In what’s potentially been the most chaotic 24 hours of Twitter’s history, Elon Musk continues to wage a war against his opposition by suspending the Mastodon account and banning a slew of high-profile journalists from the app.

The increasingly erratic CEO is also preventing Twitter users from posting links to the social media rival, and is flagging its content as “potentially harmful”.

As staff numbers drop and the platform struggles to cover its own rent, Musk is appearing to go into survival mode. But with the self-confessed “free-speech absolutist” directly contradicting his own values, could these bans mark his biggest blunder so far?

Twitter Bans the Mastodon Account and Flags Links to the App

Elon Musk, Twitter’s CEO and previous world’s richest man decided to ban Mastodon’s account on Thursday night — the social media platform that’s widely being pegged as Twitter’s top alternative.

While the reason behind this ban hasn’t immediately become clear, according to The Verge the suspension took place shortly after Mastodon tweeted a link to @ElonJet’s page, an account that tracks Musk’s private jet usage in real-time.

The Silicon Valley company is also blocking users from linking to Mastodon accounts and a variety of servers, including to an ‘instance’ that lists notable Twitter alternatives.

Confirming that Twitter is blocking Mastodon links. Isn’t that anticompetitive behaviour? Hi @FCC pic.twitter.com/zX35roIeh7

— Rory Cellan-Jones (@ruskin147) December 16, 2022

According to a recent Tweet sent out by BBC technology journalist Rory Cellan-Jones (pictured above), attempting to post a link to a Mastodon account will land you with the message “Tweet failed to send”. Other Twitter users that have attempted to link to instances have been told the platform “can’t complete this request” because the link contains “potentially harmful” content.

But as the bluebird spirals further into chaos, Mastodon isn’t the only perceived threat Musk is cracking down on.

Twitter Bans Journalists and @ElonJet Account

During Musk’s Thursday night tirade, the Space X chief officer also decided to permanently suspend the accounts of several high-profile journalists, including Ryan Mac of the New York Times, Donnie O’Sullivan of CNN, and Drew Harwell of The Washington Post.

Musk falsely claimed that these reporters, which have all criticized the CEO in recent months, have violated his new doxxing policy, which bans accounts that are “dedicated to sharing someone’s live location”.

This policy was introduced retrospectively after Musk suspended the @ElonJet Twitter account this Wednesday, which has 500 thousand followers before its adjournment. The account’s creator, a 20-year-old called Jack Sweeney, also had his personal account banned in response to this new policy.

This suspension comes as a surprise to many, with Musk previously tweeting that he intends to keep the @ElonJet active, even though he considers it to be “a direct personal safety risk” in November of this year.

But what does the billionaire’s one-eighty on free speech reveal about the future of the social media platform?

Is Elon Musk Losing His Grip on Twitter?

From axing 50% of Twitter’s total workforce to providing hotel-style beds for remaining, overworked employees to crash on, Musk’s short stint as Twitter’s CEO has been nothing but eventful.

However, for a platform that advertises itself as a “free speech haven” and has and very lax content moderation policy to match, the chief executives’ latest moves fly directly in the face of Twitter’s central ideology.

Even Musk’s most loyal followers seem to be becoming disillusioned with the Chief Twit’s hypocrisy, with 43% of Musk’s Twitters followers voting that accounts guilty of “doxxing” the CEO’s location should be unsuspended immediately.

So, as the executive continues to lay down one rule for himself and another for his opponents, while other incriminating findings come to the surface, it’s uncertain how long support for the executive will continue.

Microsoft has been named the best-run company in the US for a third year in a row, beating Apple, Meta and Amazon to the top spot, despite a year of record-breaking layoffs and its slowest forecasted revenue growth in five years.

Apple came in second place, followed by IBM, General Motors  and Whirlpool,  knocking the previous years’ top 5 tech companies off the board.

