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Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, speaks with CNBC on May 16th, 2023.

David A. Grogan | CNBC

The sudden departure of Twitter executives tasked with content moderation and brand safety has left the company more vulnerable than ever to hate speech.

On Thursday, Twitter’s vice president of trust and safety, Ella Irwin, resigned from the company. Following Irwin’s departure, the company’s head of brand safety and ad quality, A.J. Brown, reportedly left, as did Maie Aiyed, a program manager who worked on brand safety partnerships.

It’s been just over seven months since Elon Musk closed his $44 billion purchase of Twitter, an investment that’s so far has been a giant money loser. Musk has dramatically downsized the company’s workforce and rolled back policies that restricted what kind of content could circulate. In response, numerous brands suspended or decreased their advertising spending, as several civil rights groups have documented.

Twitter, under Musk, is the fourth most-hated brand in the U.S. according to the 2023 Axios Harris reputation rankings.

The controversy surrounding Musk’s control of Twitter continues to build.

This week, Musk said it’s not against Twitter’s terms of service to misgender trans people on the platform. He said doing so is merely “rude” but not illegal.” LGBTQ+ advocates and researchers dispute his position, claiming it invites bullying of trans people. On Friday, Musk boosted a video on Twitter that was deemed transphobic by these groups.

Numerous LGBTQ organizations expressed dismay to NBC News over Musk’s decision, saying the company’s new policies will lead to an uptick in anti-trans hate speech and online abuse.

Although Musk recently hired former NBC Universal global advertising chief Linda Yaccarino to succeed him as CEO, it’s unclear how the new boss will assuage advertisers’ concerns regarding racist, anti-Semitic, transphobic and homophobic content in light of the recent departures and Musk’s ongoing role as majority owner and technology chief.

Even before the latest high-profile exits, Musk had been reducing the number of workers tasked with safety and content moderation as part of the company’s widespread layoffs. He eliminated the entire AI ethics team, which was responsible for ensuring that harmful content wasn’t being algorithmically recommended to users.

Musk, who is also the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has recently downplayed concerns about the prevalence of hate speech on Twitter. He claimed during a Wall Street Journal event that since he took over the company in October, hate speech on the platform has declined, and that Twitter has slashed “spam, scams and bots” by “at least 90%.”

Experts and ad industry insiders told CNBC that there’s no evidence to support those claims. Some say Twitter is actively impeding independent researchers who are attempting to track such metrics.

Twitter didn’t provide a comment for this story.

The state of hate speech on Twitter

In a paper published in April that will be presented at the upcoming International Conference on Web and Social Media in Cyprus, researchers from Oregon State, University of Southern California, and other institutions showed that hate speech has increased since Musk bought Twitter.

The authors wrote that the accounts known for posts containing hateful content and slurs targeting Blacks, Asians, LGTBQ groups and others increased such tweeting “dramatically following Musk’s takeover” and do not show signs of slowing down. They found that Twitter hasn’t made progress on bots, which have remained as prevalent and active on Twitter as they were prior to Musk’s tenure.

Musk previously indicated that Twitter’s recommendation algorithms surface less offensive content to people who don’t want to see it.

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Keith Burghardt, one of the authors of the paper and a computer scientist at the University of Southern California’s Information Sciences Institute, told CNBC that the deluge of hate speech and other explicit content correlates to the reduction of people working on trust and safety issues and the relaxed content moderation policies.

Musk also said at the WSJ event that “most advertisers” had come back to Twitter.

Louis Jones, a long-time media and advertising executive who now works at the Brand Safety Institute, said it’s not clear how many advertisers have resumed spending but that “many advertisers remain on pause, as Twitter has limited reach compared to some other platforms.”

Jones said many advertisers are waiting to see how levels of “toxicity” and hate speech on Twitter change as the site appears to slant towards more right-wing users and as U.S. elections approach. He said one big challenge for brands is that Musk and Twitter haven’t made clear what they count in their measurements assessing hate speech, spam, scams and bots.

Researchers are calling on Musk to provide data to back up his recent claims.

“More data is critical to really understand whether there is a continuous decrease in either hate speech or bots,” Burghardt said. “That again emphasizes the need for greater transparency and for academics to have a freely available data.”

Show us the data

Getting that data is becoming harder.

Twitter recently started charging companies for access to its application programing interface (API), which allows them to incorporate and analyze Twitter data. The lowest-paid tier costs $42,000 for 50 million tweets.

Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate nonprofit, said that because researchers now have “to pay a fortune” to access the API, they’re having to rely on other potential routes to the data.

“Twitter under Elon Musk has been more opaque,” Ahmed said.

He added that Twitter’s search function is less effective than in the past and that view counts, as seen on certain tweets, can suddenly change, making them unstable to use.

“We no longer have any confidence in the accuracy of the data,” Ahmed said.

