Mediagazer: CNBC and Bloomberg ran headlines saying Elon Musk cut Twitter staff, based on two people with boxes outside the company's office; one used a meme as his name (Alex Heath/The Verge)

1:05 AM ET, October 30, 2022

Top News:

Mike Masnick / Techdirt:

Among tech companies, Twitter has been the biggest defender of online free speech, globally; fired head of legal and policy Vijaya Gadde drove much of that work — Last night, Elon Musk closed his on-again, off-again, on-again deal to buy Twitter, and his very first order of business was to fire a bunch of top executives.

CNBC:

General Motors suspends its paid advertising on Twitter as the car company evaluates the “direction of the platform under their new ownership” — - General Motors is suspending its advertising on Twitter following Elon Musk's takeover of the social media platform.

Washington Post:

Elon Musk takes over Twitter and fires several top executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, and legal policy, trust, and safety head Vijaya Gadde — Musk's $44 billion deal to acquire the social media company closed on Thursday night. — SAN FRANCISCO — Elon Musk became …

Discussion: The Information, @elonmusk, Platformer, @nedsegal, @jackalltogether, CNN, @whey_standard, New York Times, @thierrybreton, New York Times, CNBC, Ed Zitron's Where's Your Ed At, Rolling Stone, The Planet, Axios, The Daily Beast, @mattzeitlin, The Guardian, The Verge, Bloomberg, The Hill, Engadget, Hmm That's Interesting, The Daily Wire, MIT Technology Review, The Wrap, Killer NewsTv, @olganyc1211, Wall Street Journal, @lukewearechange, @nigel_farage, @mikegalsworthy, @tedcruz, @taylorlorenz, @mmasnick, @ariehkovler, Fortune, The Week, Slate, Media Matters for America, The Post Millennial, New York Magazine, The A.V. Club, Vanity Fair, Reason, The Rooster, Wall Street Journal, Insider, @_lokeshsharma, @dellcam, @mattzeitlin, @megbasham, Jezebel, @geoffreyvs, @penamerica, @goldman, @jason_kint, @kaalateetham, @quinncy, @tinch, @megan, @danprimack, @karaswisher, @carnage4life, @nickbilton, @film_girl, Protocol, @ericrweinstein, TechCrunch, The Addition, @jeffjarvis, Observer, @donwinslow, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Wired, Complete Music Update and Gizmodo, more at Techmeme »

Alex Heath / The Verge:

CNBC and Bloomberg ran headlines saying Elon Musk cut Twitter staff, based on two people with boxes outside the company's office; one used a meme as his name — In videos circulating on Twitter Friday morning, two men carrying boxes are seen standing near the entrance to Twitter's San Francisco building …

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Elon Musk pens an open letter to calm Twitter advertisers, arguing his goal is not “to make more money” and the service “cannot become a free-for-all hellscape” — Mega-billionaire Elon Musk, nearing the finish line in his rocky takeover of Twitter …

Eli Pariser / Wired:

Elon Musk's ad-dependent Twitter isn't the global town square democracies need; we need an overlapping ecosystem of smaller publicly owned digital social spaces — This is a moment to choose a different path, inspired by the lessons of thriving offline communities.

Discussion: @elipariser, @nxthompson, @planetaryinc, @baekdal, @deeptidoshi, @chrisstoecker, @progressntwrk, @asbruckman, @esgarchitect, @josephmenn, @wearenew_public, The Information and The Daily Wire

Jonathan M. Katz / The Racket:

Erik Wemple's reassessment of The New York Times firing James Bennet over the Tom Cotton op-ed is part of an effort to rewrite the 2020 civil rights protests — Sometimes, history changes unexpectedly toward the good. And then, powerful people with something to lose try to change it back.

Discussion: @jessesingal, @sivavaid, @sivavaid, @katzonearth and @jayrosen_nyu

Erik Wemple / Washington Post:

A reassessment of The New York Times' apology and James Bennet's firing after Sen. Tom Cotton's op-ed: Bennet was right and Publisher A.G. Sulzberger was wrong — Controversy over an op-ed by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) consumed the New York Times in June 2020 and claimed the job of then-editorial page editor James Bennet.

