Just weeks after sexually-explicit AI-generated images of Taylor Swift were circulated and viewed on his social media platform X more than 47 million times, Elon Musk trivialised what is a very real threat for women when it comes to these technologies.

On Sunday night (Monday morning in Australia), Musk posted a meme that shows just how little he cares about this threat.

“Boobs rock, it’s a fact,” he wrote on the post.

It’s the billionaire, Silicon Valley bro version of an 11-year-old boy typing “5318008” on his calculator and turning it upside down so it spells “BOOBIES”. I can picture an adolescent-like giggle escaping from Musk as he put fake boobs on the woman in the meme, wrote the caption and posted it to his 172 million followers on X, his very own platform.

But the truth is – the meme was immature, tone deaf and the clearest indication we have that Musk just isn’t funny.

Luckily, I am. And I want to show him how meme-making is really done.

The AI blame game

If there was any real accountability for Musk and people wanted to bring him down for making fun of a very real issue, I wonder if he would point the finger at AI.

Because that’s the pattern we’re seeing. When the pornographic images of Taylor Swift were distributed all over the platform, people vaguely blamed it on technology. No humans were accountable.

When Victorian MP Georgie Purcell’s body was edited and aired on a national television news broadcast, Nine News director Hugh Nailon cited AI as the reason the image was altered. No humans were accountable.

I’m tired of the AI blame game. It’s about time we point the finger at the real problem here – the people running the show.

SpaceX’s lawsuit

It’s an interesting choice Elon Musk has made to meme-ify image-based sexual harassment when his company SpaceX is facing a law suit for sexual harassment and discrimination.

In January, the California civil rights department informed SpaceX of seven complaints made by former employees at the rocket-making company. The complaints were in relation to managers nurturing a hostile work environment which allowed jokes about sexual harassment to go unnoticed. According to the accusations, women were paid less than men at the organisation, and any employee who complained about the conditions was dismissed.

Last week, Bloomberg broke the story that, as a result of those complaints, SpaceX is being sued for sexual harassment and discrimination.

Did Musk miss that memo? Because I don’t think prompting AI to alter an image to make a woman’s breasts bigger is helping the case, nor is making a meme about it.

Women’s bodies and AI technologies

Elon Musk owns one of the world’s biggest social media platforms. Ultimately, this guy gets to decide what goes on the platform and what stays off.

Last week, Women’s Agenda published an article about a woman who was kicked out of a shopping mall for wearing a midriff top. In the article, the main image showed a picture of her stomach.

When we posted the stories on social media, we ran into a problem. The article was blocked and unable to be posted on X.

Why? Because of the main image. Because of the woman’s stomach.

To be clear: AI-generated pornographic images of women are able to be widely distributed on the platform, seen 47 million times before Musk and the team at X notices a problem. But a woman’s belly? Not ok.

Women’s bodies are still being regulated by men – online and beyond. The men running the online world don’t see a problem with deep fake images, because it doesn’t affect them: rather, they see it curated for their pleasure and their pleasure only, because “boobs rock”, right? But stuff like this can ruin names, reputations, lives and so much more. 

Of course, regulation on the technology itself is important. Giving people the ability to create this dangerous content gives people the choice to create this dangerous content. That’s why so many women in AI are calling for more regulation and a stronger gender lens in government regulation of AI.

But don’t try to tell me it’s a robot’s fault. Because Musk’s poor attempt at being funny speaks volumes to how men in these spaces (still) disrespect women. 

Maybe it’s not giving people the choice to create the dangerous content that is the problem. Maybe it’s the fact we’re letting them get away with it.

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X Corp. (formerly known as Twitter) responded to the incident on Sunday night by removing the images and the account that first published the deepfakes, as well as temporarily blocking users’ ability to search “Taylor Swift” on the platform.

“This is a temporary action and done with an abundance of caution as we prioritise safety on this issue,” said Joe Benarroch, head of business operations at X.

The pop star’s name is still blocked on X, resulting in an error when trying to search her name.

According to a report from The New York Times, one of the several images that were in circulation was viewed 47 million times before the deepfake, along with the account that published it, was removed from X.

In a news briefing on Friday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called on Congress to take legislative action against the abuse and misuse of AI technologies online, but also urged social media platforms to take greater measures to regulate content.

“This is very alarming. And so, we’re going to do what we can to deal with this issue,” Jean-Pierre said.

“We know that lax enforcement disproportionately impacts women and they also impact girls, sadly, who are the overwhelming targets.

“We believe they (the platforms) have an important role to play in enforcing their own rules to prevent the spread of misinformation and non-consensual, intimate imagery of real people.”

The creation and distribution of deepfake AI images has been widely regarded as a form of gender-based violence, as it disproportionately targets women and girls online.

