Scandinavian or Russian accent or whatever had just had the balls to say that the movie we’d just made wasn’t “worth it,” and that we owed him an explanation.

Ghostbusters came out July 11, 2016, but before it had even hit the movie theaters it had been...

Some longtime Twitter users are resisting Elon Musk‘s attempt to make X happen. According to a survey conducted by The Harris Poll and AdAge‘s research division, 69% of U.S. X users are still calling the platform by its old name and are still referring to its posts as “tweets.”

The Harris Poll and AdAge found that X users are mostly aware of the platform’s rebrand, even if they’re not on board with the change just yet. Of the 1,047 adults surveyed for the report, 79% were aware of the Twitter-to-x shake-up, but only 31% are committing to the new name themselves.

Several factors are making it difficult for X users to accept Musk’s rebrand. AdAge notes that the letter X, which represents closed applications, drug use, and unknown math variables, carries negative connotations.

Another issue is that X users aren’t sure what to call tweets anymore. Musk...

New Delhi, Sep 7 (Ians) Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk fired former Indian-origin Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal because he was not “a fire-breathing dragon” which the social network wanted in order to thrive, according to a new biography of one of the richest billionaires on Earth.

American author-journalist Walter Isaacson has written the book named ‘Elon Musk’ which is “an intimate story of the most fascinating and controversial innovator of our era — a rule-breaking visionary who helped to lead the world into the era of electric vehicles, private space exploration, and artificial intelligence”.

According to excerpts published by the Wall Street Journal, Musk was quite opinionated about Agrawal.

“He is a really nice guy, but managers should not aim to be liked. What Twitter needs is a fire-breathing dragon, and Parag is not that,” he is quoted as saying in Isaacson’s book.

In October last year as he acquired Twitter for $44 billion,...

San Francisco, Aug 30 (Ians) Elon Musk-run X (formerly Twitter) has announced that it will allow US political candidates and parties advertise on the platform ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

“Building on our commitment to free expression, we are also going to allow political advertising. Starting in the US, we’ll continue to apply specific policies to paid-for promoted political posts,” X said in a blogpost on Tuesday.

The policies will include “prohibiting the promotion of false or misleading content, including false or misleading information intended to undermine public confidence in an election, while seeking to preserve free and open political discourse”.

Political ads were first banned on Twitter in 2019, after then-ceo Jack Dorsey argued that political message reach should be earned, not bought. Earlier this year, the company relaxed restrictions on “caused-based” ads, citing the importance of encouraging “public conversation around important

topics”.

Moreover, the company said that it...

X, formerly known as Twitter, said it will start accepting political ads (for the first time since 2019) as the rebranded social media platform owned by Elon Musk promised transparency and “robust screening processes.”

“Building on our commitment to free expression, we are also going to allow political advertising,” said a blog post today by X Safety called ‘Supporting people’s right to accurate and safe political discourse on X’ that outlined its plans.

“Starting in the U.S., we’ll continue to apply specific policies to paid-for promoted political posts. This will include prohibiting the promotion of false or misleading content, including false or misleading information intended to undermine public confidence in an election, while seeking to preserve free and open political discourse. We’ll also provide a global advertising transparency center so that everyone can review political posts being promoted on X, in addition to robust screening processes to...

As Elon Musk continues to ring in sweeping changes at X, the exodus from the platform formerly known as Twitter is reshaping the social web. Decentralized platform Bluesky experienced a sudden surge of registrations after Musk announced that X’s blocking feature will be relegated to direct messages.

Currently, X users can use the block to prevent specific accounts from following them, viewing their tweets, or contacting them directly. In a recent spate of posts, Musk said that blocking users “makes no sense.” He plans to restrict the block to DMs moving forward.

It’s not the first time Musk has shared his thoughts about blocking users. Though he is adamant that the anti-harassment feature will be limited on X, he could expand the related “mute” option. Muted users cannot see posts from the person who muted them. A key difference between the two forms of moderation is that muted...

On Friday, Elon Musk appeared to announce plans to remove the block feature from X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. A number of users responded, including conservative actor James Woods, who said he would likely leave the platform entirely if the feature is taken away. Musk was quick to fire back at Woods’ claim and tweeted back, “Then delete your account.”

Then delete your account

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 20, 2023

Woods defended his position, replying to one X user that he believes removing the block feature will make Musk’s X no different from “Jack Dorsey’s horrid Twitter.”

He continued, “Musk, whom I once championed, is only doing this to protect his advertisers anyway. Users of X are mere pawns to turn the site into an electronic shopping mall. The man I thought was a defender of free speech is just another greedy capitalist. Disappointing, but not surprising.”

This is a huge mistake.

New Delhi, Aug 19 (Ians) Elon Musk has said that the block feature on X (formerly Twitter) is being removed and users will not be able to block others except in direct messages (DMs), a move that left several users angry.

Block restricts fellow users from interacting with, viewing and following an account.

The ‘Mute’ feature will still remain on the social media platform, said Musk.

“Block is going to be deleted as a ‘feature’, except for DMs,” the tech billionaire told a follower.

“It makes no sense,” he added.

In June, Musk had said that Twitter should remove blocking in favour of “a stronger form of mute”.

