Wednesday, 14 December 2022

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Elon Musk, who became the apple of the eyes of the alpha male Twitter set after he bought the company, might not be the hotshot builder that his fanbase of bullish meme kingpins has billed him as after all.

Musk's Twitter has been rocked with a series of controversies, most recently pay disparity for IOS users for its Twitter Blue. Now it is showing signs of further derangement.

After Twitter wasn't working for some minutes during the weekend, it went completely berserk yesterday erroneously describing high-ranking Norwegian accounts including its prime minister and the ministry of foreign affairs' accounts as belonging to the Nigerian government.

It took the Norwegian government alerting Twitter for the glitch to be fixed.

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Below are the tech stories and news you need to know to start your day, carefully curated by Technext.

Summary of the news

Twitter has released the mock-ups of its new 4000-character tweet
Twitter erroneously described Norway's prime minister and Ministry of Foreign Affairs as Nigerian for more than 3 hours
Binance has temporarily paused stablecoin USDC withdrawals
Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas yesterday

Twitter shares mock-ups of longer tweets

Another element of Elon Musk’s ‘Twitter 2.0’ reformation plan is giving users more capacity to share longer posts, either in video or text form, within the app, Social Media Today reports.

Musk has repeatedly noted his desire to build YouTube-like features into the app, enabling users to post longer video, in order to keep viewers from clicking across to another app to consume video content (and provide another monetization opportunity for creators). Longer text is another area of focus, with Musk also telling users that longer tweets – potentially up to 4,000 characters – are coming soon.

Recently, Twitter designer Andrea Conway shared some mock-ups of how longer tweets may look in-stream, and how the process could work, if/when implemented.

Longer tweets would likely appear in-stream at the regular tweet length, with a ‘Show more’ indicator at the end of the first 280 characters. Users could then expand the tweet to read more, with potentially the full 4,000 characters then displayed in a longer tweet panel.

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Twitter erroneously describe Norway's official accounts as Nigerian

Has Norway become part of Nigeria? Barron's the American weekly magazine asked in an article published on its website yesterday.

The Scandinavian country's top diplomats on Tuesday asked Twitter to stop presenting its most senior politicians and institutions as being from the African country, Barron's reports.

On Tuesday, the certified Twitter accounts of Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store, Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt and her ministry were all presented as Nigerian government officials or institutions.

"Dear @TwitterSupport, as much as we enjoy our excellent bilateral relations and close alphabetical vicinity with Nigeria, we would much appreciate if you could label us as Norway," the foreign ministry wrote in a tweet, followed by a winking emoji.

The confusion has prompted chuckles among the social network's users. More than three hours after the Norwegian foreign ministry's request, the mistake had still not been rectified.

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Binance temporarily pauses stablecoin USDC withdrawals

Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, announced on Tuesday that it was embarking on a momentary suspension of withdrawals of stablecoin USDC to carry out a “token swap," per Technext reports.

Unlike the FTX saga, which compounded the losses of many crypto investors while they quietly and slowly recovered from the year’s bearish muddle, Binance users have processed significant withdrawals so as not to be victims of mismanaged funds.

Binance’s chief executive, Changpeng Zhao said that "On USDC, we have seen an increase in withdrawals.” Binance’s USDC withdrawal uptick is influenced by the market’s recent ugly news of sudden bankruptcy. The USDC enjoys prominence because it is equal to the U.S. dollar.

Binance is conducting a token swap to ensure that users can trade tokens without using traditional currency.

Sam Bankman-Fried arrested in the Bahamas

Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of the defunct FTX cryptocurrency exchange has been arrested by security officials in the Bahamas at the request of the U.S. government, Technext reports.

FTX was an exchange platform that investors used to trade cryptocurrency for other assets, including digital currencies or cash. Investors could also store their cryptocurrencies in digital wallets, similar to a bank.

Sam Bankman-Fried has been at the receiving end of some heavy backlash from FTX’s legal representatives, Binance CEO, and his replacement as FTX CEO, John J. Ray III since the crash of the crypto exchange which was the second-largest by trading volume at the time.

Sam Bankman-Fried is set to be extradited to the US, as revealed by the attorney general’s office for the Bahamas. “We expect to unseal the indictment in the morning and will have more to say at that time.” the US attorney, Damian Williams said.