The results come off the back of year of tremendous economic uncertainty with soaring inflation, mass layoffs and businesses scrabbling to retain retain their top talent. We take a look at how Microsoft, despite its setbacks, still managed to thrive.

Microsoft Is Officially the Best-Run Company in 2022

Of the 902 companies listed in the Top Management 250 report, Microsoft once again came out on top, as the best managed company in the US in 2022 – outperforming every competitor, with a top 10 score in every category on the list except customer satisfaction, awarding it an overall score of 98.6.

The report – which measures a company’s performance on customer satisfaction, social responsibility, employee engagement, development and financial strength – ranks America’s largest publicly traded companies on an analysis of 34 third-party data inputs to conclude which business is ‘doing the right things well.’

How Microsoft Compares to Other Businesses

Despite a year of unprecedented change, Microsoft managed to secure first place for the third year in a row, blowing Apple, Google (Alphabet) and Meta out of the water. While Microsoft performs well year-on-year, the difference between first and second place this year has more than doubled – with a 20 point overall difference between Apple and Microsoft, in comparison the 10 point overall difference between first and second place (Microsoft and Amazon) in 2021 due to Microsoft’s improved scored in financial strength and innovation.

Through the year Microsoft has made significant changes to its business model, providing more solutions than ever before to help businesses better adapt to a post-pandemic, hybrid-friendly world. With live translation features, Cisco compatibility and remote help tools for IT teams, it has continued to develop solutions to support businesses globally. While financially 2022 hasn’t been Microsoft’s best financial year, its score may be in part due to its surge in product development, with strategic moves to boosts the company’s retention.

Amazon, in comparison dropped from second to 8th place in the new Top Management 250 list, with its most significant loss of points due to lack of innovation, for which it lost 30+ points between 2021 and 2022. It also lost points for customer satisfaction, but gained two for social responsibility, securing it a top 10 position. In contrast to Microsoft, Amazon suffered a significant loss in profits due to its controversial walkouts, massive layoffs and alarming staff turnover throughout 2022. After cutting multiple divisions and laying off over 10,000 employees, it comes as no surprise that Amazon struggled to retain its score for innovation.

Massive Drop for Meta

The biggest mover on the list was Meta, dropping from position 31 to 130 with significant losses in its scores for financial strength (84.4 to 78.8), innovation (81.7 to 70.5) and social responsibility (57 to 49.2), but this may have been expected. Meta’s year has been plagued with financial strain from the start, with some blaming Zuckerberg’s egomaniac approach to the Metaverse as cause for its $80 billion loss in value.

Meta’s customer satisfaction, in comparison to other businesses on the list, were also significantly low, with a score of just 32.5 in comparison to Apple’s customer score of 60.7. While its score has improved since 2021 (27.3) it shows that there’s still a lot for Meta to do in order to compete with other businesses this category – however, with its highly publicised plan for more large scale layoffs, Meta may not have the team in-house to support the attention this category needs.

Other movers on the list worth noting was Apple. In contrast to Amazon and Microsoft, Apple actually gained points for customer satisfaction, jumping from 57.2 points in 2021 to 60.7 pushing it neatly into second place. The financial strength of the company had also improved, but it lost points for innovation (111.8 to 90.3) and social responsibility.

What Other Companies Can Learn From Microsoft In 2023

In a year of economic uncertainty Microsoft has done many things right – a lot of which was down to its own research. Microsoft has advised companies to “re-recruit, re-onboard, and re-energize employees” based off the back of a survey, to tackle retention and gain a better understanding of what employees need.

This results of the Top Management 250 list suggests that companies who prioritise employee retention and product development are the best managed companies in the US. In a time where businesses are struggling to retain their top talent, business leaders should be doing everything they can to retain their staff and prioritise the work environment so that they can focus on innovation.

Is there anything Microsoft Teams can’t do? The team collaboration platform is now adding a community feature that will allow users to communicate without all the business infrastructure. Oh yeah, and the new feature will be completely free.

