France demands Twitter ensure
it can preserve 'safe environment'
PARIS (Reuters) - French regulator Arcom said on Monday it had sent a letter to Twitter asking it to ensure by Nov. 24 that it can meet its legal obligation to guarantee transparent information despite a series of drastic job cuts.
Arcom, the regulatory authority for audiovisual and digital communication, said that following Twitter's takeover by Elon Musk, Twitter had announced its decision to drastically reduce its workforce by firing half of its employees and terminating the contracts of several thousand contract workers.
"Arcom would like to express its deep concern about the direct consequences of such decisions on Twitter's ability to maintain a safe environment for its users," Arcom president Roch-Olivier Maistre said in a letter to Twitter, published by Arcom.
The regulator said that Twitter is one of the widely used online platforms in France, which raises systemic issues regarding democratic debate and public safety.
"In this respect, Twitter is subject in particular to obligations, which Arcom is responsible for ensuring are properly applied," the regulator said.
It added that Twitter must fight against the manipulation of information within the framework of a 2018 law which imposes on it a duty of cooperation towards Arcom.
Arcom said it had asked Twitter in writing to confirm that it is able to face its legal obligations, in particular to ensure the effective moderation of illegal or harmful content and practices while guaranteeing respect for users’ rights, including their freedom of expression.
It said it wanted Twitter to respond by Nov. 24 at the latest.
(Reporting by Mathieu Rosemain and Geert De Clercq; Editing by Chris Reese, William Maclean)
By STEPHEN GROVES
November 19, 2022
The Twitter splash page is seen on a digital device, Monday, April 25, 2022, in San Diego. On Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022, Twitter continued to bleed engineers and other workers after new owner Elon Musk gave them a choice to pledge to “hardcore” work or resign with severance pay.
The Twitter splash page is seen on a digital device, Monday, April 25, 2022, in San Diego. On Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022, Twitter continued to bleed engineers and other workers after new owner Elon Musk gave them a choice to pledge to “hardcore” work or resign with severance pay.
(AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)
As Twitter became knotted with parody accounts and turmoil, Rachel Terlep, who runs an account for the Washington State Department of Natural Resources that intersperses cheeky banter with wildfire and weather warnings, watched with equal parts trepidation and fascination.
“It kind of feels like a supernova moment right now — a big, bright flash before it all goes away,” she said.
So the department stepped into the fray, taking advantage of the moment with some of its signature humor. “Update: The Twitter wildfire is 44 billion acres and 0% contained,” they posted.
But under the joke, it linked to a thread that gave helpful tips about how to review a handle to see if it’s real. Some of the suggestions included looking at how old the account is and checking to see if the public safety agency’s website links to the profile.
It underscored the challenge for the people tasked with getting public safety information out to communities. Now, they don’t only have to get information out quickly. On the new Twitter, they also have to convince people they are actually the authorities.
Government agencies, especially those tasked with sending messages during emergencies, have embraced Twitter for its efficiency and scope. Getting accurate information from authorities during disasters is often a matter of life or death. For example, the first reports this week of a deadly shooting at the University of Virginia came from the college’s Twitter accounts that urged students to shelter in place.
As Twitter became knotted with parody accounts and turmoil, Rachel Terlep, who runs an account for the Washington State Department of Natural Resources that intersperses cheeky banter with wildfire and weather warnings, watched with equal parts trepidation and fascination.
“It kind of feels like a supernova moment right now — a big, bright flash before it all goes away,” she said.
So the department stepped into the fray, taking advantage of the moment with some of its signature humor. “Update: The Twitter wildfire is 44 billion acres and 0% contained,” they posted.
But under the joke, it linked to a thread that gave helpful tips about how to review a handle to see if it’s real. Some of the suggestions included looking at how old the account is and checking to see if the public safety agency’s website links to the profile.
It underscored the challenge for the people tasked with getting public safety information out to communities. Now, they don’t only have to get information out quickly. On the new Twitter, they also have to convince people they are actually the authorities.
Government agencies, especially those tasked with sending messages during emergencies, have embraced Twitter for its efficiency and scope. Getting accurate information from authorities during disasters is often a matter of life or death. For example, the first reports this week of a deadly shooting at the University of Virginia came from the college’s Twitter accounts that urged students to shelter in place.
