Twitter has lost its top content moderation official just weeks before the company is set to undergo a regulatory stress test by European Union officials focused on its handling of user content, in the latest sign of turbulence at the company under owner Elon Musk.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 3, 2023--

On Saturday (July 15), Elon Musk revealed that Twitter is struggling with a “heavy debt load” due to advertising revenue dropping 50 per cent. Responding to a user seemingly giving financial business advice to Musk, the billionaire replied explaining that the company is “still in negative cash flow, due to ~50 per cent drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load. Need to reach positive cash flow before we have the luxury of anything else.” Back in April, Musk had said Twitter was “roughly breaking even,” as most of its advertisers had returned. However, a New York Times report in early June found that Twitter’s revenue from US advertising was down 59 per cent from the previous year. Since taking over Twitter in October last year, Musk has faced constant scrutiny for his business decisions, cutting roughly 75 per cent of its workforce almost immediately, as well as reinstating users who were previously banned for breaking terms of service. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter In May, Musk hired a new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, an ex-NBCUniversal advertising executive. The new hire was supposed to signal a fresh start for the platform under Musk’s ownership, but it clearly hasn’t worked in bringing previous advertisers back. Twitter has also caused new upset by imposing ‘rate limits’ on how many tweets users can view a day. At the time, Musk had said the restrictions were required to “address extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation”. Another challenge that faces Twitter is Meta’s Threads, the new app it launched this week to compete with Twitter. Meta saw over 100 million users sign up in the first two weeks, but is yet to allow advertisers to host on the platform, despite interest. In response, Twitter threatened legal action, with Twitter’s attorney, Alex Spiro, accusing Meta for unlawfully using trade secrets and other intellectual property to create a “copycat” app. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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Phosphates have been found on Saturn’s moon Enceladus, in a new breakthrough discovery that boosts hopes for finding alien life in our solar system. It is the first time phosphorus has been found in an ocean beyond those on Earth, and marks a major development in our understanding of other ocean worlds. Enceladus is one of the most likely hopes for finding nearby extraterrestrial life. While its outside is wrapped in an ice crust, underneath is a global ocean that could be a home for alien life. Some of that ocean spews up and out of the surface of Enceladus, in the form of vast plumes. Scientists have been able to examine those plumes to better understand the ocean itself, including in the new study. Researchers in the latest study used data from the Cassini mission – which flew around Saturn and Enceladus – to find out what the oceans are made up of. They not only found phosphorus, but data suggested that it could be there are concentrations at least 100 times higher than in Earth’s oceans. What’s more, modelling based on the new data suggests the same could be true for other ocean worlds, potentially boosting the chances of alien life there, too. Phosphorus is not in itself evidence of life. But on Earth, the presence of phosphorus compounds in water are crucial for biological activity, and so it is a key part of evaluating whether a distant world might support life. Read More Astronomers find rare planet circling two stars like Star Wars’s Tatooine Elon Musk to launch biggest ever rocket after dramatic failure US government contradicts whistleblower’s claims of possible ‘non-human’ material