Elon & Twitter

[italian bread]

Wait a second… if you pay money, you get the feature of using the least secure kind of authentication. But if you don’t pay money, you can join the folks who pay $8 or more per month in using more secure kinds of authentication? Isn’t that backwards?

Official: Twitter will now charge for SMS two-factor authentication

Only Twitter Blue subscribers will get the privilege of using the least secure form of two-factor authentication.
…
You have to pay for the privilege of using Twitter’s worst form of authentication. In fact, if you don’t start paying for Twitter Blue ($8 a month on Android; $11 a month on iOS)

[You can still]

switch your account to use a far more reliable authenticator app or physical security key, Twitter will simply turn off your 2FA after March 20th.

 

[italian bread]

Elon Musk has put every lost young man on Twitter in the crosshairs of the far right

Letting the expert online recruiters Patriotic Alternative back on the platform isn’t a win for free speech but for fascism
…
The reinstatements appear to be part of Musk’s commitment to free speech. But if he knew anything at all about PA, he would realise that he has placed a target on the back of every disenfranchised and politically lost young man on Twitter, many of whom are recruited to the far right via the platform.
…
Like the young men who get sucked in by “incel” groups, those who are susceptible to far-right influence are often lonely, isolated and unsure of how to connect with other people. They may have difficult home lives, or have been bullied and ostracised at school. Retreating into an online world, they find others in a similar situation. Their feelings are validated, their beliefs shared and their confidence that it’s the rest of the world who are “wrong” gets a boost.

Playing on those insecurities, nationalist groups quickly begin confirming these young men’s worst beliefs; they can’t get a job because the government’s gone “woke”; the girls who won’t look twice at them are evil feminists out to emasculate western men; and the immigrants they’re intimidated by are the real Big Bad, here to steal their lives, jobs and country.

 

[italian bread]

So, all that talk about free speech absolutism and how sunlight will disinfect so we shouldn’t ban “bad” content… was that just talk?

Tesla Workers Say Twitter Shadowbanned Their Union Account: NLRB Charge

Autopilot workers at the Buffalo Gigafactory 2 facility went public with a campaign to form a union on Feb. 14. But by the next day, the workers found that their account had been shadowbanned—meaning it doesn’t appear in Twitter’s search function if you type out either the account’s handle or display name. Elon Musk serves as the CEO at both Tesla and Twitter, and he is named in the NLRB charge.
…
“As an initiative formed to feel heard, an explicit action by our own employer to silence us affirms the necessity of our endeavor,” Lahrache told VICE News in a statement.

 

[spacerfc]

He still has HR staff and recruiters working for him at SpaceX and Tesla. And both of those companies are likely to be able to afford to pay employee salaries in three months. Twitter, by contrast, is facing a mass exodus of advertisers in an era when advertising dollars were already declining, and thus will likely just be paying a minimal staff of minimum-wage employees to wipe data off of machines and tag assets for Chapter 7 liquidation in three months.

Another doom prediction for Twitter failed completely.

 

[JohnSnowNW]

Has anyone noticed that "centrist" Elon hasn't tweeted anything about Fox News/Murdoch (the media) knowingly pushing election interference lies for money? Despite the fact that he's been on a tirade about the lying media for well over a year now?

I suppose sharing a booth with Murdoch at the Super Bowl must have convinced him to ignore right-wing media corruption. I'll await his amplification of the next conspiracy theory, passed off as citizen journalism, that he pushes next, so exciting!

 

[Buckminster]

Has anyone noticed that "centrist" Elon hasn't tweeted anything about Fox News/Murdoch (the media) knowingly pushing election interference lies for money? Despite the fact that he's been on a tirade about the lying media for well over a year now?

I suppose sharing a booth with Murdoch at the Super Bowl must have convinced him to ignore right-wing media corruption. I'll await his amplification of the next conspiracy theory, passed off as citizen journalism, that he pushes next, so exciting!

Elon courting the right with the aim of moving the lot of them to the centre over the next five years. Shush - don't tell anyone...

 

[Crutonius]

Elon courting the right with the aim of moving the lot of them to the centre over the next five years. Shush - don't tell anyone...

Are you being sarcastic? I feel like this is an attempt at humor.

 

[tivoboy]

Wait a second… if you pay money, you get the feature of using the least secure kind of authentication. But if you don’t pay money, you can join the folks who pay $8 or more per month in using more secure kinds of authentication? Isn’t that backwards?