Disasters also provide fertile ground for false information to spread online. Researchers like Jun Zhuang, a professor at the University of Buffalo who studies how false information spreads during natural disasters, say emergencies create a “perfect storm” for rumors, but that government accounts have also played a crucial role in batting them down.
During Hurricane Harvey in 2017, for example, an online rumor spread that officials were checking people’s immigration status at storm shelters, potentially dissuading people from seeking safety there. However, crisis communication researchers have also found that the city’s mayor reassured residents and helped the community pull together with a constant stream of Twitter messages.
Amid the slew of changes at one of the world’s most influential social media platforms, the public information officers who operate government Twitter accounts are cautiously waiting out the turmoil and urging the public to verify that it really is their accounts appearing on timelines. While it’s an issue they’ve always had to contend with, it’s especially worrisome now as a proliferation of brand impersonations spreads across the platform and changes to verification take hold.
Darren Noak, who helps run an account for Austin-Travis County emergency medical services in Texas, said Twitter’s blue checkmark has often been discussed among those who operate government Twitter accounts. The badge — up until a week ago — indicated an account was verified as a government entity, corporation, celebrity or journalist.
The AP reviewed dozens of government agencies responsible for responding to emergencies from the county to the national level, and none had received an official label — denoted by a gray checkmark — by Friday. Spoof accounts are a concern, Noak said, because they create “a real pain and a headache, especially in times of crisis and emergency.”
Government accounts have long been a target of copycats. Fairfax County in Virginia had to quash fake school closures tweeted from a fraudulent account during a 2014 winter storm. And both the state of North Carolina and its city of Greensboro have had to compete with accounts appearing to speak for their governments.
It has become even harder in recent days to verify that an account is authentic.
In the span of a week, Twitter granted gray checkmark badges to official government accounts — then rescinded them. It next allowed users to receive a blue checkmark through its $8 subscription services — then halted that offering after it spawned an infestation of imposter accounts. Over the weekend, Twitter laid off outsourced moderators who enforced rules against harmful content, further gutting its guardrails against misinformation.
Twitter hasn’t responded to media requests for information since Musk took over, but its support account has posted: “To combat impersonation, we’ve added an ‘Official’ label to some accounts.”
Twitter’s changes could be deadly, warned Juliette Kayyem, a former homeland security adviser at the state and national levels who now teaches at Harvard’s Kennedy School.
Twitter has become a go-to source of localized information in emergencies, she said. But imposter accounts could introduce a new level of misinformation — or disinformation when people intentionally try to cause harm — in urgent situations. When instructing the public how to respond, the right instructions — such as sheltering in place or evacuating a certain area — can be a matter of life or death.
“In a disaster where time is limited, the greatest way to limit harm is to provide accurate and timely information to communities about what they should do,” Kayyem said. “Allowing others to claim expertise — it will cost lives.”
In the past, Kayyem had worked with Twitter to research how government agencies can communicate in emergencies. She said the leadership at Twitter’s trust and safety department “thought long and hard” about its public service role. But Twitter has lost those high-level leaders responsible for cybersecurity, data privacy and complying with regulations.
Some agencies are pushing audiences to other venues for information.
Local government websites are often the best place to turn for accurate, up-to-date information in emergencies, said April Davis, who works as a public affairs officer and digital media strategist at the Oregon Department of Emergency Management. She, like many others at emergency management agencies, said her agency doesn’t yet plan to change how it engages on Twitter, but also emphasized that it’s not the best place to turn to in emergencies.
“If it goes away, then we’ll migrate to another platform,” said Derrec Becker, chief of public information at the South Carolina Emergency Management Division. “It is not the emergency alert system.”
Twitter accounts for emergency management in Washington, South Carolina and Oregon provide public service information on preparing for disasters and weather alerts. They also tweet about evacuation and shelter orders.
Becker, who has cultivated the agency’s sizeable Twitter following with a playful presence, said emergency alerts broadcast on TV, radio or cell phones are still the go-to methods for urgent warnings.
Shortly after Becker fielded questions from The Associated Press on his agency’s plans Monday, the department tweeted: “Leave Twitter? Disasters are kind of our thing.
