What's Going On At Twitter After The Musk Takeover? An In Depth Analysis

 

Today, I reminisce back to the days when social media was still it its infancy, perhaps.  I remember Facebook as the juggernaut back then, which was well over 10 years ago.  I never really cared to much for the social media platforms back then, and even the same continues to this day. 

The only one I am really active on is Linked In.  My first aggressive push though into social media was when I first started the tech writing biz, which was in 2009.

I remember opening accounts with Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, and My Space (are they even in existence anymore???).  I used these sites mostly for blasting out my blog posts and other content that I had wanted to share. 

Nothing too much happened with it, so I just kept using Twitter and Linked In.  I tried opening up accounts on Instagram and Pinterest, but was simply too lazy to post anything.

But now it seems like social media is a part of our ever day lives, and we simply cannot live without it, just like our smartphone.  But now, the headlines are being filled with Twitter, and how Elon Musk has changed it radically before he bought it some weeks ago. 

For example, he came up plans to terminate up to 50% of the Twitter workforce, and in one huge blow just this past week, all of the IT Security people also quit.

Probably the person to bear the brunt of all this was the former CISO of Twitter, Lea Kissner.  Late last week she resigned from this position, offering no real reason why.  But based on what she wrote, it sounds like she is on the hunt to find greener pastures somewhere else, or maybe even start her own thing (this is just my assumption only).

There were also two other key people who left as well:  Chief Compliance Officer Marianne Fogarty and Chief Privacy Officer Damien Kieran. Now the main worry is who is going to manage all of the data compliance issues, as many people, when they first open their account, have to share some personal information, such as their phone number, and e-mail address. 

If there is no solution as to who is going to fill this void, it is quite likely that Twitter could come under the audit eyes of the regulators from both the CCPA and the GDPR.

These three key layoffs are believed to be a detrimental blow to Twitter, as the company has tried recently to make greater efforts in improving their levels of Cybersecurity.  For example, this includes getting rid of duplicate accounts that are no longer being used, and even using two further steps for confirming the identity of an individual before their particular account will be provisioned.

For example, this happened to me a few weeks ago.  One of my older accounts got hacked into, so I tried to create a new one.  Normally in the past, one could get away with just confirming it with a One Time Password sent from Twitter to your smartphone. 

But now, not only do they require that, but you also have to complete this Captcha of sorts which has very difficult to discern pictures.

It took me about 6 different attempts until even I got it right.  I really don’t use it that much now, only when it is needed.  One of the other main concerns now is who is going to fill these voids of these key people who just left?  At this point, nobody really knows yet.  But apart from the security aspect, there are other huge concerns as well now that Elon Musk is going to have to face by himself if there is nobody to help him.  Some of these are as follows:

*Protecting user privacy;

*Eliminating spam like messages;

*The opening up of fake accounts which can be used to spur nefarious activities;

*Most importantly content moderation, especially those accounts used by right wind politicians.

There have been other key layoffs at Twitter as well, but these people did not get the notoriety as the others did.  These people are:

*CEO Parag Agarwal;

*Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal;

*Chief Attorney Vijaya Gadde;

*General Counsel Sean Edgett.

Wow, it seems like that Musk’s entire C-Suite were either terminated or fired.

I know that Twitter in the past has made comments about trying to use AI and MI on a much greater level when it came to policing accounts and keeping an eye on the content that was inbound and outbound. Another area of concern for people heavily outside of Twitter is that now who is going to continue with these efforts, which are so critical to Twitter? 

Unfortunately, nobody knows the answer to that either.  With all of these key people gone and more terminations and quitting still yet possibly to come, there will be nobody to fill in this void, as they will have to be trained into this newer initiatives.  Of course, Twitter could possibly outsource all of this, but then that would be like giving away the trade secrets of the company.

Musk’s response to all of this that these terminations were all a part of a cost cutting effort, because of decreased spending on ads on Twitter from third party vendors.  Now, I am not privy to all of the happenings at Twitter, but from what I read in the news, many of these vendors did not leave until Musk took over. 

They were simply afraid as to what he was going to do next, and quite frankly, I really don’t blame them.  If I was spending cash on ads, and something drastically changed, I would hold off too.

My Thoughts On This:

Right now, if things continue to go along some the same tangent as they are for Twitter, the greatest fear they have face is that of dealing with the compliance regulators, as stated  earlier in this blog.  But this not would be so much from the GDPR or the CCPA, but rather, this would come from the FTC. 

Right now, they have their audit eyes on them, as Twitter was slapped with a $150 million just a few months ago.

In fact, the FTC has also ramped up its actions against Twitter, especially when it comes the privacy of its user data. Some these are:

*The selling of email IDs and phone numbers to outside third parties;

*The need to beef up the use of Multifactor Authentication (MFA);

*Notifying subscribers of any malicious activities that occur on their account.

And as a result, it is quite likely that a broad sweeping security audit on Twitter could happen  any time (again this is something that I am assuming).

When I first heard Elon Musk took over Twitter, I had bad feelings about it.  Now, let’s see what the future holds and what the impacts will be to companies worldwide as many of them make heavy usage for their Twitter marketing campaigns.