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The "hacking" hook is simply that their Macbook went into MDM lockdown mode. That's completely normal for companies at-scale, and I can understand why they'd wa
by smoldesu 4y ago
The "hacking" hook is simply that their Macbook went into MDM lockdown mode. That's completely normal for companies at-scale, and I can understand why they'd want to lock the devices before laying people off. If the opposite had happened, they'd be writing an article about how Twitter failed to protect their files and angle it as a "they're running out of staff" article.
I still don't really understand what there is worth talking about here. Twitter is notoriously overstaffed, and any new management would start by cutting non-essential engineer positions.
- infamouscow 4y agoCorporate media produces nothing of intellectual value. It merely continues to exist because their business model, advertising, allowed them pivot into being drama generating entertainment machines.
- duxup 4y ago> Corporate media People like to read that stuff.
- kelnos 4y agoDo they, or are they emotionally manipulated into reading it? There's a difference between "wanting" and "liking" something. The reason doomscrolling on social media is a thing is because people want their fix. Whether or not they truly like it is another matter. Most would probably admit they don't, if they really sat down to unpack everything about it.
- smoldesu 4y agoI agree. However, Twitter employees know what they signed up for, so this article is really just taking advantage of people who have never heard/seen this happen. It's fairly common in the industry, even if the results are disappointing and impact is ineffectual.
- afavour 4y agoIt feels good to say stuff like that but it's not really true. A look over Pulitzer Prize winners from previous years will show deeply researched investigative stories and have had a real impact on public awareness.
- concordDance 4y agoThe vast vast vast majority of content news media generates is not like that, its drama farming and reposts. The actual investigative journalism is a very small minority.
- afavour 4y agoSo the statement "corporate media produces nothing of intellectual value" is false. I'm not defending the clickbait content a lot of outlets engage in but I'm concerned that if the "corporate media" disappeared tomorrow a lot of things would go uninvestigated. I'm also not sure that the number of stories published is a worthwhile metric either. Maybe one truly eye-opening investigative story is worth a hundred boring clickbait articles, I don't really see how you'd quantify it.
- JasonFruit 4y agoWould you be more satisfied with, "Only the tiniest fraction of corporate media's output has intellectual value?" People often make statements that make what is approximately true absolute, for simplicity of expression or for style: "Nobody should be out in this kind of weather!" "The oboe is an ill woodwind that nobody blows good."
- afavour 4y agoWell like I just said, I'm not convinced looking at it through overall number of worthy/unworthy stories published is a metric that makes a lot of sense. But sure, that statement is an improvement because it at least makes clear that if you were to remove the corporate media tomorrow something of important value would be lost. Something the original statement definitely does not convey.
- chrisseaton 4y ago> Corporate media produces nothing of intellectual value. Never seen any intellectual value in a BBC drama, comedy, or nature documentary?
- gaius_baltar 4y ago> Never seen any intellectual value in a BBC drama, comedy, or nature documentary? The C of BBC does not look like the current practical meaning of corporation for or typical case. Being state-owned change a lot of things.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- chadash 4y agoTop 10 articles from the front page of nytimes.com right now: * E.U. Settles on Russian Oil Price Cap After Fraught Talks * A phony climate foundation in Germany helped Russia complete Nord Stream 2 after U.S. sanctions threatened to derail it. * U.S. Employers Add 263,000 Jobs, Showing Strong Demand for Workers * Why are middle-aged men missing from the labor market? * Alex Jones Files for Bankruptcy * As Officials Ease Restrictions Amid Protests, China Faces New Pandemic Risks * Hate Speech’s Rise on Twitter Is Unprecedented, Researchers Find * Kanye West was suspended from Twitter after posting a swastika. * Cameroon Tries to Become Third African Nation to Advance * From The Athletic: Follow real-time updates from Serbia vs. Switzerland. Sure, some of these (e.g. first twitter headline) seem to follow an agenda, but most of these are just plain old news. It is easy to think "all of this is available on Twitter or through other independent journalists", but twitter has the luxury of being able to look at what the papers are reporting on. If you didn't have the likes CNN, NYT and the BBC, you wouldn't have reporters at white house press conferences, people reporting from Ukraine, nor any sort of real curation of the news. Are there blind spots? Of course. Twitter is way better in some niche areas. Do the news outlets show biases? Yes, of course. But without the big news outlets, twitter wouldn't have as much to go off of. I like to think of it the other way around... imagine that corporate media didn't exist. You'd have thousands of independent journalists looking into different things with no curation. Eventually, some of them would realize that to be effective, they need to form groups, since some areas are too big for one person to cover. Eventually, small groups that people followed would grow larger as they try to report on more and more things. Eventually, they'd collectivize and form larger "corporations". You'd be back to square one. And I'm just talking about plain old news. All of this is leaving aside the big and costly investigative pieces that some of the larger outlets are able to put together. Go and read anything at https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/206 https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/206 and tell me if anyone but "corporate media" would be able to do anything even close to these.
