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Elizabeth Lopatto / The Verge:
Twitter reactivates its gray “Official” badge for select brands and outlets, after a wave of impersonations, hoaxing, and other chaos by purchased blue checks — Okay, so Twitter broke its own verification system by making the blue check — previously a signal that the account …
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Bloomberg:
Sources: Twitter's head of ad sales Robin Wheeler resigned, but Musk convinced her to stay; head of Trust & Safety Yoel Roth confirmed his resignation — Elon Musk, in his first address to Twitter Inc. employees since purchasing the company for $44 billion, said that bankruptcy …
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Washington Post:
Internal note: Twitter temporarily disabled signing up for Twitter Blue to “help address impersonation issues” affecting brands, politicians, and celebrities — Twitter accounts impersonating celebrities and politicians spread on the site after the company rolled out paid check marks.
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Alex Sherman / CNBC:
Internal memo: Disney plans to institute a targeted hiring freeze except for “the most critical, business-driving positions” and make “some staff reductions” — KEY POINTS — Disney plans to freeze hiring and cut some jobs, according to an internal memo.
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Garett Sloane / Ad Age:
NBCUniversal Ad and Partnerships Chair Linda Yaccarino says “there is no surrogate for Twitter” and Elon Musk can learn advertising: “I think we can teach him” — Major media exec says ‘there is no surrogate for Twitter’ and she is not ready to bet against its new owner
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Mia Sato / The Verge:
Memo: Omnicom, one of the world's biggest ad firms, recommends its clients like Apple, PepsiCo, and others “pause activity on Twitter”, citing brand safety risk — Omnicom, one of the world's biggest ad firms, representing brands like McDonald's, Apple, and Pepsico …
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The New York Times Company:
The New York Times hires Axios national political reporter Jonathan Swan for its politics team, describing him as “a gifted, dogged, and high-impact reporter” — The political reporter is joining the Politics team at The Times. Read more in this note from Politics Editor David Halbfinger …
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Jack Queen / Reuters:
A Connecticut judge orders Alex Jones to pay $473M in punitive damages on top of the nearly $1B in defamation claims that a jury awarded to Sandy Hook parents — Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones must pay $473 million in punitive damages on top of a nearly $1 billion verdict handed down last month …
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Margaret Sullivan / Media Maelstrom:
Margaret Sullivan, Washington Post's former media critic, launches Media Maelstrom, a Substack newsletter about “what's wrong with the press and how to fix it” — Coming soon This is Media Maelstrom, a newsletter about what's wrong with the press and how to fix it.
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Jason Del Rey / Vox:
How Amazon's shopping experience, saturated with ads, impacts sellers and consumers, as its 2022 ad revenue surpassed revenue from Prime and other subscriptions — Inside the under-the-radar business that makes more money than Amazon Prime. — Type any random product into Amazon's search bar and look closely at the results.
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Jennifer Maas / Variety:
An interview with HBO Max Head of Original Content Sarah Aubrey on her mandate to grow Warner Bros. Discovery IP, canceling originals, and figuring out ratings — Sarah Aubrey definitely did not sign up for this. — In early 2015, when she ended her producing partnership with filmmaker Peter Berg …
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Louise Matsakis / Semafor:
TikTok quietly started testing its livestreaming e-commerce feature TikTok Shop in the US this week; source: TikTok invited select US businesses to participate — TikTok quietly entered the United States e-commerce market this week, where it will compete with Amazon and other retail giants during the coming holiday shopping season.