Microsoft Teams is one of the most frequently updated collaboration platforms online today. With the resources of Microsoft and the customer feedback of 270 million active users, the collaboration service is constantly adding new features and improving performance to handle all the newly hybrid workers using it.

Now, the platform is branching out from its business roots with a community feature that will replicate the experience of consumer-facing platforms like Discord and Facebook.

Microsoft Teams Adds Communities Feature

A Microsoft 365 blog post announced that Microsoft Teams has added a new communities tool that will enable access to certain Microsoft Teams feature like calendar, meeting, chat, and file/photo sharing for no charge.

The goal will be to provide a communication tool for everyday users trying to make plans and stay in touch, rather than businesses looking to facilitate hybrid work. There are, of course, dozens of apps that do exactly that, but Microsoft Teams believes they can offer a bit more when it comes to productivity.

“What we’ve learned so far as we’ve been building this is that there is a set of communities who are looking to get things done. These are very distinct from pure fan communities or discussion communities, and where I think our strengths are as a company… is our ability to provide those productivity tools.” – Amit Fulay, VP of product at Microsoft to the Verge

The new communities feature will be available exclusively as an app at first, but as is often the case with Microsoft Teams, more updates will come down the road.

Can I Still Use the New Community Feature for Business?

While the new communities feature for Microsoft Teams is specifically aimed away from the business functionality of the collaboration platform, that doesn’t mean your small business can’t still benefit from its use. In fact, Microsoft Teams specifically outlines a few ways in which the new feature can benefit small businesses.

“With communities in Teams, your small business can move seamlessly from customer calls to team events and everything in between. You can create a virtual community group with diehard customers to announce a new sale, or just as easily create a Carpool Community for coworkers who want to share a ride to the office.”

Suffice it to say, the communities feature in Microsoft Teams is definitely a new frontier for the platform, but it could provide a unique means of communicating that takes itself less seriously than the business-focused Teams platform. And if there’s one thing we can use in 2022, it’s a little more community.

Update: Since we published this story, Twitter has been issued with an eviction notice for its Colorado office due to unpaid rent (June 15th 2023).

A newly published report has revealed that Elon Musk has refused to pay rent on Twitter’s San Francisco office space for several weeks.

The decision to withhold rent appears to be the latest cost-cutting measure deployed during the Tesla chief’s short tenure in charge of the social media site.

It’s also the latest instalment in the seemingly endless stream of scandals, controversies, and issues that have plagued the platform since his takeover in late October.

Twitter’s Rent Refusal

According to a report recently published in the New York Times, Twitter has stopped paying rent for its HQ, located in San Francisco, as well as its global offices.

The reason, the report claims, is that Musk is trying to renegotiate the conditions of the company’s office lease – but the missed payments have angered the real estate companies he’s trying to broker more favorable terms with.

Musk will likely argue that Twitter’s now smaller workforce – a result of both layoffs and resignations – has made the terms of the current lease inappropriate.

The billionaire SpaceX owner is reportedly also refusing to pay almost $200,000 bill for private flights that Musk took the week he completed the acquisition of the platform.

Twitter’s Financial Woes Continue

The news that Twitter is refusing to pay rent is swirling shortly after reports that many of the company’s office supplies are being auctioned off to raise funds. Twitter, by Musk’s own admission, is in dire financial straits.

The platform hasn’t exactly been a profit-making machine throughout its existence, however – when Musk took over, he revealed the company was losing about $4 million a day.

But it seems the situation is going from bad to worse. A source has also told the New York Times that Musk’s team is even exploring the legal consequences of not paying severance to the thousands of employees the company laid off after his takeover. Many fired employees are still waiting on paperwork formalizing their departure.

Twitter: The Dumpster Fire That Just Keeps on Burning

It’s hard to put into words quite what is happening at Twitter. It’s hard to think of a more chaotic and disaster-filled takeover of a tech company, and it’s even more difficult to keep up with the daily revelations of just how bad things are behind the scenes.

