The ongoing Elon Twitter saga: "insert demographic" melts down

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www.telegraph.co.uk

Putin’s Twitter account resurfaces as Russia comes in from the cold

Elon Musk’s social media site lifts restrictions on Kremlin-linked tweets
www.telegraph.co.uk www.telegraph.co.uk
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Twitter has removed restrictions on Kremlin-linked accounts in the wake of its acquisition by tech billionaire Elon Musk, a review of the website has found.

Tests from multiple accounts showed that Twitter’s search results, timeline and recommendation tools are showing users such as Vladimir Putin’s presidential account, the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and its UK Embassy – all of which had restrictions placed on them when hostilities broke out.

It comes after it emerged that Twitter was no longer limiting the reach of Russian state media organisations.

Last April, in the weeks after Russian troops entered Ukraine, Twitter said it would “not amplify or recommend government accounts belonging to states that limit access to free information and are engaged in armed interstate conflict”, saying the policy would instantly apply to Russian government accounts.

It said this would mean the accounts would not be recommended in searches, the home timeline and other parts of the service.

However, tests by The Telegraph last week showed that Russian government accounts featured at the top of certain search results and would show up in suggestions of other accounts to follow.
Russian government tweets appeared in Twitter’s algorithmically-driven “For You” feed for a newly created account, even when it did not follow them.

A former Twitter executive confirmed that this marked a reversal from last year’s measures.

They said: “It would be exceedingly unlikely that this change would have happened accidentally, or without the knowledge and direction of the company's staff.”

Social media is seen as a key part of the Kremlin’s misinformation. Its UK embassy account has been condemned for claiming that Ukrainian forces are firing on their own citizens and saying that soldiers “deserve death by hanging”.
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Colonel_Klinck said:
Could he?
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AFAIK, why couldn't he?
Colonel_Klinck said:
Legacy accounts are being removed unless they pay or they were until Elon changed the wording so its not possible to know if they were removed or not.
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That's false, individuals still have the blue checkmark, it is actually possible to know too, there is a Chrome extension that will reveal it for you if you really want to know whether someone has paid for the regular bluecheckmark with that line or not.

Colonel_Klinck said:
You are assuming that Obama did something and it wasn't Twitter that did all this.
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I'm not, it was reported that he did so - I'm just wondering what the basis for your claim is - he doesn't have the legacy/or paid for text and he's got the additional symbol.
 
dowie said:
AFAIK, why couldn't he?


That's false, individuals still have the blue checkmark, it is actually possible to know too, there is a Chrome extension that will reveal it for you if you really want to know whether someone has paid for the regular bluecheckmark with that line or not.



I'm not, it was reported that he did so - I'm just wondering what the basis for your claim is - he doesn't have the legacy/or paid for text and he's got the additional symbol.
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Legacy checkmarks will be removed by 15th April unless they pay, that was what Elon said, unless its another climb down I've missed. I know he tweeted that he will give them a couple more weeks to pay but if they flat out refuse to pay they will be stripped of their checkmark.

Oh come on. Elon purposefully combined them to hide the fact, that someone has figured out a chrome extension will be unknown to 99.9% of users and won't work on the app.

Where was it reported he paid for his account?
 
Colonel_Klinck said:
Legacy checkmarks will be removed by 15th April unless they pay, that was what Elon said, unless its another climb down I've missed. I know he tweeted that he will give them a couple more weeks to pay but if they flat out refuse to pay they will be stripped of their checkmark.
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It doesn't seem to have happened and I'm not sure it's necessarily easy to do that - lots of spaghetti code perhaps

Colonel_Klinck said:
Oh come on. Elon purposefully combined them to hide the fact, that someone has figured out a chrome extension will be unknown to 99.9% of users and won't work on the app.
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I don't see the relevance, I'm just pointing out that it is possible to know and that they are still on there without paying, that doesn't require 99.9% of users to verify it.

Colonel_Klinck said:
Where was it reported he paid for his account?
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Wasn't that what you were talking about? What were you basing this on?
 
Not sure what this hurdle is that people have over paying for Twitter, i think people underestimate the power of it. Obama for example, it's literally his digital mouth, 132m followers, there is nothing else like it. And for 1k a month, which he can chalk off as a business expense, it's very little money for him. I imagine he wants to see Twitter succeed as well.
 
Trusty said:
Not sure what this hurdle is that people have over paying for Twitter, i think people underestimate the power of it. Obama for example, it's literally his digital mouth, 132m followers, there is nothing else like it. And for 1k a month, which he can chalk off as a business expense, it's very little money for him. I imagine he wants to see Twitter succeed as well.
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So without paying 1k per month Obama gets much less/nothing out of twitter? Sounds like Elon has created a terrible system if that's the case.

Or would Obama get the same by not paying as he has always not done, and then pay the 1k now just for the... Edit button? Woo.

Obama should be paid £10k per month from twitter if he's got 132m followers and getting that many eyes to twitter.

Imagine a youtuber with 132 million followers, and then not only not seeing any of the advertising money, but told they need to pay £1k per month to continue being seen, oh and their payment will come from exposure.

Sounds like those people that want artists to work for free so they get exposure.

Also, why pay the debt that came from the richest man in the world? That now pushes Putin as someone to be followed in twitter.
 
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