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Twitter On Lock Out After Mass Resignation Exodus; Operations At Risk

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Hundreds of Twitter’s remaining employees have reportedly resigned ahead of Elon Musk’s “extremely hardcore” cultural reset of the company. After Musk gave an ultimatum to his employees to either commit to the company’s new “hardcore” work environment or leave, many more workers declined to sign on than he expected, potentially putting Twitter’s operations at risk, according to Bloomberg sources, as well as internal Slack messages seen by The Verge and employee tweets.

Elon Musk Demands Commitment To “Extremely Hardcore” Work From Remaining Twitter Staff

On Thursday afternoon, so many employees decided to take severance that it created a cloud of confusion over which people should still have access to company property. According to a memo seen by Bloomberg and reports from Platformer’s Zoe Schiffer, Twitter closed its offices until Monday; urging employees to “please continue to comply with company policy by refraining from discussing confidential information on social media, with the press or elsewhere.”

According to Bloomberg, in the final hours before his deadline, Musk tried to convince people to stay. Key staff were brought into meetings as the Thursday evening deadline neared to hear pitches on the social network’s future, according to people familiar with the matter. Musk, who had earlier said he was strictly against remote work, also sent a follow-up email Thursday softening his tone.

“All that is required for approval is that your manager takes responsibility for ensuring that you are making an excellent contribution,” he wrote, adding that staffers should have in-person meetings with their colleagues not less than once per month.

Despite the ultimatum, no Twitter employees have been deactivated — even those who’ve publicly resigned, the Platformer also reported, adding that “Musk and his team only collected the list of “yes’s” — employees who said they want to be part of Twitter 2.0. They’re still trying to track who is out.”

Elon’s attempt to ease the terms of the ultimatum wasn’t enough, and Twitter’s internal communications channels filled with employees offering a salute emoji, which has become a symbol for departing the company. Former staff tweeted the salute publicly, too, along with their internal Slack messages.

Some employees who were departing speculated that so many were leaving, along with their knowledge of how the product works, that the social network may have trouble fixing problems or updating systems during its normal operations, according to people familiar with the matter. Indeed, starting around 4pm ET or around the time of the resignation wave, Down Detector has observed a surge in Twitter outages.

Source DownDetector

Adding to the complexity of Musk’s attempt to overhaul the company, there have been reports that the designers leading Musk’s Blue verified project have also quot, along with the lead web engineer. Furthermore, Many Twitter employees who maintained critical infrastructure have resigned.

As reported earlier, Musk on Wednesday had asked employees to formally state whether they were willing to keep working at the company – a commitment that would include “working long hours at high intensity.” Employees had until 5 p.m. Eastern time Thursday to fill out a Google form.

The form included just one possible response: “Yes.” Anyone who failed to accept the form by the deadline was told they would be out of the company with three months severance.

“I’m not pressing the button,” one departing employee posted in Slack according to The Verge. “My watch ends with Twitter 1.0. I do not wish to be part of Twitter 2.0.”

The ultimatum came less than two weeks after he laid off 50% of Twitter’s workforce, or roughly 3,700 employees. Many Twitter workers consulted lawyers this week to determine what to do. The form included almost no details about the severance packages, and it was not immediately clear whether employees would receive legal protections that would allow them to keep vesting stock awards or maintain insurance coverage.

Twitter had roughly 2,900 remaining employees before the deadline Thursday. Remaining and departing Twitter employees told The Verge that, given the scale of the resignations this week, they expect the platform to start breaking soon. One said that they’ve watched “legendary engineers” and others they look up to leave one by one.

“It feels like all the people who made this place incredible are leaving,” the Twitter staffer said. “It will be extremely hard for Twitter to recover from here, no matter how hardcore the people who remain try to be.”

Multiple “critical” engineering teams inside Twitter have now either completely or near-completely resigned, said another employee who requested anonymity to speak without Musk’s permission. For example, the team that maintains Twitter’s core system libraries that every engineer at the company uses is gone after Thursday. “You cannot run Twitter without this team,” the employee said.

Departing employees also tweeted their decisions to leave:

While those departing the company may think it’s a jobseeker’s market they may be surprised at how rapidly the Silicon Valley job market has turned against them.


Meanwhile, Twitter recruiters have already started reaching out to outside engineers to see if they want to join “Twitter 2.0 – an Elon company,” according to a message sent to one recruit that was seen by The Verge.

“I have worked here at Twitter for over 11 years,” one employee wrote in Twitter’s Slack as the salute emojis poured in Thursday. “Back in July, I was the 27th most tenured employee at the company. Now I’m the 15th.”

