Afternoon Update: Twitter bans impersonators; Crown fined $120m; and billionaires polluting the planet
If you’re thinking of impersonating Elon Musk on Twitter, you may end up off the platform altogether. That’s what happened to comedian Kathy Griffin, who found her account permanently suspended after changing her username to “Elon Musk”. The billionaire new owner of Twitter and self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” later tweeted that impersonating accounts that do not clearly specify “parody” will be permanently suspended.
Still on billionaires – Oxfam has released a report in the lead-up to Cop27 on the carbon impact of the investments of the super-rich. And, no surprise, it’s massive. About the same per year as the whole of France, to be exact.
Top news
Morrison warned |The attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, has written to Scott Morrison to warn him against “further disclosures” of sensitive cabinet deliberations that “undermine national security”. The concerns relate to a recently published book by two News Corp journalists providing the “inside story” of the Morrison government’s handling of the pandemic. Dreyfus’s letter did not allege laws were broken, but “urged against any repeat”.
Floods and storms |Three NSW towns – Walgett, Collarenebri and Lightning Ridge – received airdrops of food and medicine after becoming completely isolated by flood waters. The state had 16 emergency warnings in place, while Victoria had 39 warnings and advice messages, with the Murray River at Swan Hill likely to exceed the moderate flood level. And Melbourne’s three-day sunny streak was ended this afternoon by a severe thunderstorm, with BoM warning of flash flooding.
Twitter bans impersonators | Elon Musk says he is still committed to free speech despite Twitter banning accounts that impersonated him.
Meta job cuts |Twitter isn’t the only social giant shedding jobs – Facebook’s parent company, Meta, is reportedly planning to axe thousands of workers after poor financial results. Almost $125bn was wiped off Meta’s market value last month.
Crown fined | Melbourne’s Crown Casino has been fined $120m for breaches of its responsible service of gambling obligations. A 2021 royal commission found the Southbank casino had breached its code of conduct for the Responsible Service of Gambling over several years. Medibank rejects ransom |The health insurance giant says it will not pay a ransom to the alleged hacker who stole data relating to 9.7 million customers. The company said it now believed that all of the data accessed could have been taken, and advised customers to be vigilant that the attacker may now publish the data online or attempt to contact customers directly.
Duran Duran |The band’s original guitarist Andy Taylor has been diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic prostate cancer. Duran Duran, one of the biggest acts of the 1980s, had been due to reunite for their first performance in 17 years at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony in Los Angeles, but Taylor could not attend.
Full Story
Can Twitter survive Elon Musk? (And can Musk survive Twitter?)
Twitter under Elon Musk is off to a rocky start and the road ahead looks anything but smooth. But detractors have written off Musk in the past and yet he has made Tesla and SpaceX into global success stories and himself into the world’s richest man. So can Twitter survive and thrive under his ownership?
What they said …
Our US team is on top of the midterms – you can follow all the coverage here.
In numbers
The findings are from an Oxfam report, which called for the investments of the very rich to be regulated and for a wealth tax with a steep rate of top up on investments in polluting industries.
Before bed read
We’re less than 48 hours away from the US midterms and to say the country is deeply polarised is an understatement. In fact, nearly half of Americans fear their country will erupt within the next decade. We ask three experts: how close is America to civil war?
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