He always complained about mass blocking campaigns against users who subscribe to Twitter Blue.

Regarded as a safety feature by several users, the suggestion to remove the Block feature also saw backlash from concerned users.

“In my opinion it’s worth having. Unfortunately trolls and spammers come out.

Threads may not be the “Twitter killer” Meta wants it to be. After reaching 30 million users during its first 24 hours of activity, Threads’ momentum has slowed down. According to a Time article, the number of daily active users (DAUs) on Threads has dropped by 80% since the platform’s peak.

The Time report claims that Threads reached 50 million DAUs on Android devices shortly after its ballyhooed launch. A little more than a month later, about 10 million DAUs are still visiting the Twitter-style app on Android, according to data from Similarweb.

Figures provided by Sensor Tower show a similar decline in Threads’ engagement. The average user is spending about 2.4 minutes per day on the app — another 80% dip from the X rival’s peak.

Threads seemed as if it could pose a serious challenge to Elon Musk‘s social empire when it launched in July. It only took a few hours for MrBeast...

San Francisco, Aug 18 (Ians) Former Twitter Co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey has deleted his Instagram account, and in response, Elon Musk reacted with a fire emoji.

The @jack handle on Instagram is now up for grabs as Dorsey, now Block CEO, announced he has deleted his Instagram account.

“Deleted my Instagram account after 12 years. was one of the first 10 accounts I believe, and one of the first angel investors,” Dorsey posted on X.

To this, Musk replied with the fire emoji.

When a user asked, “do you have a Facebook?” Dorsey replied: “No. Or WhatsApp” “clear eyes, meta free, can’t lose.”

In response to another post asking about the reasons for the decision, Block CEO said: “All the reasons are too meta to be interesting.”

Also, when a user said that “let’s be honest WhatsApp is king,” Dorsey replied: “Compromised.”

“Kevin (Systrom) was our intern at Odeo. When they were sold to Fb,...

New Delhi, Aug 18 (Ians) Former Twitter Co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey has deleted his Instagram account, as Meta Founder Mark Zuckerberg and X (formerly Twitter) owner Elon Musk are engaged in a fierce social media battle.

The @jack handle on Instagram is now up for grabs and Dorsey, now Block CEO, announced he has deleted his Instagram account.

“I deleted my Instagram account. Don’t know why it took me so long. I think I was in the first 10 accounts on the platform, and one of the first angel investors,” Dorsey posted on the decentralised social media platform called Nostr.

“Kevin (Systrom) was our intern at Odeo. When they were sold to Fb, I stopped using it. Will be interesting to see what happens with the @name,” Dorsey added.

Systrom co-founded Instagram, along with Mike Krieger. He resigned as the CEO of Instagram on September 24, 2018.

Meta (then Facebook) had bought...

Big changes are coming to Bluesky. The alternative to Twitter/X is moving beyond its custom recommendation algorithms by rolling out a default Discover feed that resembles TikTok’s For You Page.

Bluesky, which is backed by Jack Dorsey and other longtime Twitter execs, aims to provide a more customized experience than X. The app’s bread-and-butter is its decentralized structure, which allows users to build and share their own themed feeds. The new Discover page, which replaces a preexisting product named What’s Hot, pulls each user’s feeds together on a central hub. As a blog post from Bluesky explains, Discover is a mix of trending posts, updates from your follows, and content that exists “near your social graph.”

In an era when some social networks are sparring with users over frustrating algorithmic adjustments, Bluesky is committing to its core theme of user choice. “If you don’t like our new Discover feed,...

San Francisco, July 28 (Ians) Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey-backed Bluesky has announced that it is replacing the ‘What’s Hot’ feed with a new ‘Discover’ feed.

The new Discover feed is a more complex feed that will evolve over time, the company said in a blogpost on Thursday.

Unlike the What’s Hot feed, the new feed will be customised for what users like to see, while still giving them a view into what’s trending in the network.

“The initial version of ‘Discover’ mixes in a global view of what’s trending in the network with posts from accounts you follow and posts from accounts near your social graph,” the platform said.

The company will keep improving the algorithm, with the goal of making a feed full of interesting content that refreshes often and considers users’ interests.

“What’s new is our focus on algorithmic choice — letting you unpin feeds you don’t like,...

New Delhi, July 23 (Ians) The very first tweet of Jack Dorsey, whose non-fungible token (Nft) was sold for a whopping $2.9 million in 2021, now has a paltry price of less than $2,000.

Iranian-born crypto entrepreneur Sina Estavi bought Twitter founder Dorsey’s first-ever tweet that read “Just setting up my twttr” as an Nft for $2.9 million.

He listed the Nft for sale again at $48 million in April 2022.

“I decided to sell this Nft (the world’s first ever tweet) and donate 50 per cent of the proceeds ($25 million or more) to the charity,” he had posted on Twitter.

However, the auction closed, with just seven total offers ranging from 0.09 Eth ($277) to 0.0019 Eth (almost $6).

At the moment, the best price for Dorsey’s first tweet Nft is just under $2,000, though its owner has said he is not going to sell this Nft.

Estavi’s crypto ventures Bridge Oracle and CryptoLand collapsed following his arrest...