The CCDH analyzed a series of tweets from the beginning of 2022 through February 28, 2023. It released a report in March analyzing over 1.7 million tweets collected using a data-scraping tool and Twitter’s search function and discovered that tweets mentioning the hateful “grooming” narrative have risen 119% since Musk took over.

That refers to “the false and hateful lie” that the LGBTQ+ community grooms children. The CCDH found that a small number of popular Twitter accounts like Libs of TikTok and Gays Against Groomers have been driving the “hateful ‘grooming’ narrative online.”

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights group, continues to find anti-Semitic posts on Twitter. The group recently conducted its 2023 study of digital terrorism and hate on social platforms and graded Twitter a D-, putting it on par with Russia’s VK as the worst in the world for large social networks.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean and director of global social action agenda at the center, called on Musk to meet with him to discuss the rise of hate speech on Twitter. He said he has yet to receive a response.

“They need to look at it seriously,” Cooper said. If they don’t, he said, lawmakers are going to be called upon to “do something about it.”

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Meta goes to arbitrator to prevent whistleblower from promoting tell-all book

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Meta goes to arbitrator to prevent whistleblower from promoting tell-all book

This photo illustration created Jan. 7, 2025, shows an image of Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, and an image of the Meta logo.

Drew Angerer | Afp | Getty Images

Meta is seeking to stop the promotion of a new memoir by a former staffer that paints the social media company in an unflattering light, including allegations of sexual harassment by the company’s policy chief. 

An emergency arbitrator ruled Thursday that Sarah Wynn-Williams is prohibited from promoting “Careless People,” her book that was released Tuesday by Flatiron Books, an imprint of publisher Macmillan Books.

The memoir chronicles Wynn-Williams’ tenure at Facebook from 2011 through 2017. During that time, she became a high-level employee who interacted with CEO Mark Zuckerberg, then-COO Sheryl Sandberg and Joel Kaplan, the company’s current policy chief. In the book, Wynn-Williams alleges that Kaplan made a number of inappropriate comments to her, which she then reported to the company as sexual harassment.

“This is a mix of out-of-date and previously reported claims about the company and false accusations about our executives,” a Meta spokesperson previously said about both her book and complaint.

Wynn-Williams also details in her book the company’s various attempts to enter the Chinese market, including building tools that would censor content to appease the Chinese Communist Party. Wynn-Williams addressed some of these China-specific claims in a whistleblower complaint that she filed in April with the Securities and Exchange Commission, NBC News reported.

The emergency arbitrator ruled in favor of Meta after watching a podcast appearance of Wynn-Williams in which she discussed her memoir and her allegations that Meta was attempting to “shut this book down.”

“The Emergency Arbitrator finds that, after reviewing the briefs and hearing oral argument, (Meta) has established a likelihood of success on the merits of its contractual non-disparagement claim against Respondent Wynn-Williams, and that immediate and irreparable loss will result in the absence of emergency relief,” the filing said.

Additionally, the arbitrator ruled that so much as Wynn-Williams can control, she is prohibited from further publishing or distributing the book and from further disparaging Meta and its officers or repeating previous disparaging remarks. The arbitrator also ruled that Wynn-Williams is to retract her previous disparaging remarks.

The company has previously dismissed Wynn-Williams’ claims as “out-of-date” and said that she was fired for “poor performance and toxic behavior.”

Meta spokesperson Andy Stone shared the emergency arbitrator’s ruling in a post on Threads, saying that it “affirms that Sarah Wynn Williams’ false and defamatory book should never have been published.”

“This urgent legal action was made necessary by Williams, who more than eight years after being terminated by the company, deliberately concealed the existence of her book project and avoided the industry’s standard fact-checking process in order to rush it to shelves after waiting for eight years,” Stone said.

Meta alleged that Wynn-Williams violated the non-disparagement terms of her September 2017 severance agreement, resulting in the company filing an emergency motion on Friday. The emergency arbitrator then conducted a telephone hearing involving legal representatives of Meta and Macmillan Books, but not Wynn-Williams who did not appear though she was given notice, the filing said.

Wynn-Williams, Flatiron Books and Macmillan Books did not respond to requests for comment.

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Intel appoints Lip-Bu Tan as new CEO, stock jumps 12%

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Intel appoints Lip-Bu Tan as new CEO, stock jumps 12%

Lip-Bu Tan appointed chief executive officer of Intel Corporation

Courtesy: Intel

Intel said on Wednesday that it had appointed Lip-Bu Tan as its new CEO, as the chipmaker attempts to recover from a tumultuous four-year run under Pat Gelsinger.

Tan was previously CEO of Cadence Design Systems, which makes software used by all the major chip designers, including Intel. He was an Intel board member but departed last year, citing other commitments.

