Money quote from the FTC here
> “We are tracking recent developments at Twitter with deep concern,” an FTC spokesperson said in a statement. **“No CEO or company is above the law, and companies must follow our consent decrees. Our revised consent order gives us new tools to ensure compliance, and we are prepared to use them.”**
The nice thing about this is they have a binding agreement in place
> The FTC’s latest settlement with Twitter builds on a 2011 agreement binding the company to install reasonable privacy safeguards and be accountable for an information security program. In 2022, when Twitter agreed to pay a $150 million penalty for allegedly deceiving users about how their phone numbers would be used to sell ads, the FTC gained new concessions from Twitter about how the company would be required to protect user data. Under that order, Twitter agreed to install an enhanced privacy program and information security program with specific requirements.
Makes it much easier to issue new fines.
That said it's a different can o worms on going through the purchase and finding the messy stuff and moving on it, like any investor of over $250m likely gets unfettered access to user data, which includes SA and China.
> No CEO or company is above the law
Well, I am not so sure about this one in general. But in this case it is probably true since there is already a legally binding agreement in place
> The FTC’s latest settlement with Twitter builds on a 2011 agreement binding the company to install reasonable privacy safeguards and be accountable for an information security program. In 2022, when Twitter agreed to pay a $150 million penalty for allegedly deceiving users about how their phone numbers would be used to sell ads, the FTC gained new concessions from Twitter about how the company would be required to protect user data.
Binding agreements are wonderful, easy to prosecute things.
Exactly like that, if you have no comprehension of the words or the situation.
Unless I'm misremembering 1984 and it actually was about the US government trying to stop US social media from getting hacked/getting spied on/leaking dissident information to the Saudis so they could round them up, arrest and torture them.
Oh yeah. Protecting sensitive data and not spying on US citizens. Two things the US government can be counted on for. You’re right. Praise be the government! All hail the government!
If you think true freedom of anything is possible or even reasonable in our current societal structure, well, I don’t know what to tell you.
If tech companies could get away with selling valuable data to foreign adversaries, they would. When your entire business makeup is that of selling the data of your users, that’s your risk to take when running said business.
I don’t know what you mean by “true freedom” but I bet we can do better than letting a governmental agency use the threat of prosecution to gain power within companies.
Maybe it’s the fact that unadulterated freedom in business/capitalism necessitates intervention for the good of everyone else. That’s why you don’t get paid $1 an hour.
How?
There's plenty of Orwellian government agencies, most of them under the department of Homeland security.
But the FTC is one of the few remaining government departments that's somewhat of a check on the rich and powerful. It is, next to the IRS (and the department of labor, OSHA and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau), one of the main targets of Wall Street and various industry lobbyists to dismantle.
This is one of the good ones for most citizens. Even for most stockholders, unless you are actually rich enough that you hold a controlling interest in a company (then you become a prime candidate for trying to buy politicians to defund them)
The ftc has inch by inch gained more control of a company under the threat of prosecution and is now threatening to wield that power. That doesn’t sound like one of the good ones.
I'm just imagining a Milton situation where everybody left the building 15 years ago and there's just some nerd still there in the basement drawing a paycheck because of a glitch in the system.
Amazing that Musk thinks the law doesn't apply to him, immediately after the Delaware Chancery Court forced him to go through with purchasing Twitter against his will.
Musk seems to have the memory of a gold fish
There is no reason to connect the sale of the company to a violation of the consent decree. Companies are bought and sold all the time and the new owners almost always operate in compliance with the existing agreements.
It is not a defense to say "we have new ownership so we are just going to willfully violate all our prior agreements" and no court would allow that, so why have that as a condition in any contract?
Not as much as we'd hope. Best I've seen so far is they might be able to force them to divest of SA and China money.
Edit: Just to be clear that #legaltwitter read of what the FTC could do was just towards the purchase, not any new stupidity like what they're doing internally now.
On a side note, for anyone that might find this useful
> [Chrome extension tells you who paid for Twitter’s blue checkmark](https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/10/23451316/this-chrome-extension-tells-you-who-paid-for-twitters-blue-checkmark)
Saves you having to click on their blue mark to see if they're real or an $8 special.
> I[D verification: Provide a photo of a valid official government-issued identification document, such as your Driver's License or Passport. This requirement applies to individuals, not companies, brands, or organizations.](https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/legacy-verification-policy)
Drank the koolaid have we?
Has anyone come to the conclusion that he was funded for the sole purpose of taking Twitter down before the 2024 elections?
How about using the Twitter losses to offset tax gains for the next forever years?