Elon Musk’s beliefs regarding “free speech absolutism”, for instance, have already led to racists, homophobes, and other bigoted individuals returning to the platform in droves.

50 of the platform’s top 100 advertising agencies jumped ship before December (although Amazon and Apple have now resumed spending), while fledgling Twitter alternatives like Mastodon experienced record numbers of sign-ups, as did a collection of smaller social media platforms.

The billionaire’s views on how the company should be run, on the other hand – which were on show for all to see when he demanded employees to work longer hours for no extra pay – have caused mass resignations, which have only added to the exodus of employees Musk himself instigated by laying off half of Twitter’s staff. Those who have stayed might find themselves sleeping at the company’s headquarters in the near future.

While Musk’s personal opinions and direct actions have been under the microscope, there have been reports suggesting Twitter’s security setup and practices were appalling before Musk even took over.

Among a myriad of problems – including multiple instances of employees “intentionally installing spyware on their work computers at the request of external organizations” – thousands of employees had privileged access to Twitter’s production systems.

Public confidence in all aspects of Twitter’s operations is at a historic low, and it’s hard to see any real way back for the platform from here. What 2023 has in store for Twitter is anyone’s guess – but with Musk at the helm, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who thinks it’ll improve.

Researchers have unpacked 22 potential cybersecurity issues surrounding and adjacent to Google’s new VPN, the Google One VPN.

Of these concerns, just three rose to the level of “medium severity,” while the rest were rated as low severity or “informational observations.”

Google has already fixed one of the biggest issues and a few others, but the new report notes that many of the flagged problems haven’t yet been resolved. Google certainly has a decent track record for taking security bugs seriously (and even led the charge on patching up the open source software security industry recently), so we expect them to address these concerns sooner rather than later.

What Are the Google One VPN Security Issues?

Google asked for the report itself, using the third-party firm NCC Group, and the group has just released the entire 52-page public report to all online. Specifically, it’s a technical component analysis and source code review, and the 24 findings can be broken down into three different categories:

• Three findings rated medium-severity
• Ten findings rated low-severity
• Nine findings rated as informational observations

Google has addressed one finding from each category, leaving a total of 19 remaining. The report details the top three medium-level security concerns first.

The biggest one is already fixed: It would have potentially left the Windows VPN application open to execution by someone with adminstrator access rather than stronger user restrictions.

“While NCC Group did not find any software vulnerabilities in this application, potential insecure coding practices could result in a privilege escalation attack. This issue was correctly addressed by Google during the retest, and now the application is executed with user privileges.” ~the report

The other two medium risk findings still remain. They both relate to the login process for both the Windows and MacOS versions of the VPN, and leave the service open to being denied availability by “local malicious applications” or could leak an OAuth token through temporary local ports.

Should You Use Google One VPN?

There are plenty of reasons why these security issues seem unlikely to pose a huge problem. For one thing, Google is well aware of all of them, having engaged NCC Group to investigate them in the first place, and Google knows it is in its own best interest to patch up all risks when it comes to security and user privacy.

Plus, even the more serious security concerns detailed above didn’t rise to the level of high or critical severity, which is common with VPNs like Encrypt.me.

Ultimately, the Google One VPN is about as trustworthy as any other VPN on the market when it comes to security. That said, there is one reason why you may not want to opt for it: Anyone who uses Google’s VPN will be funneling all their internet activity through Google, an internet tech giant with a long, storied history of scooping up data through third-party tracking software.

If you’re a privacy-conscious type, keeping your activity hidden from the ad-tech duopoly of Google and Facebook is likely one of your priorities. To explore your smaller VPN options while keeping your internet use safe, secure, and speedy, we’ve rounded up all the top options over here.

WhatsApp is a huge social media platform, with over 2.7 billion accounts worldwide and over 75 million users in the United States. Unfortunately, the sheer size and global reach of the platform make WhatsApp scams commonplace, just like other social media.

