Kara and Scott discuss the Taylor Swift effect on the Super Bowl, and pick their favorite ads. Then, they've got opinions about the new special counsel report that raised questions about Biden's age and memory. Plus, Disney reports blockbuster earnings, and announces a new investment into Epic Games. Our Friends of Pivot are Zoë Schiffer, Managing Editor of Platformer, and author of “Extremely Hardcore: Inside Elon Musk's Twitter," and Kurt Wagner, social media reporter for Bloomberg, and the author of "Battle for the Bird: Jack Dorsey, Elon Musk, and the $44 Billion Fight for Twitter's Soul."
Follow Zoë at @reporterzoe and Kurt at @kurtwagner8
Follow us on Instagram and Threads at @pivotpodcastofficial.
Follow us on TikTok at @pivotpodcast.
Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or at nymag.com/pivot.
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Pivot will return on Friday! But in the meantime, we're bringing you this special episode of Decoder, all about the demise of Twitter. Nilay Patel talks with Marty Baron, former executive editor of The Washington Post, and Zoe Schiffer, managing editor of Platformer and author of "Extremely Hardcore: Inside Elon Musk’s Twitter."
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2023 will go down as the year that Elon Musk killed Twitter. First he did it in a big way, by buying the company, firing most of the employees, and destabilizing the platform; then he did it in a small, but important, symbolic way, by renaming the company X and trying to make a full break with what came before. So now that the story of the company named Twitter is officially over, it felt important to stop and ask: What was Twitter, anyway, and why were so many powerful people obsessed with it for so long?
In this special episode, I sat down with Marty Baron, former executive editor of The Washington Post, and Zoe Schiffer, managing editor of Platform and author of Extremely Hardcore: Inside Elon Musk’s Twitter. We discussed how two of Twitter’s most dedicated power users – Donald Trump and Elon Musk — were addicted to the platform, defined it, changed it, broke it, and then put it to rest.
Links:
The year Twitter died: a special series from The Verge
Extremely softcore
Inside Elon Musk's “extremely hardcore” Twitter
How Twitter broke the news
Trump vs. Twitter: The president takes on social media moderation
Martin Baron recounts leading The Washington Post during the Trump era
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt. It was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan.
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“I’m Sydney, and I’m in love with you. 😘”
A conversation with Bing AI (aka Sydney) turns romantic and bizarre. Why Microsoft’s AI search tool appears more powerful — and unsettling — than we thought. Then, inside Elon Musk’s quest to be the most popular user on Twitter.
Plus: It’s not just you. Online ads have gotten much worse.
On today’s episode:
Tiffany Hsu is a technology reporter at The New York Times who covers misinformation and disinformation.
Zoë Schiffer is the managing editor of Platformer.
Additional reading:
Bing AI appeared to have a split personality in a conversation with Kevin Roose, a “Hard Fork” co-host.
Elon Musk ordered changes to Twitter’s algorithm after his Tweets did not perform as well as he desired.
Why digital ads are so bad these days.
Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.
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Today on the flagship podcast of wanting to smooch your laptop:
01:23 - The Verge's Nilay Patel, Alex Cranz, Richard Lawler, Adi Robertson, and James Vincent discuss the flaws with Microsoft's Bing AI, and why it can be an "emotionally manipulative liar."
34:56 - Platformer managing editor Zoë Schiffer joins to explain why Twitter is showing everyone all of Elon Musk's tweets.
50:33 - The crew discuss YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki stepping down after nine years at the helm.
Further reading:
Microsoft’s Bing is an emotionally manipulative liar, and people love it
AI search engines are not your friends
These are Microsoft’s Bing AI secret rules and why it says it’s named Sydney
Microsoft says talking to Bing for too long can cause it to go off the rails
The Supreme Court could be about to decide the legal fate of AI search
Microsoft’s Bing AI, like Google’s, also made dumb mistakes during first demo
From Bing to Sydney (Stratechery)
A Conversation With Bing’s Chatbot Left Me Deeply Unsettled (The New York Times)
Seeing other people’s AI art is like hearing other people’s dreams
Yes, Elon Musk created a special system for showing you all his tweets first
Elon Musk’s reach on Twitter is dropping — he just fired a top engineer over it
Twitter is just showing everyone all of Elon Musk’s tweets now
Elon Musk says Twitter should be ready for new CEO by end of year
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki steps down after nine years at the helm
The maze is in the mouse (Praveen Seshadri)
Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra review: practically peerless
Razer Blade 18 review: the price is going up
Tesla recalls 362,758 vehicles equipped with Full Self-Driving beta for ‘crash risk’
Mazda MX-30 electric SUV review: a perfect storm of range anxiety
Hyundai and Kia forced to update software on millions of vehicles because of viral TikTok challenge
Less money and more fear: what’s going on with tech
Erase browser history: can AI reset the browser battle?
Email us at vergecast@theverge.com or call our Vergecast Hotline at 866-VERGE11, we'd love to hear from you.
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Kara and Scott discuss Microsoft layoffs, cryptocurrency’s surprising recovery, and Jacinda Ardern’s resignation. Plus, someone bought a Twitter bird statue for $100k, and it wasn’t Kara. Friend of Pivot Zoë Schiffer (@zoeschiffer) joins to discuss all of her recent Twitter reporting, including the work that went in to this week’s major New York Magazine story, which you can read here.
Send us your questions! Call 855-51-PIVOT or go to nymag.com/pivot.
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Join us for a 'mega' episode with three guests! The Markup investigative reporter Adrianne Jeffries leads off with a discussion of Amazon's self-preferencing in search. Stanford Internet Observatory's Renee DiResta joins for our second segment to discuss her story on bottom-up propaganda on social media, something she calls 'ampliganda.' Verge Reporter Zoë Schiffer rounds out the week with a look into the state of worker activism at Netflix and Apple.
Check out Adrianne's story on The Markup, Renee's in The Atlantic, and Zoe's on The Verge.
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