”
Twitter risks fraying as engineers exit over Musk upheaval
By FRANK BAJAK
Twitter risks fraying as engineers exit over Musk upheaval
By FRANK BAJAK
November 18, 2022
A receptionist works in the lobby of the building that houses the Twitter office in New York, Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2022. On Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022, Twitter continued to bleed engineers and other workers after new owner Elon Musk gave them a choice to pledge to “hardcore” work or resign with severance pay. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)
Elon Musk’s managerial bomb-throwing at Twitter has so thinned the ranks of software engineers who keep the world’s de-facto public square up and running that industry insiders and programmers who were fired or resigned this week agree: Twitter may soon fray so badly it could actually crash.
Musk ended a very public argument with nearly two dozen coders over his retooling of the microblogging platform earlier this week by ordering them fired. Hundreds of engineers and other workers then quit after he demanded they pledge to “extremely hardcore” work by Thursday evening or resign with severance pay.
The newest departures mean the platform is losing workers just at it gears up for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, which opens Sunday. It’s one of Twitter’s busiest events, when tweet surges heavily stress its systems.
“It does look like he’s going to blow up Twitter,” said Robert Graham, a veteran cybersecurity entrepreneur. “I can’t see how the lights won’t go out at any moment” — although many recently departed Twitter employees predicted a more gradual demise.
Hundreds of employees signaled they were leaving ahead of Thursday’s deadline, posting farewell messages, a salute emoji or other familiar symbols on the company’s internal Slack messaging board, according to employees who still have access. Dozens also took publicly to Twitter to announce their departure.
Earlier in the week, some got so angry at Musk’s perceived recklessness that they took to Twitter to insult the Tesla and Space X CEO. “Kiss my ass, Elon,” one engineer said, adding lipstick marks. She had been fired.
Twitter leadership sent an unsigned email after Thursday’s deadline saying its offices would be closed and employee badge access disabled until Monday. No reason was given, according to two employees who got the email— one who took the severance, one still on payroll. They spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing retribution.
A trusted phalanx of Tesla coders at his side as he ransacked a formerly convivial workspace, Musk didn’t appear bothered.
“The best people are staying, so I’m not super worried,” he tweeted Thursday night. But it soon became clear some crucial programming teams had been thoroughly gutted.
Indicating how strapped he is for programmers, Musk sent all-hands emails Friday summoning “anyone who actually writes software” to his command perch on Twitter’s 10th floor at 2 p.m. — asking that they fly into San Francisco if not local, said the employee who quit Thursday but was still receiving company emails.
After taking over Twitter less than three weeks ago, Musk booted half of the company’s full-time staff of 7,500 and an untold number of contractors responsible for content moderation and other crucial efforts. Then came this week’s ultimatum.
Three engineers who left this week described for The Associated Press why they expect considerable unpleasantness for Twitter’s more than 230 million users now that well over two-thirds of Twitter’s pre-Musk core services engineers are apparently gone. While they don’t anticipate near-term collapse, Twitter could get very rough at the edges — especially if Musk makes major changes without much off-platform testing.
Signs of fraying were evident before Thursday’s mass exit. People reported seeing more spam and scams on their feeds and in their direct messages. Engineers reported dropped tweets. People got strange error messages.
Still, nothing critical has broken. Yet.
“There’s a betting pool for when that happens,” said one of the engineers, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from Musk that could impact their careers and finances.
Another said that if Twitter has been shutting servers and “high volume suddenly comes in, it might start crashing.”
“World Cup is the biggest event for Twitter. That’s the first thing you learn when you onboard at Twitter,” he said.
With the earlier layoffs of curation employees, Twitter’s trending pages were already suffering. The engineering fireworks began Tuesday when Musk announced on Twitter that he had begun shutting down “microservices” he considered unnecessary “bloatware.”
“Less than 20% are actually needed for Twitter to work!” he tweeted.
That drew objections from engineers who told Musk he had no idea what he was talking about.
“Microservices are how most modern large web services organize their code to allow software engineers to work quickly and efficiently,” said Gergely Orosz, author of the Pragmatic Engineer blog and a former Uber programmer. There are scores of such services and each manages a different feature. Instead of testing the removal of microservices in a simulated real-world environment, Musk’s team has apparently been updating Twitter live on everyone’s computers.