In 2019, a study by Deeptrace, a cyber security company, found 96 per cent of deepfake videos online were of an intimate or sexual nature. The people depicted in the AI-generated content were primarily women actors, musicians and media professionals.

‘Extremely harmful content’

Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant spoke to Women’s Agenda, explaining how easy it is to create deepfakes and how devastating it can be for people.

“Deepfakes, especially deepfake pornography, can be devastating to the person whose image is hijacked and altered without their knowledge or consent, no matter who they are,” Commissioner Inman Grant said.

“Image-based abuse, including deepfake porn, is persistent online harm which also represents one of the most egregious invasions of privacy.”

Generative AI is user-friendly and widely accessible to people. Inman Grant said something that would previously have taken large software and computing power to generate now can be generated with a click of a button.

“As a result, it’s becoming harder and harder to tell the difference between what’s real and what’s fake. And it’s much easier to inflict great harm,” Inman Grant said.

Australia’s online safety regulatory body, eSafety, lists the use of AI to create sexually explicit deepfake images as “image-based abuse”. Online users can report image-based abuse on eSafety’s website.

While eSafety has a 90 per cent success rate in getting deepfakes and other abusive material down from online sites, including social media platform X, Commissioner Inman Grant called on the “purveyors and profiteers of AI” to do more.

“We’re not going to regulate or litigate our way out of this – the primary digital safeguards must be embedded at the design phase and throughout the model development and deployment process,” she said.

“And platforms need to be doing much to detect, remove and prevent the spread of this extremely harmful content.”

Earlier this month, the eSafety Commission released a transparency report, revealing massive staff cuts at X Corp around the world.

According to the report, the global Trust and Safety staff was reduced by 30 per cent, while the Trust and Safety staff in the Asia Pacific region, including Australia, had a 45 per cent reduction.

Between November 2022 and May 2023, there were 6,103 previously banned accounts on Twitter that were reinstated on X.

At the time of the report’s release, eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant said Elon Musk’s staff cuts at X Corp. had created a “perfect storm” for the platform.

eSafety urges those concerned about the non-consensual sharing of images to report to eSafety at www.esafety.gov.au/Report.

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A transparency report released by the eSafety Commissioner has revealed massive cuts to staff at X Corp., both in Australia and worldwide, whose work was dedicated to online safety and regulation on the platform.

Musk acquired the social media platform Twitter in October 2022, renaming it X in July last year. Since then, as Inman Grant’s report found, the global Trust and Safety staff at X Corp. was reduced by 30 per cent.

In the Asia Pacific region, including Australia, Trust and Safety staff were nearly halved, as 45 per cent of staff were let go.

The public policy teams for X Corp. around the world have also been heavily reduced since Musk took over in October 2022. The entirety of X’s public policy team in Australia was let go.

More than three quarters (78 per cent) of public policy staff globally were made redundant, including 73 per cent in the Asia Pacific region.

The eSafety Commissioner’s report revealed that from November 2022 to May 2023, 6,103 previously banned accounts were reinstated by Twitter. According to the Commissioner, these accounts were Australia-based.

Out of those reinstated accounts, 194 of them were previously suspended for hateful conduct violations before being reinstated. X Corp. told the eSafety Commissioner these accounts were not subject to any additional scrutiny after being reinstated on the platform.

Our latest transparency report shows information provided by X Corp., owner of social media platform Twitter/@X, revealing the extent of deep cuts the company has made to safety and public policy personnel, and gaps in its measures to tackle online hate: https://t.co/7knm2xwZyf pic.twitter.com/CHxAqBt2P8

— eSafety Commissioner (@eSafetyOffice) January 10, 2024

Julie Inman Grant, Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, said the “toxic” results of safety staff reductions and previously banned accounts returning to the platform were unavoidable.

“It’s almost inevitable that any social media platform will become more toxic and less safe for users if you combine significant reductions to safety and local public policy personnel with thousands of account reinstatements of previously banned users,” Inman Grant said.

“You’re really creating a bit of a perfect storm.”

Inman Grant raised concerns particularly in relation to the thousands of suspended accounts that were reinstated as of May last year.

“If you let the worst offenders back on while at the same time significantly reducing trust and safety personnel whose job it is to protect users from harm, there are clear concerns about the implications for the safety of users.”

The eSafety Commissioner’s report said the reduction in staff globally has drastically slowed response times for users when they report online hate on X.

“Response times to hateful tweets have slowed by 20 per cent since the acquisition and response times to hateful direct messages have slowed by 75 per cent, with users not receiving a response for up to 28 hours,” Inman Grant said.

“We know from that online abuse is frequently targeted at victims via services’ direct message features, with clear intent to cause harm.”

First Nations hate speech

According to a recent study from eSafety, First Nations youth experience hate speech online three times as much as their non-Indigenous counterparts.

