Elon Musk’s X Corp., formerly Twitter Inc.— has sued a nonprofit group, The Center for Countering Digital Hate, over its report describing the extent of hate speech on the social media platform. Led by Imran Ahmed, The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) aims to protect human rights and civil liberties online The company holds platforms accountable and responsible for their business choices by highlighting their failures, educating the public, and advocating change from media and governments to protect communities. What did the report find? The CCDH report said that Twitter failed to act
Atlanta’s Black-founded and centered membership club, The Gathering Spot, has allegedly fired one of their Black co-founders, TK Petersen. What Is The Gathering Spot? The Gathering Spot is a private membership network focused on the Black community and was created to support its members in making connections while gaining business experiences. Ryan Wilson, a Georgetown Law School attendee, and TK Petersen, a former Portfolio Manager at Fannie Mae, co-founded the Gathering Spot. Their goal was to foster a community that would gather a diverse mix of individuals, including entrepreneurs, creatives,
Seven months after terminating the contracts of almost all its staff in Accra, Ghana, Twitter has yet to provide its African former employees with severance pay or benefits. What Happened? At the end of last year, Musk laid off employees of Twitter Africa as part of a global cost-cutting measure. The Twitter team in Ghana had just opened their first-ever physical office when the team woke up to find they had been locked out of their emails and work laptops. They were also told over email that their contracts were being
Spill, a new social platform, has recently launched in beta on iOS and has quickly gained popularity within the Black community. Its surge in users can be attributed in part to Elon Musk’s announcement to limit the number of daily tweets visible on Twitter as well as several technical mishaps in recent months. What is Spill? The platform is invite-only while in beta and has been described as a visual-first, multimedia microblogging app with an interface similar to Tumblr. The app has a live news feed and allows people to
According to a new Senate report, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are failing to moderate online extremists adequately. The report, released on Wednesday, called on federal law enforcement to reevaluate its response to the growing threat of terrorism and extremism. The Senate has called out social media platforms for failing to stop the spread of violent and anti-government propaganda online, which has increased over recent years. Harmful extremism circulating online Recent incidents have led many to question the violent consequences of social media, which has seen more
Twitter recently terminated the contracts of almost all its staff based in Ghana, but the former employees are fighting back. The team has accused the social media giant of “deliberately and recklessly flouting the laws of Ghana” and, with legal assistance, are demanding national labor laws are followed. Violation of Labor Laws Three days after opening a physical office in Accra, Ghana—the first in Africa—Twitter locked staff out of their emails and work laptops. Since then, the African employees have not been offered any concrete information about compensation or the
Mass tech layoffs are shaking up the industry and dominating weekly news headlines. From Twitter’s mass layoffs to Meta announcing that they will cut 13% of its workforce, the industry is facing a ‘stormy winter.’ The H-1B Visa Program Mass tech layoffs have left thousands of employees worldwide in a challenging situation. Many will move on to get other jobs in the industry, whereas workers on temporary visas will not be able to do that. Workers with temporary visas have been left with little to no time to find another
Since Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover, many users have been searching for a new social networking platform they can call home. Mastodon, a social network built on open-source software, seems to be their best bet, with just over a million active users already signed up. But is it worth the hype? What is Mastodon? The events which have transpired since Elon’s takeover has sent Twitter on a tumultuous downward spiral. From the exodus (or ousting) of thousands of staff to the new Twitter Blue feature being pulled from the site in
Twitter has terminated the contracts of almost all its staff based in Accra, Ghana. The news comes after Elon Musk’s recent acquisition of the app, which has seen thousands of employees worldwide laid off work. Twitter’s presence in Africa In April 2021, Twitter announced its plans to build a team in Ghana as a part of its broader mission to expand its services across the region. After almost a year of working remotely, Twitter’s African staff finally opened a physical office in the continent. But celebrations were short-lived. A mere
Over the last 48 hours, dozens of Twitter employees took to the platform to announce that they had lost their jobs following Elon Musk’s recent acquisition. Employees have flooded the app using the hashtag #LoveWhereYouWorked with an emoji to signify that their time at the social media giant has ended. After ousting CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, general counsel Sean Edgett and chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde last week, Elon Musk has made it clear that things at Twitter will never be the same again. Impact on Black & Latinx