And indeed, one microservice briefly broke — the one people use to verify their identity to Twitter via SMS message when they log in. It’s called two-factor authentication.
“You have hit the limit for SMS codes. Try again in 24 hours,” Twitter advised when a reporter tried to download their microblogging history archive. Luckily, the email verification alternative worked.
One of the newly separated Twitter engineers, who had worked in core services, told the AP that engineering team clusters were down from about 15 people pre-Musk — not including team leaders, who were all laid off — to three or four before Thursday’s resignations.
Then more institutional knowledge that can’t be replaced overnight walked out the door.
“Everything could break,” the programmer said.
It takes six months to train someone to work an on-call rotation for some services, the engineers said. Such rotations require programmers to be available at all hours. But if the person on call is unfamiliar with the code base, failures could cascade as they frantically plow through reference manuals.
“If I stayed I would have been on-call constantly with little support for an indeterminate amount of time on several additional complex systems I had no experience in,” tweeted Peter Clowes, an engineer who took the severance.
“Running even relatively boring systems takes people who know where to go when something breaks,” said Blaine Cook, Twitter’s founding engineer, who left in 2008. It’s dangerous to drastically reduce a programming workforce to a skeleton crew without first bulletproofing the code, he said.
“It’s like saying, ‘These firefighters aren’t doing anything. So, we’ll just fire them all.’”
The engineers also worry Musk will shut down tools involved in content moderation and removing illicit material that people upload to Twitter — or that there simply wouldn’t be enough people on staff to run them properly.
Another concern is hackers. When they’ve breached the system in the past, diminishing damage depends on detecting them quickly and kicking them out.
It’s not clear how Musk’s housecleaning at Twitter has affected its cybersecurity team, which suffered a major PR black eye in August when the highly respected security chief fired by the company earlier this year, Peiter Zatko, filed a whistleblower complaint claiming the platform was a cybersecurity shambles.
“So much of the security infrastructure of a large organization like Twitter is in people’s heads,” said Graham, the cybersecurity veteran. “And when they’re gone, you know, it all goes with them.”
___
AP Technology Writer Matt O’Brien contributed to this report.
A receptionist works in the lobby of the building that houses the Twitter office in New York, Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2022. On Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022, Twitter continued to bleed engineers and other workers after new owner Elon Musk gave them a choice to pledge to “hardcore” work or resign with severance pay. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)
Elon Musk’s managerial bomb-throwing at Twitter has so thinned the ranks of software engineers who keep the world’s de-facto public square up and running that industry insiders and programmers who were fired or resigned this week agree: Twitter may soon fray so badly it could actually crash.
Musk ended a very public argument with nearly two dozen coders over his retooling of the microblogging platform earlier this week by ordering them fired. Hundreds of engineers and other workers then quit after he demanded they pledge to “extremely hardcore” work by Thursday evening or resign with severance pay.
The newest departures mean the platform is losing workers just at it gears up for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, which opens Sunday. It’s one of Twitter’s busiest events, when tweet surges heavily stress its systems.
“It does look like he’s going to blow up Twitter,” said Robert Graham, a veteran cybersecurity entrepreneur. “I can’t see how the lights won’t go out at any moment” — although many recently departed Twitter employees predicted a more gradual demise.
Hundreds of employees signaled they were leaving ahead of Thursday’s deadline, posting farewell messages, a salute emoji or other familiar symbols on the company’s internal Slack messaging board, according to employees who still have access. Dozens also took publicly to Twitter to announce their departure.
Earlier in the week, some got so angry at Musk’s perceived recklessness that they took to Twitter to insult the Tesla and Space X CEO. “Kiss my ass, Elon,” one engineer said, adding lipstick marks. She had been fired.
Twitter leadership sent an unsigned email after Thursday’s deadline saying its offices would be closed and employee badge access disabled until Monday. No reason was given, according to two employees who got the email— one who took the severance, one still on payroll. They spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing retribution.
A trusted phalanx of Tesla coders at his side as he ransacked a formerly convivial workspace, Musk didn’t appear bothered.
“The best people are staying, so I’m not super worried,” he tweeted Thursday night. But it soon became clear some crucial programming teams had been thoroughly gutted.