Paul Farhi / Washington Post:

A US federal district court judge orders Starbucks union organizers in western New York to give Starbucks their messages to journalists; the union has appealed — A federal judge has ordered the organization behind a unionization drive at Starbucks stores in western New York to turn …

Discussion: @zackkanter, @thekimkavin, @mel_buer, @joshuahol, @davidkaib, @msainat1, @jordanzakarin, @jamieson, @ricsanchez and @greenhousenyt

Pew Research Center:

Survey: 50% of US 18-29-year-olds say they have some or a lot of trust in information from social media, versus 56% who say the same about national news outlets — Americans have long been much more likely to trust information from local and national news organizations than information on social media sites.

Discussion: @serwewx, @gottfriedjeff and The Hill

Liz Robbins / Poynter:

A look at the “piecemeal” coverage of immigrant communities in North Carolina, where, out of nearly 300 media outlets, three reporters are dedicated to the beat — New research from Define American reveals insufficiencies in how news outlets report on such communities and how important it is to improve

Discussion: @bylizrobbins and @poynter

Bloomberg:

A book excerpt details Netflix's shift from DVDs and tensions with HBO, which took a hard line on streaming rights, leading Netflix to make its own content — Jeffrey Bewkes scanned his mind, searching for the perfect war metaphor. — It was December 2010.

Discussion: @film_girl, @jonnyrmcfarlane and @lucas_shaw, more at Techmeme »

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Financial Times:
eMarketer: US advertisers are on track to spend $65.3B on Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks in 2022, up 3.6% YoY, which is ~10x slower than in 2021

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Pjotr Sauer / The Guardian:
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Discussion: Politico, Grid News, Washington Post and Insider

Martin Pengelly / The Guardian:
Over 500 authors, publishers, and others in the US literary community sign an open letter to Penguin Random House protesting Amy Coney Barrett's $2M book deal

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Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:
Spotify contracts show podcasters using SPAN, the company's programmatic ad market, split revenue 50/50; Spotify gives no promise that competitive ads won't run

Discussion: Simon Owens's Media Newsletter and 9to5Mac

Kaya Yurieff / The Information:
Twitter confirms the company shut down its Ticketed Spaces test indefinitely before Elon Musk's takeover

Discussion: Engadget

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
In an email to staff, Chris Licht said CNN will stop buying documentary films and original TV series, and instead explore creating a long-form content studio

Discussion: Variety, Puck, Mediaite, @jamesjonesfilm, @maxkennerly, @fawfulfan, @isobelyeung, @thor_benson, @jbflint, @scottfeinberg, @will_doran, @elwasson, The A.V. Club, The Wrap, IndieWire and The Hollywood Reporter

Earlier Picks:

Ashley King / Digital Music News:
Music streaming service LiveOne and its subsidiary Slacker say a ruling ordering them to pay SoundExchange nearly $10M in royalties could bankrupt the company

Daniel Finn / The Wire:
Q&A with Tom Mills, the author of The BBC: Myth of a Public Service, on the BBC's start in 1922, government relationships, rethinking the license fee, and more

David Gutman / The Seattle Times:
A Washington judge fines Meta $24.66M, the maximum possible amount, after finding the company intentionally violated campaign finance disclosure laws 822 times

Discussion: The Register, @evelyndouek, @katieharbath and @jvagle

Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Apple's Services revenue grew 4.98% YoY to $19.19B vs. $20.1B expected in Q4; fiscal year Services growth was above 14%, slower than 2021's 16% and 2020's 27%

Discussion: Reuters, How They Make Money, CNET, Axios, 9to5Mac, @carnage4life, @samifathi_, El País, @jsnell and @claireatki

The Verge:
Spotify updates its iOS app to remove audiobook purchasing instructions, replaced with a message saying “it's not ideal”, to comply with Apple's App Store rules

Discussion: Insider and @chrismessina

Defector:
Defector reports $3.8M in annual revenue, up from $3.2M in 2021, $3.7M in expenses, up from $3M in 2021, and 38K subscribers, who generated 95% of its revenue

Discussion: Nieman Lab, @film_girl and @defectormedia

From Techmeme:

Wall Street Journal:
The FTC bans noncompete clauses that restrict job switching, the first time in 50+ years that the FTC has issued a regulation mandating an economy-wide change

Victoria Song / The Verge:
Meta rolls out multimodal AI in early access for the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses, mainly to help identify objects, translate signs, and write Instagram captions

Ming-Chi Kuo:
Sources: Apple cut 2024 Vision Pro shipments to 400K-450K units, vs. a 700K+ market consensus, and US demand has “fallen sharply beyond expectations”

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