Targeted online hate speech at Australia’s First Peoples saw a particular increase during the Voice to Parliament referendum last year, where more than 60 per cent of Australia’s voting population voted No to constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

In June 2023, eSafety issued a legal notice to X Corp. under Australia’s Online Safety Act to see what steps X was taking to meet the Australian government’s Basic Online Safety Expectations.

In responding to the legal notice, X Corp. said it had failed to formally engage with any First Nations organisations between when staff reductions first began in 2022 and May 2023. X Corp. noted it had engaged with First Nations peoples over many years in the past.

Inman Grant noted the lack of dialogue between X Corp. and First Nations peoples and organisations is a concern for online safety in Australia.

“Understanding nuance and the unique cultural context of Australian communities is important to ensure platforms can tackle the online harms that can manifest and damage local communities,” she said.

Islamophobia and anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia has seen a significant uptick in Australia, especially in the online space, since October 7, 2023.

According to a report from the Islamophobia Register Australia, the Israel-Gaza war, dubbed “the Instagram war”, has incited dangerous hate speech online. Since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 2023, killing up to 1200 Israeli civilians, the Register recorded a 1300 per cent increase in incidents of Islamophobia.

A similar surge in anti-Semitism has occurred in the online space since October 7. According to US-based organisation Anti-Defamation League, anti-Semitism on social media showed a 919 per cent week-over-week increase.

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Since last week, Yaccarino, who has only been CEO since June this year has been resisting calls from advertisers and close acquaintances in the industry to step down, even as friends urge her she must do so to “save her reputation,” according to sources who spoke to Financial Times. 

Yaccarino is managing the backlash created by Elon Musk last Wednesday after he responded to a tweet that accused Jews of hating white people and of having a general indifference to antisemitism with: “You have said the actual truth,” Musk tweeted. 

“The ADL [Anti-Defamation League] unjustly attacks the majority of the West, despite the majority of the West supporting the Jewish people and Israel,” he wrote. “This is because they cannot, by their own tenets, criticize the minority groups who are their primary threat. It is not right and needs to stop.” 

Musk has since tried to retract his comment, responding to one comment to not “generalize the Jewish community” by saying: “You’re right that this does not extend to all Jewish communities, but it is also not just limited to ADL.” 

The following day, a report from left-leaning non-profit group, Media Matters for America revealed that ads for major companies such as Apple, NBCUniversal and IBM were appearing on X next to antisemitic and white nationalist content. 

Yaccarino immediately posted on X, saying her company has been “extremely clear about our efforts to combat antisemitism and discrimination,” adding: “There’s no place for it anywhere in the world — it’s ugly and wrong. Full stop.”

On Saturday, Musk said he would file a “thermonuclear lawsuit” against Media Matters “the split second court opens on Monday” for what he called a “fraudulent attack” on X. 

Media Matters CEO Angelo Carusone said in response: “If he does sue us, we will win.” 

“Musk is no free speech advocate,” Carusone wrote on X. “He’s a bully threatening meritless lawsuits in attempt to silence reporting that he confirmed is accurate. Musk admitted the ads at issue ran alongside the pro-Nazi content Media Matters identified.”

On Sunday, Musk – who describes himself as a “free speech absolutist”- wrote on X: “This past week, there were hundreds of bogus media stories claiming that I am antisemitic. Nothing could be further from the truth. I wish only the best for humanity and a prosperous and exciting future for all.”

Since last week, several major advertisers such as Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Lionsgate, Apple, NBCUniversal have paused their ads on X. 

IBM said in a statement it “has zero tolerance for hate speech and discrimination, and we have immediately suspended all advertising on X while we investigate this entirely unacceptable situation.”

Lou Paskalis, chief executive of marketing consultancy AJL Advisory said he “advise[d] Linda via text to go and [said] that staying would only damage her reputation.” 

“I’d question the judgment of any brand — any brand — that is still advertising on X,” he added. “[Musk] has to find a new revenue model as he has killed advertising on the platform, period, full stop.” 

Meanwhile, Yaccarino has continued to refuse to leave her position. Overnight, she tweeted: 

“What we’re doing at X matters and has everyone’s attention. I believe deeply in our vision, our team, and our community. I’m also deeply committed to the truth and there is no other team on earth working as hard as the teams at X. When you’re this consequential, there will be detractors and fabricated distractions, but we’re unwavering in our mission. Thank you for standing with us!” 

Early Tuesday morning (AEDT Australia), she posted another message on X: “If you know me, you know I’m committed to truth and fairness.”

“Here’s the truth. Not a single authentic user on X saw IBM’s, Comcast’s, or Oracle’s ads next to the content in Media Matters’ article. Only 2 users saw Apple’s ad next to the content, at least one of which was Media Matters. Data wins over manipulation or allegations. Don’t be manipulated. Stand with X.”

Since her appointment in June, Yaccarino has maintained the platform is continually upgrading its safety record. Her appointment came with expectations she would convince marketers and advertisers to return to X.

