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Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

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Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#911

Post by kcplate »

john-radio wrote: post #402

A lot of the tweets that are quoted in the article have been removed. For example, Twitter employee Cristina Angeli is mentioned in the story for having tweeted an image of "staff members... flooding an internal Slack channel with blue heart emojis as they wait to learn their fate tomorrow", but that tweet is deleted on twitter itself because "This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules." This is ironic if you consider all…

Do we know that the company did it? Or did the tweeter do it after it was suggested to them by someone knowledgeable that posting internal company communications might violate the NDAs and corporate policies on company owned communication platforms? And why are only some of the tweets being removed?

Always a lot of assumptions in the comments of every Twitter story I have read over the last week or so… and so far most of the assumptions tend to be pretty wrong when the dust settles.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#912

Post by sbf501 »

partiallypro wrote: post #848
sbf501 wrote: post #846

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is illegal to do layoffs like this at scale without following the California WARN act: https://edition.cnn.com/2022/11/03/tech/twitter-layoffs/inde... It's a dick move and demonstrates someone who doesn't understand how to build worker loyalty. Forcing people to tap dance 80+ hours a week or be fired (without mega compensation) doesn't earn you loyalty. Yeah, he claims he works 120 hour weeks, but he also reaps ne…

I'm well aware of the law, it has been posted everywhere. However, the article questions itself, because it doesn't say how many have actually been laid off, when that date is effective or if they will just get their pay for 60 days; so he might not even be in violation. I don't think Elon is just doing this all solo, he probably has a legal department and also has advice from one of his co-investors which is still J…

"They" did the same thing? What was "mostly not true" about the CA scandal?

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#913

Post by davesque »

saisundar wrote: post #817

A grim day. As a tech worker, my solidarity is entirely with the employees of Twitter. The irony is that Twitter, more than any other social platform, helped create the aura around Elon, Tesla in particular. In some sense, Twitter was quintessential to what Elon is today. For him to now - make a bid for twitter - back out of it in futile - acquire it, lay off execs - lay off half the force Is surreal. If this had bee…

It's really an ironic saga that's unfolded between Musk and Twitter. I've said many times that I think Twitter facilitates a Jekyll-to-Hyde-like transformation in people that are predisposed to it. I think the fantastically rich are disproportionately represented in that group. If you're surrounded by yes men (and that includes Twitter followers), you're going to turn into an awful person. So Musk has come back to ruin the very thing that created him. This story is not new to humanity. The golem has returned to destroy its creator.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#914

Post by cr4nberry »

dangerwill wrote: post #755
idlewords wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those techies had years in which to organize their workplace under US labor law to forestall exactly this kind of outcome. For the past 20 years, there was no group of employees on earth with more latent power than US tech workers, but this very fact blinded them to the possibility that they might ever lose this power. What feeble efforts there were at collective action were organized around divisive "social justice"…

Any time a whiff of union talk for tech workers comes up, the industry recoils in abject horror driven by many years of anti-union propaganda ("unions = evil" or "how DARE you well paid, lazy programmers ask for even more"). Especially here in HN given its hyper-capitalist slant. I think it's a bit disingenuous to put all of the blame on tech workers

> Any time a whiff of union talk for tech workers comes up, the industry recoils in abject horror driven by many years of anti-union propaganda ("unions = evil" or "how DARE you well paid, lazy programmers ask for even more").

I mean, we definitely could. They'd be seriously fucked if we did. It's a wonder it hasn't happened yet

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#915

Post by loceng »

neel8986 wrote: post #886
CrazyStat wrote: post #726

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starlink's total bandwidth is about the same as a small regional ISP. There is no way it will ever "control the world's internet". Starlink will serve many places where terrestrial wired or wireless access doesn't make sense, including oceans, very rural areas, uninhabited areas, airplanes, rockets, etc. It will never be able to serve 1% of a high density city. It will never control anything on the scale of the world…

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/11/04/poli... Example of how musk can blackmail governments at critical juncture. Never ever should any govt depend on this egomaniac POS for such critical infra

There's no source or confirmation that 1,300 units were actually down, and, if they were down - it looks like because the service wasn't being paid for?

Do you expect companies to provide services for free? The hypocrisy that Elon pointed out is that the military industrial complex is getting paid billions, but the ideological mob via captured MSM is smearing him for no longer wanting to provide free/subsidized services?

