Elon Musk’s Twitter Will Start Charging You to Verify Logins Using Text Messages

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Spotify is releasing what it calls its biggest app redesign to date — revealing a new “dynamic” mobile interface aimed at providing listeners a more active role in discovering new audio content and giving creators new ways to share their work. The newly redesigned Spotify app will roll out to users worldwide in waves, starting Wednesday (March 8), the company said. It unveiled the new user interface at Stream On, its second event showcasing new features, creator tools and programming. The update is most significant change to Spotify’s mobile app since it debuted more than a decade ago and is about “bringing Spotify to life,” CEO Daniel Ek said at the event.

Elon Musk has said an upcoming documentary about him is a “hit piece”.On Monday (March 6), Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney announced that he was working on the new project, which will be titled Musk. He described it as a “definitive and unvarnished examination” of the multi-billionaire tech entrepreneur and CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter.Replying to a tweet about the news on Tuesday, Musk wrote simply: “It’s a hit piece.”Gibney said in a statement: “I have been working on this film, off and on, for some time and am hugely excited about it.

Gibney, who’s behind films like “Taxi to the Dark Side,” “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room” and “The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley,” is working on his latest production “Musk.” The Emmy- and Academy Award-nominated documentary filmmaker described the upcoming documentary as “a definitive and unvarnished examination of multi-billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter.” There are few different productions companies working on this project as well, including Jigsaw Productions, Closer Media, Anonymous Content, and Double Agent – who are also financing the project.News of the documentary, and Musk’s displeasure with it, comes on the same day the ]Twitter CEO apologized for publicly mocking an employee with disabilities who was unsure if he’d been let go and tweeted directly to Musk after the company’s HR department stopped communicating with him.

Elon Musk prodded advertisers “to use Twitter yourselves, and believe what you see on Twitter, not what you read in the newspapers.”

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Elon Musk, who acquired Twitter in a $44 billion, debt-laden deal a little over four months ago, said advertising revenue has dropped as much as 50% since he took over. But the mega-billionaire tech mogul said a few large advertisers have continued to spend with Twitter, and he specifically called out — and thanked — Disney and Apple as remaining two of the biggest marketers on the social network, speaking Tuesday at the 2023 Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom Conference in San Francisco. According to Musk, Twitter is improving its ability to serve timely and relevant ads. He said he was speaking with David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, who asked Musk why Twitter couldn’t put an ad with the trailer for HBO hit show “The White Lotus” next to every tweet that mentions “White Lotus.” Musk responded affirmatively, describing it as basic keyword-based ad buys that Twitter is now selling: “It’s just Google AdWords but applied to tweets.”

first reported by Axios, comes after Elon Musk acquired the social media giant for $44 billion in October. Musk joined Endeavor’s board in 2021 following the company’s initial public offering, but resigned in March 2022.

Endeavor Group Holdings CEO Ari Emanuel’s longstanding ties with Elon Musk led to the company investing a “small amount” in Twitter, a source has confirmed to Deadline.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer Elon Musk will be the center of a new documentary from the unflinching Alex Gibney, the Oscar-winning director of “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief.” Already months into production, Gibney announced the project on Monday saying he was “hugely excited” about tackling Musk on film. It is described as a “definitive and unvarnished examination of multi-billionaire tech entrepreneur and CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter.” Tech mogul Musk reached peak saturation in late 2022 when he completed a $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, promising to upend the platform’s user experience as well as restore “balance” to its user body (including the elimination of bot accounts, which Musk has previously said ran rampant on the site).

Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney has his next doc as he is currently months into the making of Musk, a definitive and unvarnished examination of multi-billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter. 

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Twitter was experiencing technical issues on Monday, showing users an odd error message if they tried to click on links to third-party websites. “Your current API plan does not include access to this endpoint, please see https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/twitter-api for more information,” an error message read for users who tried to visit web links.