After Musk acquired the company in April 2022, he eased its moderation policies and reduced safety resources and workers, causing several companies to pull their spending. 

Before taking on her latest role at X, Yaccarino was the Chairman of the Global Advertising & Partnerships division at NBCUniversal, and held various leadership roles at Turner Broadcasting. 

Over the weekend, the 59-year old sent a memo to all X employees, addressing the Media Matters for America report and calling it “misleading.” 

“Across every corner of this company, we’re working to create a platform for everyone. And there is no other platform that’s working as hard to protect free speech like X. Our work is critical, but it’s not always easy. What we’re doing matters, which means it naturally invites criticism from those who do not share our beliefs.”

“While some advertisers may have temporarily paused investments because of a misleading and manipulated article, the data will tell the real story. Because for all of us who work at X, we’ve been extremely clear about our efforts to combat antisemitism and discrimination, as there’s no place for it anywhere in the world.”

“I want to encourage you to read and listen to all the feedback. On one side, there’s a vocal minority trying to use deceptive attacks to undermine our work. But on the other side, there are vocal supporters and courageous partners who believe in X and the meaningful work you are all doing. Hold on to that and keep pushing forward. No critic will ever deter us from our mission to protect free speech.”

“Let’s keep putting our values to work and lean on one another. I am extremely proud to be on the front line with you all.” 

Meanwhile, on Monday, The Washington Post reported that the Senate Judiciary Committee sent off subpoena-armed US Marshals to Yaccarino for a testimony about online child sexual exploitation in December, after she refused to cooperate. Snap’s Evan Spiegel, has also been subpoenaed.

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Boy math is a TikTok trend being used by women to describe the stereotypical ways heterosexual men try to rationalise or misvalue numbers in real-world situations.

A classic example: “Boy math is how 5’10” measures 6′”.

“Boy math is being afraid of gold diggers when you only have 3 pairs of socks to your name,” one tweet said.

“Boy math is having a 70-inch tv but no dining table” another said.

Another viral tweet added: “Boy math is wanting 0 kids but having 0 condoms on hand.”

It follows the “girl math” trend which attempts to poke fun at the way women stereotypically think about their personal finances. Example: A $400 handbag that you will use every day over a year is really costing you just over $1 per day.

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In the United States, Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez put her own spin on the trend, poking fun at Speaker of the House, Republican Kevin McCarthy over his attempts to avoid a government shutdown. He has since been removed from his role as House speaker, with a number of hard-right members of his own Republican party joining forces with Democrats to vote for his removal.

“Boy math is needing 15 attempts to count the votes correctly to become Speaker and then shutting down the government 9 months later,” she wrote. She then followed up with: “Boy Math, Part 2: Motion to Vacate”.

Across social media, some people have used boy math to poke fun at specific people – one popular target is Elon Musk and his takeover of Twitter (now known as X).

“Boy math is paying $44 billion for a $25 billion company and, through business smarts and entrepreneurial know how, turning it into an $8.8 billion company,” a tweet read.

Unsurprisingly, Donald Trump has also been a target of boy math.

“Boy Math is telling everyone you won an election when you actually lost by millions of votes.”

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On Saturday, X (formerly Twitter) chairman Elon Musk tweeted he would be removing the microblogging platform’s block function. It would remain intact for direct messages, but would otherwise become obsolete.

Is there ever a reason to block vs mute someone?

Give your reasons.

— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) August 18, 2023

This is the latest in a series of controversial and often confusing moves from Musk since he took ownership of the platform in October 2022. Why does Musk want to block the block function? And what might the consequences be for users, and indeed the future of the platform?

Why block the ‘block’?

Simply, the block function on X prevents one user from interacting with another. With the click of a button, the blocker can deny another user the ability to read their tweets or reshare their content.

Musk’s dislike of this feature isn’t new. In June he remarked that “blocking public posts makes no sense”. He has also condemned campaigns among users to block subscribers paying for a Twitter Blue subscription (which grants them perks such as a blue tick beside their name and the ability to edit posts).

Musk’s latest pronouncement might be related to his self-styled “free speech absolutist” persona. Last year, after he announced the deal to purchase X (then Twitter), Musk remarked:

Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.

Accordingly, Musk then restored accounts that had been banned for what previous site moderators classified as dangerous content. These high-profile reinstatements included rapper Kanye West (removed for anti-Semitism), congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (removed for spreading COVID misinformation) and right-wing personality Dominick McGee (who posted child abuse material).

In June of this year, Musk publicly said “distasteful” content – including tweets celebrating a migrant boat accident in the Mediterranean Sea in which lives were lost – could remain online as long as they weren’t illegal.

Of course, “blocking” someone on social media isn’t the same as removing their account or deleting content. Blocking is not censorship as this is commonly understood in a social media context; it does not involve, say, removing users or their content from a platform, or even shadow-banning (whereby a platform reduces the visibility of certain posts among a large number of users).