In 2023, US citizens alone lost $770 million to social media scams – and malicious actors are continuing to turn to WhatsApp to find their next victims. Some have used the platform to conduct AI voice cloning scams too, which are particularly prevalent in India.

WhatsApp scams often prey on users through impersonation, emergencies, gifts, romance, jobs, authentication, banks, cryptocurrency, ecommerce, prizes, and broken phones. This page is regularly updated to include the latest scams on WhatsApp, and currently includes:

• Family Member Impersonation Scams
• Wrong Number Scams
• WhatsApp Call Forwarding Scams
• “Complete This Survey” scams
• WhatsApp Romance Scams
• WhatsApp Job Offer Scams
• Two-Factor Authentication Scams
• WhatsApp Bank Scams
• WhatsApp Crypto Scams
• WhatsApp Gold Scams
• Ecommerce Scams
• “You’ve Won Something” Scams
• “My Phone has Broken” WhatsApp Scams
• WhatsApp Scams on Other Platforms

In this guide, we also cover how to avoid WhatsApp scams and what you should do if you receive an unsolicited WhatsApp message.

WhatsApp Scams in 2024

Although WhatsApp scam pictures can be found all over the internet, scammers change the format of their messages regularly, so it’s good to familiarise yourself with the types of scams you may encounter on WhatsApp, as well as common tactics used by malicious actors.

WhatsApp scams are often sent out en masse, and try to invoke a sense of urgency in the sender.

Maybe it’s a family member who needs financial support immediately, or a representative of a celebrity asking you to donate to their new cause. Inside an app like WhatsApp, correspondence can feel more familiar than on email, or even text message – and scammers take advantage of this. Broadly, scammers usually want to do one of three things:

• Steal your money or cryptocurrency.
• Obtain your personally identifiable information.
• Load malware onto your device.

Being able to identify common causes of WhatsApp scamming will help you stay safe and ensure you aren’t duped by the con artists lurking around on the platform.

Family Member Impersonation Scams on WhatsApp

Who do people trust the most? Often it’s their family members – which is why an increasing number of WhatsApp scams involve malicious actors impersonating victims’ nearest and dearest.

A much-seen iteration of this scam is commonly known as the ‘Hi Mom, Hi Dad” scam, and involves the threat actor pretending to be a parent’s child with a new phone number.

Then, the scammer uses social engineering techniques – such as claiming their online bank account isn’t working, or that they’ve lost files and pictures – to extort money and/or personal information out of the unsuspecting victim (Image credit: Mosman Collective).

Jennifer Mcllveen, Editor of Tech.co, learned her grandfather recently fell victim to this kind of WhatsApp scam, after receiving the following message: “Hi dad, my other phone crashed so hence the new temporary number. Message me if you read this ❤️️”

“My family was on vacation at the time the scammer sent the message, so it seemed more plausible to my grandpa that his son (my dad) would be using a temporary number,” she explained.

“The impersonator went on to ask my grandpa to make some payments for them, claiming they needed the money that day and promising to pay him right back. By the time my grandfather realized something was wrong, he’d already sent over $2,800.”

Other people have had similar experiences with WhatsApp messages purporting to be from family members. One member of the public that contacted Tech.co by email said they’d received a convincing message from a scammer pretending to be their cousin, and that the scammer was even using their profile picture.

Similarly, the scammer then asked to be lent money, which immediately aroused suspicion. Luckily, in this case, the scammer was thwarted.

How Do I Protect Myself? If you’ve been messaged by a family member claiming to have a new number, message their old number to confirm it is in fact them. Do not click on any links sent from the new number until you have confirmed it is a family member.

Wrong Number Scams on WhatsApp

WhatsApp wrong number scams have been around for a while and often involve more subtle long-winded social engineering techniques.