P.S. Their "withdrepw" typo in the article, doesn't bode well for overall quality.

Edit to add: Found another source confirming the units were down, oh - and look at that - it was due to non-payment. People demonizing Musk for war mongerers not paying their bills eh? Let the smear campaigns continue..

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#916

Post by cr4nberry »

arrrg wrote: post #839
wobbly_bush wrote: post #824

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A huge number of people have lost their livelihoods, sense of belonging and might fall into financial hardships in current market conditions At the end of the day, CA is an at-will employment state. Anyone can get fired anytime, and it is up to everyone to be prepared for that. Any person working in any company X can meet the same fate - it's like being prepared for an earthquake, which can happen anytime. I'm not…

Being prepared for getting fired (in the sense of having a financial cushion) is one thing. What I’m seeing here, however is a discrepancy between saying that working hard and burning brightly for your employer is meaningful and fulfilling and something to strive towards (as seen in the threads around expectations at Twitter of working 12h days and meeting tight deadlines) and on the other hand the expectation to dis…

> working hard and burning brightly for your employer is meaningful and fulfilling and something to strive towards (as seen in the threads around expectations at Twitter of working 12h days and meeting tight deadlines)

but how many people actually do this? Even then, if someone does it and learns from it then they've set themselves up to make even more down the road

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#917

Post by sbf501 »

jimbob45 wrote: post #849
sbf501 wrote: post #846

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is illegal to do layoffs like this at scale without following the California WARN act: https://edition.cnn.com/2022/11/03/tech/twitter-layoffs/inde... It's a dick move and demonstrates someone who doesn't understand how to build worker loyalty. Forcing people to tap dance 80+ hours a week or be fired (without mega compensation) doesn't earn you loyalty. Yeah, he claims he works 120 hour weeks, but he also reaps ne…

They might still technically be employed and receiving paychecks for 60 days to keep this legal.

Yeah, just learned that they are paid until Feb 2023 and RSUs vest.

Vacation time!

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#918

Post by Niksko »

partiallypro wrote: post #842

I'm not a huge Musk fan, mostly because of his political ramblings and especially revolving around Ukraine; but I find the sudden hatred of him pretty odd. Mass layoffs happen all the time, Square just announced a 14% cut yesterday. In terms of Twitter's current moderation nothing has really changed on the platform, I'm an avid user and have seen no difference. It's not really just Musk, it feels like there is a turn…

Time and time again, Musk has shown that he does not understand the nuances of free speech and moderation, and has presented nothing to indicate that he has any new solutions to the problems he is claiming to want to solve.

You're applying good faith reasoning to someone with a proven track record of acting in bad faith. That's noble of you, but you shouldn't be surprised if others don't follow suit.

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#919

Post by DesiLurker »

WalterBright wrote: post #330
taurath wrote: post #89

Since apparently nobody else in the thread has any empathy for those who've lost their jobs, future access to healthcare (in the US and less civilized countries), and financial security, I guess I'll be the first: I feel bad for people who are laid off by the machinations of billionaires. I wish we lived in a society where it wasn't optimal to act like raving lunatics will tear down every bit of security you have at…

Business in a free market is a constantly changing and chaotic system of creative destruction.

but underneath this 'business' there are real humans with kids & mortgages and a life. we dont/should't have to live to feed some capitalistic ideal of maximizing the line rather it should be other way round. looking at US for last 40 years which way you think its been going?

Re: Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun

#920

Post by Chyzwar »

dylan604 wrote: post #689
john-radio wrote: post #402

A lot of the tweets that are quoted in the article have been removed. For example, Twitter employee Cristina Angeli is mentioned in the story for having tweeted an image of "staff members... flooding an internal Slack channel with blue heart emojis as they wait to learn their fate tomorrow", but that tweet is deleted on twitter itself because "This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules." This is ironic if you consider all…

>Smart journalists are going to stop relying on Twitter's API now. Yay! Journalists that do nothing but build a story around Tweets is not journalism. That's BuzzFeed. The fact that legit news sources decided to follow BuzzFeed is just a very sad comment on the state of affairs we live in now.

Actually, BuzzFeed aside garbage reporting have also decent investigations journalism as well https://www.buzzfeed.com/investigations
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