The block function is not "censorship." It is saying that "For me to use this platform, I do not have to wade through cookers, nutters and abusers to get to the people I want to talk to." Is this really such a shocking desire? Is it terrible not to want Nazis in yr public square? https://t.co/X5se3MKPlQ

— Peter FitzSimons #YES (@Peter_Fitz) August 20, 2023

That said, blocking does threaten the pugilistic model of free speech Musk endorses. He has called X the “player versus player” (a kind of duelling mode in online video games) of social media. The likelihood of skirmishes is reduced when “players” can block one another.

What would the consequences be?

Perhaps blocking the “block” function would allow lively and heated (but not harmful) debate to flourish on X. Or perhaps not. As Adi Robertson writes in an article for The Verge:

Blocking provides some very tangible benefits, helping users (especially high-profile ones) do anything from avoiding harassment to simply cleaning up spam in their replies.

It can also prevent exposure to hate speech, which has risen since Musk took ownership. According to the Centre for Countering Digital Hate, X “fails to act on 99% of hate posted by Twitter Blue subscribers”. Musk has disputed the findings and filed a lawsuit against the group (an action that sits uneasily alongside his free-speech absolutism).

The inability to block hate speech could help normalise it and create a hostile environment for people in groups that are often targeted, such as women, LGBTQ+ people, Indigenous people and migrants.

X has long been labelled a “hellsite” on account of the toxicity that appears on the platform. In a post-block era, it might become even more hellish.

What happens beyond the block?

Musk has suggested “a stronger form of mute” could replace the block function. The mute function currently allows users to avoid seeing the activities of certain other users – but the muted person can still interact with the muter (such as by commenting on their posts) in a way that a blocked person can’t.

What would “a stronger form of mute” look like? Musk hasn’t said. His plans to remove the block and implement this function seem particularly unclear when you consider he has already fired so many of the company’s workers, including technical staff.

Further, both the Apple Store and Google Play have guidelines stipulating that platforms hosting user-generated content must allow the blocking of other users. Removing this capacity might lead to the app stores dropping X, which could spell economic death for the platform.

Worded differently, Musk might succeed in “blocking” X from its users permanently. Or he may argue a stronger form of mute fulfils the same requirements as the block function. Either way, the signs point to a strong likelihood of X becoming a particularly nightmarish town square.

Jay Daniel Thompson, Lecturer (Early Career Development Fellow) and Program Manager, Professional Communication program, RMIT University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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“You’re gonna work from home and you’re gonna make everyone else who made your car come work in the factory?” he said in an interview on US news network CNBC:

There’s a superficial logic to Musk’s position. But scrutinise it closer and the argument falls apart. While we have a duty to share workload with others, we have no duty to suffer for no reason. And for most of human history, working from home has been normal. It’s the modern factory and office that are the oddities.

Working from home and the industrial revolution

Prior to the industrial revolution, which historians date to the mid-1700s to mid-1800s, working from home, or close to home, was commonplace for most of the world’s population. This included skilled manufacturing workers, who typically worked at home or in small workshops nearby.

For the skilled craftsperson, work hours were what we might call “flexible”. British historian E.P. Thompson records the consternation among the upper class about the notorious “irregularity” of labour.

Conditions changed with the rapid growth and concentration of machines in the industrial revolution. These changes began in England, which also saw the most protracted and tense conflicts over the new work hours and discipline factory owners and managers demanded.

Judgements of conditions for workers prior to industrialisation vary. Thompson’s masterpiece study The Making of the English Working Class (published in 1963) recounts bleak tales of families of six or eight woolcombers, huddled working around a charcoal stove, their workshop “also the bedroom”.

But it also mentions the stocking maker with “peas and beans in his snug garden, and a good barrel of humming ale”, and the linen-weaving quarter of Belfast, with “their whitewashed houses, and little flower gardens”.

Either way, working from home is not a novel invention of the “laptop classes”. Only with the industrial revolution were workers required under one roof and for fixed hours.

Misapplying a concept of justice

Musk’s moral argument against working from home says that because not all workers can do it, no workers should expect it.

This has some resemblance to the “categorical imperative” articulated by 18th-century philosopher Immanuel Kant: “act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”

But acting according to the same principle does not mean we all have the same options. We can, for example, want all workers to have the maximum freedom their tasks allow.

The wider error Musk appears to be making is misapplying what ethics researchers call distributive justice.

Simply put, distributive justice concerns how we share benefits and harms. As the philosopher John Rawls explains in his book Justice as Fairness, in distributive justice we view society as a cooperative activity, where we “regulate the division of advantages that arises from social cooperation over time”.

Research on distributive justice at work typically concerns how to pay workers fairly and also share the suffering or “toil” work requires. But there is no compelling moral case to share the needless suffering that work creates.