They typically start with a message from an unknown number, introduce themselves or their business, and then claim that they entered the wrong number to explain their message (Image Credit: IBT Times India)

However, far from closing the conversation there, scammers will then ask you if you’d like to invest in their business. They may ask for your name and where in the world you’re based.

How Do I Protect Myself? As a general rule, if you’re contacted by a number you don’t recognize on WhatsApp, do not reply, and certainly do not give out any personal information. No legitimate business will be looking for investors in off-the-cuff WhatsApp conversations.

WhatsApp Call Forwarding Scams

Call forwarding scams hit the headlines towards the end of 2022, but are undoubtedly still being used as a way to take control of a victim’s WhatsApp account.

In a call forwarding scam, a victim will get a call from a scammer, who will try to convince them to ring a number. Unbeknownst to the victim, this is a call forwarding service request line, and it means that all calls to their number will now be directed to the scammer’s phone.

The scammer will then go through the WhatsApp setup process with the victim’s phone number, and ask for a one-time password (OTP) to be sent via phone call. As calls have been forwarded to the scammer’s phone, they can now take over the victim’s WhatsApp account.

How Do I Protect Myself? Be very wary of calls from unknown numbers on WhatsApp, especially if they don’t follow the traditional mobile/landline format used in your country. In reality, however, all unknown numbers should be treated with suspicion.

If they’re calling you on WhatsApp and you think it might be legitimate, you can always message the number to investigate – as long as you’re vigilant and don’t give away any personal information or click on any links.

“Complete This Survey” WhatsApp Scams

Last year, Kaspersky warned WhatsApp users about a scam message being circulated on the app that asked users to complete a short survey about their experience on WhatsApp.

Users were also asked to pay a small amount of money in order to receive the cash prize for the survey. Another, similar WhatsApp survey scam offering free Amazon gifts upon completion, such as Huawei phones, made the news in 2022 (Image Credit: Hindustan Times).

How Do I Protect Myself? Think logically. What kind of competition needs you to pay money in order to receive money? A fake one, that’s what.

WhatsApp Romance Scams

Although romance scams often start on dating apps like Tinder, dating apps are also the most attuned to hunting down and banning accounts trying to extort people. Furthermore, on almost all dating apps, you can block and report accounts if you think they’re acting suspiciously.

However, this means scammers often attempt to quickly move to WhatsApp or other social media platforms to continue their social engineering, and eventually extort large amounts of cash out of lovesick victims (Image Credit: New York Times).

Other romance scams spotted in the last year involved WhatsApp users being invited to a group for strangers seeking romantic relationships, only to be redirected via the link to a fake Facebook login page that stole the details of anyone that filled in the credential fields.

How do I Protect Myself? Never enter any account credentials into a link sent to you by an unverified number, especially for a major site. In the above case, you’d be able to find the Facebook group via your Facebook app or the website.

Learn how to spot Facebook and Facebook marketplace scams here.

WhatsApp Job Offer Scams

Lucrative – but ultimately fake – job offers are becoming a common way to lure in victims, with promises of high salaries and payouts often included to coax victims into applying.

Once the victim is hooked, scammers using this method typically try, through a variety of means, to get them to pay upfront for something, while continually promising payment for their work (Image credit: Reddit user meizymango):

One user commenting in the Reddit thread says that after accepting the test task, they were redirected to another messaging app, Telegram, and asked to pay a sum of money.

How Do I Protect Myself? Jobs are hard to come by – especially ones where you’ll be working with celebrity social media accounts. If you haven’t applied for one of these roles and you’re getting a generic WhatsApp message about it, it’s probably too good to be true. Never apply for a job like this without verifying the company and the representative first. No genuine job will ask you to pay upfront at any stage of the application process.

Also, in the example note the repeated claims that the target will be paid “instantly”, as well as the poor spelling and grammar. These are classic signs of a scam and any message that includes wild promises of immediate payment is not to be trusted.

