memeorandum: Twitter, cut in half (Platformer)

7:55 AM ET, November 5, 2022

Top Items:

Days before the midterms, Twitter lays off employees who fight misinformation — Mass layoffs at Twitter on Friday battered the teams primarily responsible for keeping the platform free of misinformation, potentially hobbling the company's capabilities four days before the end of voting …

Discussion: Stop Hate for Profit, The Post Millennial, Reuters, NDTV, The Guardian, Mother Jones, One America News Network, Mashable, TechCrunch, Plain Dealer, New Republic, Associated Press and TheBlaze

The Verge:

Elon Musk's Twitter layoffs leave whole teams gutted — About half of Twitter's 7,500 employees are now gone, with teams focused on trust and safety issues hit the hardest. — Elon Musk has now purged roughly half of Twitter's 7,500 employee base, leaving whole teams totally or near completely gutted …

Platformer:

Twitter, cut in half — I. The Snap — The email went out at 5:21 PT PT on Thursday. — For a full week, Twitter employees had waited in hopes of hearing something directly from their new owner. Instead, they had heard only from Elon Musk's intermediaries, and even then usually not directly.

Discussion: BBC, NDTV, Mashable, The Gateway Pundit, The San Francisco Standard, Al Jazeera, The Information, Raw Story, Bloomberg, Daily Kos, DNyuz and HotAir, more at Techmeme »

Washington Post:

Twitter layoffs gutted election information teams days before midterms — With half of the company gone, political campaigns are gripped with anxiety over how to address election misinformation and potential threats — Devastating cuts to Twitter's workforce on Friday …

Discussion: Twitchy and Slate

New York Times:

Confusion and Frustration Reign as Elon Musk Cuts Half of Twitter's Staff — The layoffs hit across many divisions, including the engineering and machine learning units, the teams that manage content moderation, and the sales and advertising departments. — SAN FRANCISCO …

Jason Koebler / VICE:

Twitter Recommends Ye as Top Follow on ‘The Jews’ as Company Does Mass Layoffs — “The Jews” and “#IStandWithKyrie” are trending on Elon Musk's Twitter. — Jason Koebler — “The Jews” is trending on Twitter, and its algorithm has selected Ye as a “Top” person to follow …

Discussion: Bloomberg, ABC7, Mediaite, Morning Martini, The Wrap and The Post Millennial

Tiffany Hsu / New York Times:

Twitter's Advertisers Pull Back as Layoffs Sweep Through Company — Elon Musk, Twitter's new owner, acknowledged that ad spending on the platform had slumped. He blamed the drop on pressure from activists. — Tiffany Hsu, based in San Francisco, has written extensively about advertising for The New York Times.

Discussion: NDTV, CNN, Bloomberg, The Guardian, The Times of Israel, RedState, The Hill, Rolling Stone, Mashable, DNyuz and Fortune

Blake Hounshell / New York Times:

What Twitter's Shake-Up Could Mean: Midterm Misinformation Run Amok — Declining trust in institutions is fostering mistrust about voting, leading many Americans to embrace conspiracy theories about elections. — A recent exchange between David Becker, a nonpartisan elections expert …

Discussion: NPR, The Guardian and PolitiFact

Edward-Isaac Dovere / CNN:

New York Democrats are bracing for stunning Election Day losses, and they already have a fall guy — Democratic officials and strategists in New York tell CNN they are bracing for what could be stunning losses in the governor's race and in contests for as many as four US House seats largely in the suburbs.

Discussion: Breitbart, HotAir, Frontpage Mag and National Review

CNN:

House January 6 committee interviewing Secret Service agents in Trump's motorcade on day of attack — The House January 6 select committee is getting a window into former President Donald Trump's motorcade on the day of the US Capitol attack, interviewing on Friday the Secret Service agent …

Discussion: Washington Times, The Guardian, Politico, New York Post, Reuters, Daily Kos, NBC News, Raw Story, PoliticusUSA, Mediaite and American Greatness

CNN:
House January 6 committee gives Trump more time to turn over subpoenaed documents

Discussion: Letters from an American, Washington Post, DNyuz, NBC News, Raw Story, HuffPost, UPI, Bloomberg, The Hill, Insider, USA Today, Political Wire, CBS News and NPR

Reuters:

What if Biden does not run again? — The U.S. midterm elections on Tuesday will do much more than shape the next two years of Joe Biden's presidency. They will also help determine whether he will run in 2024 as well, political analysts and advisers believe.

Discussion: Associated Press, DNyuz and Insider

Politico:
Will Biden take his medicine? — Welcome to POLITICO's West Wing Playbook …

Discussion: New York Times, Courthouse News Service and The Daily Caller

Washington Post:
'With Mike's help': Biden makes case for Calif. congressman

Discussion: Associated Press, DNyuz, Los Angeles Times, KTLA and The Hill

Camille Mumford / Emerson Polling:

Oregon 2022: Independent Candidates' Support Melts As Democrat Tina Kotek Leads Republican Christine Drazan by Four for Governor — Home Polls Oregon 2022: Independent Candidates' Support Melts As Democrat Tina Kotek Leads Republican Christine Drazan by Four for Governor

Discussion: The Hill, Fox News, Herald and News and Breitbart

Camille Mumford / Emerson Polling:
Ohio 2022: Vance Extends Lead Over Ryan for US Senate

Discussion: Politico, Breitbart, The Gateway Pundit, The Hill, PolitiFact and Insider

U.S. Department of Justice:

Former CEOs of MoviePass and Parent Company Charged in Securities Fraud Scheme — An indictment was unsealed today in Miami charging two Florida men for their roles in a scheme to defraud investors of Helios & Matheson Analytics Inc. (HMNY), a publicly traded Florida- and New York-based company …

Discussion: Variety and The Verge, more at Mediagazer »

Dylan Byers / Puck:

Can Licht Make the Cuts? — A brutal $100 million financial engineering effort begins at CNN. — When Chris Licht became chairman and chief executive of CNN, back in May, his boss David Zaslav asked him to conduct a six-month review of the 4,500-person global news business.