Indicating how strapped he is for programmers, Musk sent all-hands emails Friday summoning “anyone who actually writes software” to his command perch on Twitter’s 10th floor at 2 p.m. — asking that they fly into San Francisco if not local, said the employee who quit Thursday but was still receiving company emails.
After taking over Twitter less than three weeks ago, Musk booted half of the company’s full-time staff of 7,500 and an untold number of contractors responsible for content moderation and other crucial efforts. Then came this week’s ultimatum.
Three engineers who left this week described for The Associated Press why they expect considerable unpleasantness for Twitter’s more than 230 million users now that well over two-thirds of Twitter’s pre-Musk core services engineers are apparently gone. While they don’t anticipate near-term collapse, Twitter could get very rough at the edges — especially if Musk makes major changes without much off-platform testing.
Signs of fraying were evident before Thursday’s mass exit. People reported seeing more spam and scams on their feeds and in their direct messages. Engineers reported dropped tweets. People got strange error messages.
Still, nothing critical has broken. Yet.
“There’s a betting pool for when that happens,” said one of the engineers, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from Musk that could impact their careers and finances.
Another said that if Twitter has been shutting servers and “high volume suddenly comes in, it might start crashing.”
“World Cup is the biggest event for Twitter. That’s the first thing you learn when you onboard at Twitter,” he said.
With the earlier layoffs of curation employees, Twitter’s trending pages were already suffering. The engineering fireworks began Tuesday when Musk announced on Twitter that he had begun shutting down “microservices” he considered unnecessary “bloatware.”
“Less than 20% are actually needed for Twitter to work!” he tweeted.
That drew objections from engineers who told Musk he had no idea what he was talking about.
“Microservices are how most modern large web services organize their code to allow software engineers to work quickly and efficiently,” said Gergely Orosz, author of the Pragmatic Engineer blog and a former Uber programmer. There are scores of such services and each manages a different feature. Instead of testing the removal of microservices in a simulated real-world environment, Musk’s team has apparently been updating Twitter live on everyone’s computers.
And indeed, one microservice briefly broke — the one people use to verify their identity to Twitter via SMS message when they log in. It’s called two-factor authentication.
“You have hit the limit for SMS codes. Try again in 24 hours,” Twitter advised when a reporter tried to download their microblogging history archive. Luckily, the email verification alternative worked.
One of the newly separated Twitter engineers, who had worked in core services, told the AP that engineering team clusters were down from about 15 people pre-Musk — not including team leaders, who were all laid off — to three or four before Thursday’s resignations.
Then more institutional knowledge that can’t be replaced overnight walked out the door.
“Everything could break,” the programmer said.
It takes six months to train someone to work an on-call rotation for some services, the engineers said. Such rotations require programmers to be available at all hours. But if the person on call is unfamiliar with the code base, failures could cascade as they frantically plow through reference manuals.
“If I stayed I would have been on-call constantly with little support for an indeterminate amount of time on several additional complex systems I had no experience in,” tweeted Peter Clowes, an engineer who took the severance.
“Running even relatively boring systems takes people who know where to go when something breaks,” said Blaine Cook, Twitter’s founding engineer, who left in 2008. It’s dangerous to drastically reduce a programming workforce to a skeleton crew without first bulletproofing the code, he said.
“It’s like saying, ‘These firefighters aren’t doing anything. So, we’ll just fire them all.’”
The engineers also worry Musk will shut down tools involved in content moderation and removing illicit material that people upload to Twitter — or that there simply wouldn’t be enough people on staff to run them properly.
Another concern is hackers. When they’ve breached the system in the past, diminishing damage depends on detecting them quickly and kicking them out.
It’s not clear how Musk’s housecleaning at Twitter has affected its cybersecurity team, which suffered a major PR black eye in August when the highly respected security chief fired by the company earlier this year, Peiter Zatko, filed a whistleblower complaint claiming the platform was a cybersecurity shambles.
“So much of the security infrastructure of a large organization like Twitter is in people’s heads,” said Graham, the cybersecurity veteran. “And when they’re gone, you know, it all goes with them.”
___
AP Technology Writer Matt O’Brien contributed to this report.
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