Good Monday Morning
It’s November 14. NASA’s Artemis 1 launch window opens at 1 a.m. ET Wednesday for an uncrewed mission. If all goes well, humanity returns to the moon on Artemis II.
Today’s Spotlight is 645 words — about 4 minutes to read.
Spotlight On … Twitter Spirals Out Of Control
Lilly’s market capitalization hasn’t fully recovered after this fake tweet last Thursday afternoon caused more than $10 billion in losses.
Other imposters:
- a fake LeBron James demanding a trade
- Doja Cat, Valerie Bertinelli, and Kathy Griffin impersonating Musk
- an image of Nintendo’s Mario making a rude gesture
- a reporter impersonating Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) with his permission
During the chaos over Musk’s sale of blue check indicators, which previously identified “verified” accounts, Musk and Markey traded public insults. The spat, brand damage, loss of trust, and Musk’s capriciousness are only some of the reasons for Twitter’s spirals from carnival square to
Musk continues to create confusion with changes that global platforms usually make over a much longer time. A number of Twitter accounts recently displayed gray “official” flags, and social media experts questioned how the accounts got them or if they were real.
Twitter also faced backlash after mistakenly terminating employees during mass layoffs and then making reinstatement offers. After many top executives resigned and Musk fired others in just days, the FTC publicly expressed concern about the company’s ability to comply with earlier privacy consent decrees.
3 More Stories to Know
1) Big Tech is facing new financial troubles. Amazon is considering cost reductions at its Alexa unit that posted a $5 billion operating loss. Disney+ also lost over $1.4 billion last year and plans to freeze hiring. Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery have already cut jobs this year among streaming losses.
Bright spot: Zoom is introducing new Mail and Calendar software to link hybrid workforce software with a new zmail dot com address.
2) A ransomware gang targeting Australian insurance giant Medibank released records of more than 100 patients that included information about drug addiction, HIV infections, and mental health diagnoses. The criminals reportedly accessed 10 million health records.
3) AT&T telephone operators will no longer be available for directory assistance or operator assisted calls after December 31. The company founded by telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell had a U.S. monopoly until 1984 and once employed 350,000 telephone operators.
Trends & Spends
Did That Really Happen? — Post Office Warns About Theft From Blue Mailboxes
The USPS is advising people to avoid dropping mail into blue collection boxes after the last collection of the day or on Sundays or holidays because that’s when thieves target them.
Following Up — TikTok Shop Opens
We told you in October that TikTok was creating fulfillment centers in the U.S. and now they’ve launched a registration page for American companies to sell on the platform.
Protip — Those Yeti Cooler & Dick’s Sporting Goods Emails
You’re not alone in wondering why these emails are getting through Google’s awesome spam filters. They’re obviously spam (don’t click anything there) and even Dick’s has posted an online warning about them.
Screening Room — John Lewis’ “The Beginner” tearjerker
Science Fiction World — Google’s FlyThrough Videos
Google announced a new feature that allows imaging software to create perpetually looping videos from a single image using machine learning to create enhanced scenery. Have a look at them here.
Coffee Break — The 2038 Problem
You survived Y2K, but what about the 2038 Problem? Programs built using the C programming language have a similar but smaller issue facing them on January 19, 2038. Good news–next after that is 2116.
Sign of the Times