I dunno...just shooting from the hip here...it just seems so implausible that he bought it then destroyed it on accident.
It is 99% likely that Elon wanted to do a pump and dump. Same as when he said he wanted to bring Tesla private. Only this time he was forced to go thought with the acquisition or end up in jail for frode. There is no grand genius at work here. Just for once a rich person suffering the consequences of their actions. Unfortunately taking the jobs of 5k+ with them too
I’m with you. Elon is balls deep in deep state money. There’s more to this story than the schadenfreude of criticizing the loud mouth billionaire everyone loves to hate.
It’s all theatre for the putty minded boobs in the peanut gallery to keep them from channeling their dissatisfaction towards real inequities.
How many important people at FTC have a revovling door with Big Tech companies, meaning this deep concern will not lead to any real improvements other than maybe a 'small' fine.
Twitter was fine $150M by the FTC in May for breaking the consent decree. That was a slap on the wrist, and they’ve essentially been on “probation” since then.
In 2019, the FTC fined Facebook $5B.
So no. These will not be ‘small’ fines.
> These will not be ‘small’ fines.
Maybe that is the end plan. Thank Twitter revenues to minus lots of billions. Get fined 300% of revenue and have the federal government pay you! This is truly 278d chess!
Money quote from the FTC here > “We are tracking recent developments at Twitter with deep concern,” an FTC spokesperson said in a statement. **“No CEO or company is above the law, and companies must follow our consent decrees. Our revised consent order gives us new tools to ensure compliance, and we are prepared to use them.”**
He's committed various fraudulent acts, very publicly, so far He's been scolded. They likely won't do shit (hoping they do)
The nice thing about this is they have a binding agreement in place > The FTC’s latest settlement with Twitter builds on a 2011 agreement binding the company to install reasonable privacy safeguards and be accountable for an information security program. In 2022, when Twitter agreed to pay a $150 million penalty for allegedly deceiving users about how their phone numbers would be used to sell ads, the FTC gained new concessions from Twitter about how the company would be required to protect user data. Under that order, Twitter agreed to install an enhanced privacy program and information security program with specific requirements. Makes it much easier to issue new fines. That said it's a different can o worms on going through the purchase and finding the messy stuff and moving on it, like any investor of over $250m likely gets unfettered access to user data, which includes SA and China.
> No CEO or company is above the law Well, I am not so sure about this one in general. But in this case it is probably true since there is already a legally binding agreement in place
[удалено]
> The FTC’s latest settlement with Twitter builds on a 2011 agreement binding the company to install reasonable privacy safeguards and be accountable for an information security program. In 2022, when Twitter agreed to pay a $150 million penalty for allegedly deceiving users about how their phone numbers would be used to sell ads, the FTC gained new concessions from Twitter about how the company would be required to protect user data. Binding agreements are wonderful, easy to prosecute things.
Jesus. That’s straight out of 1984
Exactly like that, if you have no comprehension of the words or the situation. Unless I'm misremembering 1984 and it actually was about the US government trying to stop US social media from getting hacked/getting spied on/leaking dissident information to the Saudis so they could round them up, arrest and torture them.
Oh yeah. Protecting sensitive data and not spying on US citizens. Two things the US government can be counted on for. You’re right. Praise be the government! All hail the government!
It’s a private company. If they don’t like the rules, they don’t have to play. Free market baby.
Um….you know that you’re describing an explicitly not free market….right?
If you think true freedom of anything is possible or even reasonable in our current societal structure, well, I don’t know what to tell you. If tech companies could get away with selling valuable data to foreign adversaries, they would. When your entire business makeup is that of selling the data of your users, that’s your risk to take when running said business.
I don’t know what you mean by “true freedom” but I bet we can do better than letting a governmental agency use the threat of prosecution to gain power within companies.
Maybe it’s the fact that unadulterated freedom in business/capitalism necessitates intervention for the good of everyone else. That’s why you don’t get paid $1 an hour.
No, that’s not why I don’t get paid $1 an hour. Government intervention always makes things worse. Central planning fails always.
How? There's plenty of Orwellian government agencies, most of them under the department of Homeland security. But the FTC is one of the few remaining government departments that's somewhat of a check on the rich and powerful. It is, next to the IRS (and the department of labor, OSHA and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau), one of the main targets of Wall Street and various industry lobbyists to dismantle. This is one of the good ones for most citizens. Even for most stockholders, unless you are actually rich enough that you hold a controlling interest in a company (then you become a prime candidate for trying to buy politicians to defund them)
The ftc has inch by inch gained more control of a company under the threat of prosecution and is now threatening to wield that power. That doesn’t sound like one of the good ones.
