Elon Musk, the metaverse and the Online Safety Bill
It has been a 12 months of drastic change within the tech sector, with Elon Musk taking up at Twitter whereas an financial downturn sparked main shake-ups and workers cuts throughout the trade.
Within the UK, the scrutiny of social media platforms intensified because the inquest into the demise of Molly Russell examined whether or not websites had performed a task in her demise, and debate across the still-delayed Online Safety Bill has additionally continued.
Here’s a have a look at among the greatest tech tales of the 12 months.
– Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover
The massive tech story of the 12 months began in April when Twitter firm filings revealed that billionaire Tesla and SpaceX boss Elon Musk had quietly constructed up a considerable proportion of shares within the firm.
A frequent tweeter, Mr Musk had begun expressing an curiosity in how the platform was being run at the beginning of the 12 months as he debated on-line together with his followers about Twitter’s goal as a part of world discourse.
Issues rapidly accelerated and Twitter introduced that their new greatest shareholder had been provided a spot on the board, however simply days later the Tesla boss reversed his choice to affix it and as a substitute submitted a proposal to purchase the corporate and take it non-public.
After months of publicly sparring with Twitter executives and pulling out of the deal briefly, Mr Musk accomplished the deal in late October and celebrated with a tweet that included a foul sink pun.
The chaos that many specialists and commentators predicted would include a Musk-led Twitter then started to play out rapidly – round half of the corporate’s world workforce was laid off, content material moderation was loosened and Musk himself engaged with conspiracy theories and right-wing personalities on the location.
Some specialists and analysts reported drastic spikes in hate speech on the location.
In the meantime, nervous advertisers began to pause their advert spend on the platform – diminishing a significant income supply for the corporate.
The Tesla boss’ treatment for this was to launch a brand new subscription service that enabled any consumer to be verified on the location just by paying a month-to-month price, however this technique had a chaotic rollout which noticed some use the scheme to impersonate public figures and unfold abuse and misinformation, which noticed the launch paused and pushed out once more a number of weeks later.
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