Elon Musk said he was “rolling on the floor laughing my ass off” at a BBC investigation, which showed that trolling, hate speech, and disinformation have grown on Twitter since his $43B takeover.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis,” starring Austin Butler as the gyrating rock ‘n’ roll icon, has been streamed for a total of about 2.7 billion minutes by HBO Max viewers in the U.S. since it came to the platform Aug. 8, 2022, according to new data from Nielsen. That makes “Elvis” the most-streamed title on U.S. subscription services among the films nominated for in the Oscars best picture category this year — but only if you are looking at the platforms for which Nielsen reports metrics. What’s important here: Nielsen’s Streaming Content Ratings do not include Paramount+, which added “Top Gun: Maverick” on Dec. 22, whereupon it became the service’s most-streamed movie premiere to date. Nielsen also does not report streaming estimates for Showtime, which has the rights to best-picture frontrunner “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Twenty One Pilots has done it again: The music video for their 2016 hit “Heathens,” from the soundtrack of DC’s first “Suicide Squad,” has officially crossed the 2 billion views mark on YouTube. It’s the duo’s second music video to pass the milestone after 2015’s “Stressed Out,” which currently has more than 2.6 billion views on the video platform. The “Heathens” video, directed by Andrew Donoho with Nate Hurtsellers serving as cinematographer, is interspersed with clips from “Suicide Squad,” which starred Will Smith, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman and Viola Davis. The music video took home the trophy for best rock video at the 2016 MTV VMAs. The “Heathens” video was uploaded to YouTube on June 21, 2016, which was 45 days before the theatrical release of “Suicide Squad.”

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Ozy Media has closed its doors after Carlos Watson, the digital media and entertainment company’s founder and CEO, was arrested and indicted on federal fraud charges. ⁦‪”In light of its current operational and legal challenges, the Ozy board has determined that it’s in the best interests of its stakeholders to suspend operations immediately,” the company said on its Twitter account Wednesday. The company’s website, ozy.com, was unreachable as of Wednesday evening. On Feb. 23, Watson was arrested in Manhattan and charged with conspiracy to commit securities fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud in what the Justice Department alleged was a scheme to defraud Ozy’s investors and lenders. Watson was also charged with “aggravated identity theft” for his role in the impersonation of “multiple media company executives” in communications with Ozy’s lenders and prospective investors in furtherance of the fraud schemes, federal prosecutors said.

Elon Musk continues to be the richest person in the world, despite briefly losing the No. 1 spot for over two months.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Elon Musk-owned Twitter, seeking to reassure users and advertisers that it’s taking a hardline stand against violent speech, released an update to its policies that more explicitly bans certain types of threats. According to the updated policy, released Feb. 28, Twitter users “may not wish, hope, or express desire for harm. This includes (but is not limited to) hoping for others to die, suffer illnesses, tragic incidents, or experience other physically harmful consequences.” Previously, “wishes of harm” were not actionable under the company’s violent threats policy, which was last updated in March 2019. In addition, Twitter’s updated Violent Speech policy bans “inciting others to commit atrocity crimes including crimes against humanity, war crimes or genocide,” which also includes using coded language (aka “dog whistles”) to indirectly incite violence. Furthermore, the updated policy — in addition to prohibiting threats to physically harm others — also bans threatening to “damage civilian homes and shelters, or infrastructure that is essential to daily, civic, or business activities.”

Twitter went down on Wednesday morning, with thousands of users reporting outages.

Twitter has fired at least 200 more employees, or 10% of its already dramatically scaled-down, workforce, according to press reports, as owner-CEO Elon Musk continues to slash costs to make his $44 billion acquisition viable.

Woody Harrelson divided Saturday Night Live viewers over his monologue as the actor hosted the NBC sketch show for the fifth time.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Carlos Watson, CEO of digital media company Ozy Media, was arrested Thursday pending his arraignment on charges of federal securities fraud and wire fraud, Variety has confirmed. In a statement to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news, Watson’s attorney, Lanny Breuer, said, “We are really disappointed. We have been acting in good faith and believe we had a constructive dialogue with the government and are shocked by the actions this morning.” In September 2021, the New York Times reported that Ozy Media falsified audience metrics and that its COO, Samir Rao, impersonated a YouTube executive on a call with prospective investor Goldman Sachs. The revelations led to an avalanche of other disclosures including allegations of a toxic workplace culture at the New York-based company.