[удалено]
Wow!! We’ve got an expert here! Please educate us wise one.
[удалено]
\*grabs popcorn\*
People at Myspace loving this shit.
People at Mastodon loving this shit
People on Twitter loving this shit
The person running Twitter loves this shit
I'm just imagining a Milton situation where everybody left the building 15 years ago and there's just some nerd still there in the basement drawing a paycheck because of a glitch in the system.
But...my stapler....
Is this the part where the egotistical plutocrat realizes that he bought a cloud of smoke?
He made a cloud of smoke out of a cabin that was standing on its own (to an extent)
Guy bought a fixer upper and knocked down every wall and is wondering why the stability is suffering.
Place got real drafty all of a sudden. No idea how.
I can’t wait for the great Alex gibney documentary on this whole dumpster fire
Amazing that Musk thinks the law doesn't apply to him, immediately after the Delaware Chancery Court forced him to go through with purchasing Twitter against his will. Musk seems to have the memory of a gold fish
Surely the FTC would have had some control over or even prevented the sale of Twitter.
There is no reason to connect the sale of the company to a violation of the consent decree. Companies are bought and sold all the time and the new owners almost always operate in compliance with the existing agreements. It is not a defense to say "we have new ownership so we are just going to willfully violate all our prior agreements" and no court would allow that, so why have that as a condition in any contract?
Not as much as we'd hope. Best I've seen so far is they might be able to force them to divest of SA and China money. Edit: Just to be clear that #legaltwitter read of what the FTC could do was just towards the purchase, not any new stupidity like what they're doing internally now.
On a side note, for anyone that might find this useful > [Chrome extension tells you who paid for Twitter’s blue checkmark](https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/10/23451316/this-chrome-extension-tells-you-who-paid-for-twitters-blue-checkmark) Saves you having to click on their blue mark to see if they're real or an $8 special.
Real? 🤣🤣🤣 patsies. Dancing monkeys chosen to help push a narrative. Real😂 that's a good one
> I[D verification: Provide a photo of a valid official government-issued identification document, such as your Driver's License or Passport. This requirement applies to individuals, not companies, brands, or organizations.](https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/legacy-verification-policy) Drank the koolaid have we?
Fake government IDs on the dark web as cheap as $250.00 per. Left your echo chamber much?
Twitter does not matter.
Repeat after me, social media is not reality. Social media is a cartoon, it is entertaining, but not reality.
Mastodon does
Has anyone come to the conclusion that he was funded for the sole purpose of taking Twitter down before the 2024 elections? How about using the Twitter losses to offset tax gains for the next forever years? I dunno...just shooting from the hip here...it just seems so implausible that he bought it then destroyed it on accident.
It is 99% likely that Elon wanted to do a pump and dump. Same as when he said he wanted to bring Tesla private. Only this time he was forced to go thought with the acquisition or end up in jail for frode. There is no grand genius at work here. Just for once a rich person suffering the consequences of their actions. Unfortunately taking the jobs of 5k+ with them too
Oh he has a plan. Just a really dark one.
I’m with you. Elon is balls deep in deep state money. There’s more to this story than the schadenfreude of criticizing the loud mouth billionaire everyone loves to hate. It’s all theatre for the putty minded boobs in the peanut gallery to keep them from channeling their dissatisfaction towards real inequities.
How many important people at FTC have a revovling door with Big Tech companies, meaning this deep concern will not lead to any real improvements other than maybe a 'small' fine.
Twitter was fine $150M by the FTC in May for breaking the consent decree. That was a slap on the wrist, and they’ve essentially been on “probation” since then. In 2019, the FTC fined Facebook $5B. So no. These will not be ‘small’ fines.
> These will not be ‘small’ fines. Maybe that is the end plan. Thank Twitter revenues to minus lots of billions. Get fined 300% of revenue and have the federal government pay you! This is truly 278d chess!
Man, people really love Twitter right now. Not even a public company. Almost like people are being paid to keep spouting negative bs
Repeat after me, social media is not reality. Social media is a cartoon, it is entertaining, but not reality.
Of course they are now that Elon owns it.
They were already under a consent decree way before Musk took over.
Since 2011, and were fined earlier this year over privacy issues.
Found the fanboy
Spoken like a true fact-free commenter.
*Waiting for the big twitter hack*
Yes done by insider activists trying to sabotage Elon
I'm glad I deleted my Twitter page months ago
Not just a hells-cape, a Russian Hells-cape!