Meanwhile, Musk reportedly brought back leaders who had departed, either as part of his own layoffs or through resignation, to convince others to stay, A Bloomberg source said. One returning leader is Ella Irwin, who will manage employees in Trust and Safety.

Musk later sent a follow-up email on remote work, according to a screenshot viewed by Bloomberg. “Any manager who falsely claims that someone reporting to them is doing excellent work or that a given role is essential, whether remote or not, will be exited from the company.”

This post was originally published at Zero Hedge

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EU Chief Boasts About Vaccine Passports, Calls For More Global Digital Collaboration – Paving The Way For Digital IDs

Von der Leyen audaciously proclaimed our collective future to be digital.

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Ken Macon | Reclaim the Net

Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

With an ominous call for increased global collaboration and centralization, European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen at a G20 Summit session, dubbed “One Future,” today appealed for an international regulatory body for Artificial Intelligence and digital ID systems similar to coronavirus vaccine passports.

Von der Leyen audaciously proclaimed our collective future to be digital, hence the implied necessity for global entities to draw boundaries and enforce regulations.

Von der Leyen, in her position as the EU Commission President, touched on AI and the digital landscape in her address. She acknowledged the potential dangers and gargantuan opportunities linked with advancing AI technology and emphasized the importance of channeling such explosive technology.

“Today I want to focus on AI and digital infrastructure. As it has been described, AI has risks but also offers tremendous opportunities. The crucial question is how to harness a rapidly changing technology.

“In the EU, in 2020, we presented the first-ever law on artificial intelligence. We want to facilitate innovation while building trust. But we need more. What the world does now will shape our future. I believe that Europe — and its partners — should develop a new global framework for AI risks,” von der Leyen said.

Von der Leyen praised the European Union’s move in 2020 to introduce the first legal framework on AI, a step taken with the intent of fostering innovation alongside trust. However, she insisted that this wasn’t sufficient. She suggested a multinational adoption of a coping mechanism for managing AI risks.

The EU Chief also stressed that globally accepted standards must be created under the purview of the United Nations, akin to their Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Humanity stood to benefit, she argued, if an international authority could clarify the risks and rewards related to AI, akin to the IPCC for climate concerns.

Concurrently, von der Leyen championed the concept of digital public infrastructure similar to the coronavirus passport system – a system developed by the EU as a response to the Covid saga. The World Health Organization embraced it with open arms as a global standard for combating health threats.

“Many of you are familiar with the COVID-19 digital certificate. The EU developed it for itself. The model was so functional and so trusted that 51 countries on 4 continents adopted it for free. Today, the WHO uses it as a global standard to facilitate mobility in times of health threats,” von der Leyen continued.

Alarmingly, von der Leyen praised the EU’s strides towards a bloc-wide digital identity app capable of storing a citizen’s personal information, including credit cards, driver’s license, and passport data.

These developments ring alarm bells for individuals and nations valuing free speech and privacy.

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Paper straws cause cancer.

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A new study has found that paper straws contain cancer-causing chemicals and are harmful to humans, wildlife and the environment.

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Report: Biden Wanted To Partner With Communist Chinese App To Spy On Americans

The federal government wanted to become the Western arm of Tik Tok’s surveillance network

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Steve Watson

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A Forbes report has revealed that the Biden Administration attempted to forge a contractual agreement with TikTok that would have allowed the government to control features of the Chinese app to spy on Americans.

Forbes managed to get hold of a draft of the contract between TikTok and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) that would have essentially allowed multiple US agencies to access the app’s records and operations in exchange for allowing it to continue operating in the U.S.

The report notes that the draft agreement dating from mid 2022 would have given the Department of Justice and Department of Defense direct access to TikTok users’ activities, allowing for searches of TikTok’s US headquarters, files, and servers without providing any notice.

The U.S. government would have basically been using the exact same methods via TikTok that the Communist Party in China uses to monitor its citizens.

While it has not confirmed the details of the report, TikTok issued a statement noting that it has been working with CFIUS for an extended period of time.

“As has been widely reported, we’ve been working with CFIUS for well over a year to implement a national security agreement and have invested significant resources in implementing a firewall to isolate US user data,” the statement noted.

It continued, “Today, all new protected US user data is stored in the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure in the US with tightly controlled and monitored gateways. We are doing more than any peer company to safeguard US national security interests.”

The report comes in the wake of a ruling by a federal judge in July that the Biden administration acted like an “Orwellian Ministry Of Truth” By working in conjunction with big tech platforms to censor opinions it didn’t like during the Covid pandemic.

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