- shagie 4y ago> Go and read anything at https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/206 https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/206 and tell me if anyone but "corporate media" would be able to do anything even close to these. BuzzFeed News Has Won Its First Pulitzer Prize BuzzFeed News won for its innovative series exposing China’s mass detention of Muslims and was named a finalist for its colossal FinCEN Files investigation into the global banking industry. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/davidmack/pulitzer-prize-buzzfeed-news-won-china-detention-camps https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/davidmack/pulitzer-priz... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BuzzFeed_News#Awards_and_recognition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BuzzFeed_News#Awards_and_recog... Though make sure that you differentiate BuzzFeed News from BuzzFeed... the later is the way that makes money that is able to support news site without needing subscriptions and paywalls.
- cuttysnark 4y ago> don't really understand what there is worth talking about here. Elon Musk, previously adored by many for futurist technology advocacy and largely forgiven for quirky-billionaire-behavior is now on the "bad guy list". This is "public opinion", from my perspective. It is now common to hear people saying: "He didn't really build that" "His family had money" "His family had a mine" "He's a fascist" "He's a racist because of where/when he was born" Any and every attempt to report on the fallout from Musk buying twitter will command the headlines. Doesn't matter if it's the same strategy any other takeover management would employ. That's irrelevant. Musk? Bad Guy. So: "Elon Bad. Twitter suffer. Here's an example..."
- mertd 4y ago“You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” This is almost a truism. When someone reaches an extreme position, they can never be ordinary again and they will be judged by absolute terms.
- VHRanger 4y agoNonsense. Presumably any private equity firm would also have came to a conclusion of reducing headcount. They wouldn't have done so in a single week based on ridiculous analysis. And wouldn't have done so in a way to destroy the morale of remaining workforce.
- smoldesu 4y agoI mean, the running joke in the industry was that you could fire 90% of Twitter's workforce and the company would still run fine. Judging by how few features they've shipped in the past few years, I'm still convinced that's the case.
- folkrav 4y agoWe'll see when they actually start shipping stuff. Things tend to go smooth when nothing gets deployed...
- fzeroracer 4y agoNormal according to who, exactly? Like where is your reference point for 'normal'? I've worked for companies at scale and have never dealt with these sort of problems before because usually there's an understanding that employees when laid off aren't going to do anything bad (unless you're perhaps cutting them out of severance and spiting them, which...). Do you have any reference points or reasons why you believe this is normal contrary to my own professional experience?
- telotortium 4y agoMany, many companies, particularly larger ones (5,000+ employees, but Silicon Valley companies are more likely than non-tech companies of a given size to employ "advanced" IT features like MDM) are concerned with potential sabotage by suddenly laid-off employees, particularly in the U.S. Have you ever worked anywhere with MDM installed on your company-provided devices?
- horsawlarway 4y agoAcross basically every company I've worked for - this is normal. And many of those companies are not 3k+ employee tech companies. Think 10 to 100 engineers. It's actually a requirement for many compliance certifications in the US - previously employed staff are not allowed access to your systems. If you're in an office - you can wait until you grab the employee and put them in a conference room to fire them before cutting access (as long as security is there to escort them out afterwards). When everyone is remote - that is not an option. ex: item number 1 for SOC 2 compliance is ---- Access controls —logical and physical restrictions on assets to prevent access by unauthorized personnel. ---- When an employee is terminated - they are unauthorized personnel.
- tyingq 4y agoI think it's more the dichotomy of companies asking for high levels of commitment, loyalty & trust, but offering none in return. It's funny that they would fire people in this way, then turn around and ask the remaining folks to sign up for "working long (uncompensated) hours at high intensity". They are trying to have it both ways.
- themitigating 4y agoNotoriously overstaffed based on what? The fact that you've heard this repeated in different ways over a long period of time?
- bottlepalm 4y agoTwitter had almost the same number of people as SpaceX. One of those companies launches a rocket a week, multiple manned missions a year to the ISS, operates a global satellite internet constellation, and is building a ship that can go to Mars. The other company.. does what?
- mikeyouse 4y agoHad $5b in annual revenue and served hundreds of million of tweets daily?
- bottlepalm 4y agoThose 280 characters must generate some immense traffic.
- dpkirchner 4y agoGot itself valued at $44B with that revenue and with substantial annual losses. In a way, Twitter has been hugely successful.
- ilyt 4y agoCertainly to people that sold Musk stock lmao.
- coffeeblack 4y ago*launched and landed
- themitigating 4y agoI don't see how you can compare two unrelated companies staffing levels. You are simply implying complexity has a direct correlation to the correct workforce amount. Walmart has 2.3 million employees but it's just a store. Why do they need that many when SpaceX has N employees and is launching rockets
- coffeeblack 4y agoIt’s a news headline. So it’s less about accuracy and more about drama.
- reaperducer 4y agoTwitter is notoriously overstaffed, and any new management would start by cutting non-essential engineer positions. Elon? Is that you?