How to share more fairly

Clearly, professionals benefit from work in many ways we might argue are unjust. As economist John Kenneth Galbraith observed satirically in The Economics of Innocent Fraud, those who most enjoy their work are generally the best paid. “This is accepted. Low wage scales are for those in repetitive, tedious, painful toil.”

If Musk wanted to share either the pay or the toil at Tesla more equally, he has the means to do something about it. He could pay his factory workers more, for example, instead of taking a pay package likely to pay him US$56 billion in 2028. (This depends on Tesla’s market capitalisation being 12 times what it was in 2018; it’s now about 10 times.)

To share the “toil” of work more fairly, he wouldn’t just be sleeping at work. He’d be on the production line, or down a mine in central Africa, dragging out the cobalt electric vehicle batteries need, for a few dollars a day.

Elon, the floor is yours

Instead, Musk’s idea of fairness is about creating unnecessary work, shaming workers who don’t need to be in the office to commute regardless. There is no compelling moral reason for this in the main Western ethics traditions.

The fruits and burdens of work should be distributed fairly, but unnecessary work helps no one. Commuting is the least pleasurable, and most negative, time of a workers’ day, studies show. Insisting everyone has to do it brings no benefit to those who must do it. They’re not better off.

Denying some workers the freedom to work from home because other workers don’t have the same freedom now is ethically perverse.

Musk’s hostility towards remote work is consistent with a long history of research that documents managers’ resistance to letting workers out of their sight.

Working from home, or “anywhere working”, has been discussed since the 1970s, and technologically viable since at least the late 1990s. Yet it only became an option for most workers when managers were forced to accept it during the pandemic.

While this enforced experiment of the pandemic has led to the “epiphany” that working from home can be as productive, the growth of surveillance systems to track workers at home proves managerial suspicions linger.

There are genuine moral issues for Musk to grapple with at Tesla. He could use his fortune and influence to do something about issues such as modern slavery in supply chains, or the inequity of executive pay.

Instead, he’s vexed about working from home. To make work at Tesla genuinely more just, Musk’s moral effort would better be directed towards fairly distributing Tesla’s profit and mitigating the suffering and toil that industrial production systems already create.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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So far, Yaccarino is presenting as someone who is open to ideas and feedback and determined to improve the social media platform.

“I see I have some new followers…” Yaccarino wrote on Twitter following the news of her appointment last week.

“I’m not as prolific as @elonmusk (yet), but I’m just as committed to the future of this platform.

“Your feedback is VITAL to that future. I’m here for all of it. Let’s keep the conversation going and build Twitter 2.0 together!”

So who is Linda Yaccarino?

60-year-old Yaccarino was previously NBCUniversal’s Chair of Global Advertising and Partnerships, a role where she and her team generated more than $100 billion in annual advertising sales for the Comcast broadcasting division. 

Yaccarino was raised in an Italian-American Catholic family, and currently lives in Long Island in New York with her husband and two children. 

She majored in liberal arts and telecommunications at Penn State University, before working at Turner Entertainment for 15 years. She joined NBCUniversal in 2011, launching its streaming service and overseeing 2000 people as the head of advertising. 

Yaccarino is the Chair of the  World Economic Forum’s Taskforce on the Future of Work. 

Why was she chosen to be CEO at Twitter?

Yaccarino’s strong background in advertising is said to be one of the primary reasons she was chosen for the CEO role at Twitter. Since Musk’s takeover, the social media platform has experienced a drop in its advertising sales. 

Musk has let go of nearly 90 per cent of Twitter’s staff since his takeover, while the site has been plagued with technical issues and controversial changes including to its user verification system.

According to various media reports, Yaccarino is widely regarded as having deep ties with advertising agencies, and is recognised for her negotiating style. Those in the industry have given her the nickname the “Velvet Hammer”. 

Last month, Yaccarino shared a stage with Elon Musk at a marketing conference in Miami Beach, discussing Twitter’s new “freedom of speech, not freedom of reach” policy, and whether it would apply to Musk’s own tweets. 

“Does it apply to your tweets?” she asked Musk, who has a history of tweeting misinformation.“Will you agree to be more specific and not tweet after 3 a.m.?” 

“I will aspire to tweet less after 3 a.m.,” Musk said in reply.

At the conference, Yaccarino also pressed Musk on Twitter’s relationship with advertisers, and whether there will be an “open feedback loop” for advertisers at Twitter, so the social media platform be a place where they want to spend their money.

What happens now?

Musk, who is also the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, will stay involved at Twitter as executive chairman, chief technology officer and head of product. But he has said he will leave the business operations of Twitter to Yaccarino. 

Yaccarino is due to begin her role in a matter of weeks.

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His resignation comes just 5 months on from an embarrassing poll instigated by Musk, when he asked Twitter if he should vacate the position. 57.5 per cent of more than 17 million Twitter users said yes.