Official: Twitter will now charge for SMS two-factor authentication

Only Twitter Blue subscribers will get the privilege of using the least secure form of two-factor authentication.
…
You have to pay for the privilege of using Twitter’s worst form of authentication. In fact, if you don’t start paying for Twitter Blue ($8 a month on Android; $11 a month on iOS)

[You can still]

switch your account to use a far more reliable authenticator app or physical security key, Twitter will simply turn off your 2FA after March 20th.

Technically, I think email would be the least secure method for 2FA verification, with a rolling key system. Same types as for SMS, but different pathway and destination. It’s harder to A) get someone’s mobile # and B) spoof the DID as an SMS target destination.

Or were you referring to SMS gateways and transmission as a more vulnerable attack vector. In app push alerts for authentication would be certainly much higher than that. Some companies use apples direct iMessage integration (certainly it’s also an SMS destination on a phone device) which of course would be fully encrypted and secure.

I’m going to bet a buck that we do NOT see this 2FA SMS gateway cutoff for all non-blue users in end March 2023, bit more than a guess at this point.

 

[advocate8]

Elon courting the right with the aim of moving the lot of them to the centre over the next five years. Shush - don't tell anyone...

5D Chess! Gahahaha….
$44B impulse purchase. No secret master plan.
No plan at all really

 

[Bet TSLA]

Has anyone noticed that "centrist" Elon hasn't tweeted anything about Fox News/Murdoch (the media) knowingly pushing election interference lies for money? Despite the fact that he's been on a tirade about the lying media for well over a year now?

I suppose sharing a booth with Murdoch at the Super Bowl must have convinced him to ignore right-wing media corruption. I'll await his amplification of the next conspiracy theory, passed off as citizen journalism, that he pushes next, so exciting!

His lapdog Glenn Greenwald is also silent, despite his remit being to chide media for systematized deceit.

 

[Matias]

Twitter comments are not loading at least in Finland.

 

[Buckminster]

Are you being sarcastic? I feel like this is an attempt at humor.

Can I get back to you on that?

 

[stopcrazypp]

Wait a second… if you pay money, you get the feature of using the least secure kind of authentication. But if you don’t pay money, you can join the folks who pay $8 or more per month in using more secure kinds of authentication? Isn’t that backwards?

Official: Twitter will now charge for SMS two-factor authentication

Only Twitter Blue subscribers will get the privilege of using the least secure form of two-factor authentication.
…
You have to pay for the privilege of using Twitter’s worst form of authentication. In fact, if you don’t start paying for Twitter Blue ($8 a month on Android; $11 a month on iOS)

[You can still]

switch your account to use a far more reliable authenticator app or physical security key, Twitter will simply turn off your 2FA after March 20th.

Not sure why it's not obvious to everyone (or perhaps it is and no one is saying it), but this is an obvious money saving move given Twitter probably pays a nice chunk of money to send those texts, given carriers have recently changed rules to charge more for them:
Nextup - Wireless Carriers Impose New Fees for SMS

App-based and physical authenticators don't involve any mobile carrier fees.

Unlikely to have anything to do with security.

 

[Norbert]

Has anyone noticed that "centrist" Elon hasn't tweeted anything about Fox News/Murdoch (the media) knowingly pushing election interference lies for money? Despite the fact that he's been on a tirade about the lying media for well over a year now?

I suppose sharing a booth with Murdoch at the Super Bowl must have convinced him to ignore right-wing media corruption. I'll await his amplification of the next conspiracy theory, passed off as citizen journalism, that he pushes next, so exciting!

Remember Sydney Powell's legal excuse: "No reasonable person would conclude that the statements were truly statements of fact,”.
Whoever wants to defend Murdoch or FoxNews, might not want to act surprised or upset about it.

 

[JRP3]

Elon courting the right with the aim of moving the lot of them to the centre over the next five years. Shush - don't tell anyone...

The opposite seems to be in effect.

 

[JRP3]

Not sure why it's not obvious to everyone (or perhaps it is and no one is saying it), but this is an obvious money saving move given Twitter probably pays a nice chunk of money to send those texts, given carriers have recently changed rules to charge more for them:
Nextup - Wireless Carriers Impose New Fees for SMS

App-based and physical authenticators don't involve any mobile carrier fees.

Unlikely to have anything to do with security.

Don't know if it's related but the Signal messaging app is also stopping support for SMS claiming security reasons.

 

[italian bread]

Elon courting the right with the aim of moving the lot of them to the centre over the next five years. Shush - don't tell anyone...

And everyone knows if you want to push something to the left, you first have to move yourself to the extreme right of the object.

 

[Buckminster]

The opportunity:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1627065443730210817

 

[Buckminster]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1627388350612004865

Subscriptions

 

[JRP3]

Subscriptions

Are people really going to pay to see a Tweet on a per Tweet basis? No thanks.