Twitter To Label Tweets Linking To Russian State Media
wiredmikey writes: “Twitter will put warnings on tweets sharing links to Russian state-affiliated media, the platform said Monday, as Kremlin-tied outlets are accused of spreading misinformation on Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine,” reports SecurityWeek. The news comes as Russian troops have launched a major assault on Ukraine and while their forces battle in the physical world for control over various cities and regions, a battle is also taking place in cyberspace with attacks and misinformation campaigns. Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of site integrity, says the platform is seeing more than 45,000 tweets per day that are sharing links to state-affiliated media outlets.
“Our product should make it easy to understand who’s behind the content you see, and what their motivations and intentions are,” he added. In addition to adding labels that identify the sources of links, Roth said the platform is also “taking steps to significantly reduce the circulation of this content on Twitter.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Twitter Misses Ad Revenue, User Growth Estimates
Twitter reported weaker-than-expected quarterly advertising revenue and user growth on Thursday and forecast revenue short of Wall Street targets, indicating that its turnaround plan has yet to bear fruit. Reuters reports: Still, the social networking site said it made “meaningful progress” toward its goal of reaching 315 million users and $7.5 billion in annual revenue by the end of 2023, and said user growth should accelerate in the United States and internationally this year. Shares of the San Francisco-based company rose more than 8% after the results, but pared those gains in morning trading.
Monetizable daily active users, or users who see ads, grew 13% to 217 million in the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, missing consensus estimates of 218.5 million, according to IBES data from Refinitiv. That was up from 211 million users in the previous quarter. […] Advertising revenue for the fourth quarter grew 22% year over year to $1.41 billion, missing analysts’ estimates of $1.43 billion. Twitter gained 6 million users during the quarter, but will need to add over 12 million each quarter over the next two years to hit its target of 315 million people by the end of 2023, said Jasmine Enberg, principal analyst at Insider Intelligence, calling it “an incredibly lofty goal.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Twitter Suspends Wordle-Ruining Bot
Twitter has banned @wordlinator, a bot that replied to people’s Wordle posts with rude messages that include spoilers for the next day’s game. The Verge reports: The account’s spoilers appeared to be accurate (the key is easily accessible in the game’s code, so it’s not necessarily a surprise), which could end up ruining the game for anyone who sees them. […] Given that the game is about guessing a word, knowing what the next one will be can ruin the entire point. It’s also one of those things that’s almost impossible to put out of your head — when you’ve seen what the next word is, you probably won’t be able to forget it no matter how hard you try. Further reading: Wordle Is a Love Story
Read more of this story at Slashdot.