“I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job!” Musk tweeted at the time.

After months of what Musk deemed an overhaul of the social media company, but which others would call anarchy, Twitter employees and users alike were far from sympathetic or encouraging of Musk’s announcement.

“WHAT TOOK U SO LONG??? RUINED THIS APP,” one person posted. Another added: “ … have you considered transitioning to another company instead? Seems like there is most likely (definitely probably) a better fit out there. Better for us, at least.”

Musk’s controversial tenure included firing the majority of Twitter employees – with a large cohort of those remaining quitting on their own. He also reinstated the profiles of several divisive, far-right figures including Donald Trump and Kanye West who had been suspended from the platform.

Others mocked his announcement further, suggesting that the new CEO would be called ‘Elonia’, doctoring images of Musk to look like a woman.

Another user humorously asked ChatGPT to speculate who Musk might appoint as CEO.

Possible candidates included Sheryl Sandberg, the Chief Operating Officer of Facebook, Susan Wojcicki, the CEO of YouTube, Sarah Friar, the CEO of Nextdoor and Aileen Lee, the founder and managing partner of Cowboy Ventures.

Musk had always suggested that his role as CEO would be temporary, conceding that it was “too much work” and that he had often been sleeping at the social media company’s San Francisco headquarters while rolling out his master plan.

Many have criticised Musk for letting the running of Twitter overrule his other high-profile jobs running Tesla and SpaceX.

Twitter has also been contending with a significant drop in advertising revenue – tipped to be less than $US3 billion this year, compared with $US4 billion in 2022.

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Far from being stroked, the egos of some of the world’s once most influential men have been battered of late.

Not just internationally, but also here in Australia. With plenty of examples from just the past seven days.

Earlier this week, former prime minister Scott Morrison was cut down to size in front of the Robodebt royal commission. He evaded questions, he attempted to play politics, and thought he could even outsmart the Royal Commissioner Catherine Holmes. But Holmes was having none of it, reprimanding Morrison as he squirmed in the witness box. She called out his rambles and ordered him to listen. “I do understand that you come from a background where rhetoric is important, but it is necessary to listen to the question,” she said, delivering the line in such a tone that we can be sure Morrison will never forget.

Robodebt, you might recall, involved a system of chasing people for payments in horrendous and demeaning ways. Morrison was a senior minister when it was created, with his department (prior to him becoming prime minister ) providing serious input into the scheme and using it to promote Morrison’s own reputation on being tough on welfare. During this week’s evidence, Morrison blamed everyone but himself for the failings in the system that have seen lives ruined and families destroyed.

Meanwhile, former US president Donald Trump has experienced the latest in a string of ego-damaging events, including the dismal vote for his Republican-backed candidates in the November midterms.

In a “major announcement” on Thursday, Trump launched his “official Donald Trump Digital Trading Card” collection – at only $99 each, they make excellent Christmas gifts! The cards feature Trump wearing a superhero costume and cape. He shared the announcement on the social media platform Truth Social, declaring that the limited edition cards “feature amazing ART of my Life & Career!”

Trump has been mocked relentlessly since the announcement.

Elsewhere, Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk is fast learning that using social media to bully others, make fun of pronouns and promote transphobia and conspiracy theories, alongside his version of free speech, is not winning him any popularity contests, nor doing much for his wealth.

Musk was booed by the crowd at a show in San Francisco on Sunday, when he was invited on stage by Dave Chappelle. The moment was awkward, to say the least.

“Ladies and gentlemen, make some noise for the richest man in the world,” Chappelle declared on stage. Far from receiving the positive affirmations Musk immediately appeared like he was about to accept, the crowd booed. For ten minutes. Increasingly getting louder and louder.

Chappelle made note of the controversy, and told Musk, “weren’t expecting this, were you?” From the video, it looks like both Chappelle and Musk are surprised by the reaction. “It sounds like some of the people you fired are in the audience,” Chappelle said.

Musk asked “Dave, what shall I say,” to which Chappelle suggested he say nothing. “You hear that sound, Elon? That’s the sound of pending civil unrest.” Later, Musk said – in a moment of rewriting history that is all too familiar among the three men in this piece – that the noise recording on the video is actually “90% cheers & 10% boos”.

Musk, meanwhile, has been offloading his Tesla stocks, selling $US3.6 billion this week (AU$5.2 billion). While not yet clear if the sale is related to his $US44 billion Twitter purchase, Musk is said to be making Tesla investors “furious”. Last week, Musk lost his title of World’s Richest Person to Louis Vuitton boss Bernard Arnault, according to Forbes.

It’s incredible how quickly some of the smuggest people on the planet find themselves on the back foot. The lies, the poor treatment of others, and illegitimate power grabs, eventually come back for you.