Discussion: Mediaite, more at Mediagazer »

Asmita Pant / cnbctv18.com:

Some of world's biggest brands have quietly paused ads on Twitter — The advertising giant Interpublic Group has also reportedly recommended that IPG Media Brands agencies' clients suspend all their paid advertising on Twitter for at least a week. — General Motors last Friday temporarily …

Discussion: The Hill, Breitbart, NBC Boston and The Post Millennial

Brian Steinberg / Variety:

MSNBC Cuts Ties Unexpectedly With Weekend Host Tiffany Cross … Tiffany Cross, the MSNBC weekend host who was known for running the freewheeling Saturday commentary program “Cross Connection,” is leaving the NBCUniversal-owned cable-news outlet. — Her production staff was informed …

Laura Packard / Op-Eds:

Say Goodbye to Healthcare if Republicans Win — Campaign commercials are jamming the airwaves, and everyone is claiming to be a health care champion. Republicans' votes say otherwise. — My name is Laura Packard and the Affordable Care Act saved my life.

Washington Post:

Investigators search for pricey gifts to Trump from foreign leaders — Golf clubs, diamond earrings and a soccer ball from Putin are among the gifts that House Oversight has asked the National Archives to find. — Congressional investigators are looking for dozens of pricey mementos gifted …

Josh Gerstein / Politico:

Psaki, DOJ fight social-media speech suit subpoena — Former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki and the Justice Department are fighting an effort to force her to testify in a lawsuit accusing the Biden administration of violating the First Amendment by pressuring social media companies …

Patrick Gillespie / Bloomberg:

Argentina's Kirchner Stokes Speculation On Presidential Run — Argentina's Vice President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner called for a political “reorganization,” on Friday, hinting at the possibility of a presidential run next year as speculation builds about her candidacy.

Erica Werner / Washington Post:

How to be a widow: A guide from a wife who doesn't know either — When I lost my husband to brain cancer, I learned there is no road map for grief — Since my husband, Bill, died of brain cancer in June, I've found myself unclear about what it means to grieve.

Timmy Facciola / The Intercept:

GOP Candidate Playing Up Veteran Status Finds Loophole for His Claim … In the race for New York's 18th Congressional District, the only shared element in the political biographies of Democrat Pat Ryan and Republican Colin Schmitt may be their military service.

Amudalat Ajasa / Washington Post:

A total lunar eclipse will turn the moon blood red on Election Day — The total eclipse will last for nearly 90 minutes from coast to coast across the U.S. — Hours before citizens across the country cast their votes in a contentious midterm election, a sinister red moon will loom in the sky.

Discussion: Mercury News, DNyuz, PBS NewsHour, FOX8 WGHP, Twitchy, One America News Network, ZDNet, Watch the Skies, CBS News, NDTV, UPI, Washington Examiner, Union-News and Basin Now

Alec Karam / The Daily Beast:

Nike Cuts Ties With Kyrie Irving Over ‘Hate Speech’ — JUST DID IT — Nike has halted its relationship with Kyrie Irving in the wake of the Brooklyn Nets suspending the player for promoting an antisemitic film. “At Nike, we believe there is no place for hate speech and we condemn any form …

Discussion: Associated Press, The Liberty Daily, CBS News, The Comeback, UPI, Raw Story, NBC News, DNyuz, The Times of Israel, ABC7, TMZ.com, New York Post, Sports Illustrated, The Hill, abc7NY, Rolling Stone, Denver Post and Jewish Telegraphic Agency

T. Keung Hui / Raleigh News & Observer:

NC Supreme Court orders state to increase funding for public schools in Leandro case — Just days before North Carolina's midterm elections, the state Supreme Court's Democratic majority ruled Friday that state officials can be ordered to transfer funds to try to provide students their constitutional right to a sound basic education.

Discussion: Carolina Journal

Shannon McCaffrey / Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Walker, Warnock both men of faith — Herschel Walker begins every campaign rally the same way. “I want to start by acknowledging my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,” he says. “Because if you don't acknowledge him, he's not going to acknowledge you.” For Raphael Warnock …

Discussion: The Comeback, PolitiFact and Deseret News

Andrea Cavallier / Daily Mail:

NBC News mysteriously PULLS its exclusive report on how Nancy Pelosi's husband Paul, 82, calmly opened door to cops in his underpants - and then walked TOWARDS ‘hammer intruder’ who bludgeoned him — The NBC News report cited sources close to the investigation and was published on Friday morning, but was pulled down by the afternoon

Discussion: National Review, TODAY.com, DNyuz, Fox News, TheBlaze, Washington Free Beacon, The Daily Signal, The Wrap, The Free Press, Breitbart, RedState and New York Post

New York Post:

Ex-NYC buildings boss Eric Ulrich spent $40K at eateries with past reported links to mobsters: records — MORE ON: — Former Buildings Commissioner and onetime political candidate Eric Ulrich spent nearly $40,000 in campaign funds at several food businesses with past reported links to mobsters, a review of records shows.