Tan replaces interim co-CEOs David Zinsner and MJ Holthaus, who took over in December when former Intel CEO Patrick Gelsinger was ousted. Tan is also rejoining Intel’s board.

The appointment closes a chaotic chapter in Intel’s history, as investors pressured the semiconductor company to cut costs and spin off businesses due to declining sales and an inability to crack the booming artificial intelligence market.

Intel shares rose over 12% in extended trading on Wednesday.

Tan becomes the fourth permanent CEO at Intel in seven years. Following Brian Krzanich’s resignation in 2018, after the revelations of an inappropriate relationship with an employee, Bob Swan took the helm in Jan. 2019. He departed two years later after Intel suffered numerous blows from competitors and chip delays. Swan was succeeded by Gelsinger in 2021.

Gelsinger took over with a bold plan to transform Intel’s business to manufacture chips for other companies in addition to its own, becoming a foundry. But Intel’s overall products revenue continued to decline, and investors fretted over the significant capital expenditures needed for such massive chip production, including constructing a $20 billion dollar factory complex in Ohio.

Last fall, after a disappointing earnings report, Intel appeared to be for sale, and reportedly drew interest from rival companies including Qualcomm. Analysts assessed the possibility of Intel spinning off its foundry division or selling its products division — including server and PC chips — to a rival.

In AI, Intel has gotten trounced by Nvidia, whose graphics processing units (GPUs) have become the chip of choice for developers over the past few years.

In January, Intel issued a weak forecast even as it beat on earnings and revenue. The company pointed to seasonality, economic conditions and competition, and said clients are digesting inventory. The prospect of tariffs was adding to the uncertainty, Zinsner said.

Intel said that Zinsner will return to his previous role of CFO. Holthaus will remain in charge of Intel Products.

Intel was removed from the Dow Jones Industrial Average in November and was replaced by Nvidia, reflecting the dramatic change of fortune in the semiconductor industry. Intel shares lost 60% of their value last year, while Nvidia’s stock price soared 171%. At Wednesday’s close, Intel’s market cap was $89.5 billion, less than one-thirtieth of Nvidia’s valuation.

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Shares of iRobot tank 30% after Roomba maker raises doubt about its survival

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Shares of iRobot tank 30% after Roomba maker raises doubt about its survival

Roomba vacuums by iRobot are displayed at Best Buy store on January 19, 2024 in San Rafael, California. 

Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

Shares of iRobot plunged more than 30% on Wednesday after it said there is “substantial doubt” about its ability to stay in business.

The Roomba maker’s financial outlook has darkened since Amazon abandoned its planned $1.7 billion acquisition of the company in January 2024, citing regulatory scrutiny. Since then, iRobot has struggled to generate cash and pay off debts.

Massachusetts-based iRobot has been restructuring since the Amazon deal plunged into uncertainty. The company has laid off 51% of its workforce since the end of 2023, and iRobot has looked to reignite revenue growth by overhauling its product lineup. The company on Tuesday launched eight new Roombas in the hopes of “better positioning iRobot as the leader in the category that we created,” CEO Gary Cohen said in a statement.

“There can be no assurance that the new product launches will be successful,” iRobot said in its Wednesday earnings statement, citing limited consumer demand, tariff uncertainty and heightened competition.

“Given these uncertainties and the implication they may have on the company’s financials, there is substantial doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern for a period of at least 12 months,” iRobot said in its earnings report.

The company’s fourth-quarter revenue sagged 44% year over year to $172 million, missing estimates of $180.8 million, according to FactSet. The Roomba maker posted a net loss of $77.1 million, or $2.52 per share. Excluding a one-time “manufacturing transition charge,” iRobot had a loss of $2.06 a share, exceeding the $1.73 per share projected by analysts surveyed by FactSet.

In July 2023, iRobot took a $200 million loan from the Carlyle Group to fund the company’s operations as a stopgap until the Amazon deal closed. The company amended the loan for a temporary waiver on certain financial obligations, which requires iRobot to pay a fee of $3.6 million.

As part of Wednesday’s report, iRobot said its board has initiated a strategic review of the business and is considering alternatives that could include refinancing its debt and exploring a potential sale. The board hasn’t set a deadline for when its review will conclude, the company said.

Shortly after the Amazon deal fell apart, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy criticized regulators’ approach to its iRobot acquisition. European Union regulators threatened to block the deal, and the Federal Trade Commission in the U.S. was reportedly expected to challenge the acquisition in court.

The proposed merger, which was announced in late 2022, would have allowed iRobot to scale and better compete with its rivals, Jassy said. Several of the fastest-growing robotic vacuum businesses are based in China, such as Anker, Ecovacs and Roborock, all of which have eaten into iRobot’s share of the market.

“We abdicate the acquisition, iRobot lays off a third of its staff, the stock price completely tanks, and now, there’s a real question of whether they’re going to be a going concern,” Jassy told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin in an interview last April.

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