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Musk, who took over Twitter Inc. last month, tweeted to his 115 million followers that “independent-minded voters” should vote for a Republican congress.

“Shared power curbs the worst excesses of both parties, therefore I recommend voting for a Republican Congress, given that the presidency is Democratic,” he wrote in a tweet that he pinned to the top of his profile.

“To be clear, my historical party affiliation has been Independent, with an actual voting history of entirely Democrat until this year.”

While former chief executive at Twitter, Jack Dorsey, and Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg have previously discussed political preferences or given money to political initiatives, they have never openly pushed voters one way or the other.

Musk is the world’s richest person. Last month, he bought Twitter for $44 billion and went on to sack half of its staff and announced plans to charge $8 for verification on the platform. He also cracked down on comedians parodying him on Twitter, suspending the likes of Kathy Griffin.

A recent report from Digital Planet found that since Musk’s takeover of Twitter, the quality of the conversation on the platform has decayed, “with more extremists and purveyors of hateful content testing the boundaries of what Twitter might allow”.

This is particularly concerning as the US midterm election is currently underway.

In May this year, Musk tweeted that could no longer support the Democrats and would vote Republican.

“In the past I voted Democrat, because they were (mostly) the kindness party. But they have become the party of division & hate, so I can no longer support them and will vote Republican,” he wrote.

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The first to go? Aside from the top executives including CEO Parag Agrawal who were shown the door upon Musk entering Twitter HQ while literally holding a kitchen sink (“Let that sink in” get it?), the weekend’s slaughter included those working in human rights, curation, AI ethics and accessibility.

In Australia, the company has been mostly swept clean, particularly across communications, marketing, government relations and news curation.

But internationally, we’re learning from those leaving the business that entire teams are going, with whole departments being removed. Former Human Rights Counsel for Twitter Shannon Raj Singh tweeted Saturday that “the entire Human Rights team has been cut from the company”. This team worked to protect those at-risk in global conflicts and crises.

Meanwhile, the now former Head of Accessibility Gerard K. Cohen also confirmed that his team is also “no longer”, despite having so much more work to do. He said their team understood the mission of making a global platform like Twitter accessible.

Another team to go in its entirety was one exploring ethical AI and algorithmic transparency.

Also gone is the curation team, which aimed to address misinformation and promote contextualised conversations across the Twitter “Explore” page. It pushed to make the platform a source for breaking news.

The rolling of such jobs and departments comes after the platform was flooded with racist slurs and derogatory terms by coordinated troll attacks within 48 hours of Musk taking ownership. The company’s head of safety and integrity Yoel Roth said on the attack that while 50,000 tweets were sent with one particular slur, that just 300 accounts were responsible — signaling a deliberate and highly coordinated campaign. As the attack was believed to have been done to make users believe the moderation policies had already changed, Roth confirmed that the rules haven’t changed and Twitter is “safe and welcoming for everyone.”

On Saturday, Roth tweeted that his DMs are open to recruiters and that he has “incredible, smart and compassionate talent” now available. Roth is currently still with the business.

Musk paid US$44 billion for Twitter (about AU$70 billion) in a deal he didn’t really want to see happen, given how quickly he tried to walk away from it. But Musk soon found himself out of options thanks to a very expensive and potentially embarrassing court battle as Twitter pushed to enforce the initial offer.

Musk tweeted “the bird is freed” after officially buying the platform over a week ago, indicating how he hopes to support “free speech” on Twitter, easing up on moderation and other controls that fundamentally aim to protect users. As a self described “free speech absolutist”, Musk proposed a “content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints” to be appointed, to make moderation and account reinstatement decisions (such as a decision to reinstate Donald Trump’s account).

The UN High Commission for Human Rights has written an open letter to Musk, highlighting concern about Twitter’s role in the “digital public square” and urging the company to understand the harms associated with its platform and take the necessary steps to address them.

“Respect for our shared human rights should set the guardrails for the platform’s use and evolution. In short, I urge you to ensure human rights are central to the management of Twitter under your leadership.”

Musk’s business plans for Twitter, that we know of so far, include pushing to get those who are already blue-ticked verified to pay US$8 a month to retain the privilege. Initially, Musk floated the idea of $20 a month, which was quickly rejected by some of the platform’s biggest users. Many blue-ticked users continue to outright reject the idea of paying anything at all, with some claiming Twitter should be paying them as creators – given the vast majority of Twitter’s revenue actually comes from advertising. There are reports that more one million users have already left the platform.

Musk said that with the company losing US$4 million a day, there are few choices but to do extensive job cuts.

But the employee cuts may do little to make up for the lost revenue, with advertisers also leaving the platform due to activist pressures and concerns about being associated with the newly “liberated” Twitter.

Will the blue-ticked users step in to make up the shortfall? Currently, there just isn’t enough to meet the revenue that comes from advertisers. Some are already leaving, many others may follow.

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