WhatsApp Bank Scams

This year, there has been at least one report of scammers impersonating banks on WhatsApp – another institution people often trust.

One version of this con was reported on TikTok by US-based English teacher Amanda Seimitz in May of last year. It involved a scammer contacting her on WhatsApp purporting to be from her bank. The malicious actor claimed she had to update her banking details in order to pay outstanding bills and send/receive payments.

How do I Protect Myself? Nowadays, the vast majority of banks send you some information to prove to you that they hold your personal information, so first, check for that. Secondly, your bank will have a customer support line – if you’re worried whether a message is in fact from your bank, just start an independent channel of communication.

WhatsApp Two-Factor Authentication Scams

There have been some cases of scammers attempting to bypass WhatsApp’s two-factor authentication (2FA) system in order to take control of user accounts.

Scammers do this by first making a login attempt, which triggers a notification being sent to the victim’s phone, notifying them that someone is trying to log in.

Then, they message the target requesting the 2FA code, claiming they sent it to them by mistake, and are likely hoping that they don’t see or receive the login attempt notification. Here’s an example (Image Credit: Reddit user nitrous642):

If a scammer is successful, they could easily impersonate the victim and commit even more scams, such as extracting money from family members. Requests for money would look significantly less suspicious coming from a target’s actual phone number.

How do I Protect Myself? Of course, using 2FA where you can is always advised, including on WhatsApp. However, you should never, ever give your 2FA code to anyone. If an individual is requesting you send it to them, they’re attempting to take control of your account. There’s no other reason they’d need this.

WhatsApp Crypto Scams

A particular problem over the last year in India, WhatsApp groups full of Bitcoin “analysts” promising near-to 100% returns on investments have been popping up regularly.

Names and other details were not revealed, nor were company details or website addresses, and no one consented to be added to these groups – three signs there’s something shady going on (Image Credit: Inc42).

“Cheerleaders” were present in the group, seemingly used to confirm the claims made by analysts – however, it’s likely they’re just part of the scam too.

However, this problem isn’t just confined to India. Tech.co’s Isobel O’Sullivan recently received a WhatsApp crypto scam claiming that punters could make “between £1000 and £5000 dollars a day”:

How do I Protect Myself? Don’t be swayed by multiple people “confirming” that a method of money-making does in fact work. Not all scammers work alone.

WhatsApp Gold Scams

The WhatsApp Gold scam has been around for a little while, dating back to 2017, and preys upon peoples fear of missing out. It is best known as a Facebook post which claims that a video from WhatsApp, called Martinelli, is about to be released, and will cause your WhatsApp account to be breached if opened.

To avoid this, the scam post urges uses to download WhatsApp Gold. There’s an issue with this – WhatsApp Gold doesn’t exist. Follow the download link, and you’ll open yourself up to malicious malware and viruses, and risk having you data stolen.

How do I Protect Myself? Never download updates or ‘newer versions’ of WhatsApp from anywhere except the Apple App store or Google Play store.

WhatsApp Ecommerce Scams

Sometimes, scammers go back to basics. Instead of orchestrating an elaborate romance scam or pretending to be someone’s family member, they simply try to con people looking to purchase items on ecommerce platforms, shifting the conversations over to WhatsApp and scamming them there.

A verified reviewer on pissedconsumer.com that goes by the name of “Christian S Vce” reports that he was “trying to buy something online alibaba.com” when a scammer “tricked me off the platform [and] contacted me on WhatsApp making all these promises that they were a legitimate company, but now that they’ve got my money they running and not responding anymore.”

How do I Protect Myself? If you’re looking to purchase an item online, always make your purchase through legitimate websites that verify sellers and use protected payment methods. Most major ecommerce websites and platforms now do this. Treat any efforts to persuade you to make the payment another way with extreme caution – avoid sending money directly to bank accounts, especially for expensive purchases.

“You’ve Won Something” WhatsApp Scams

This is a sub-genre of phishing scam that is becoming more prevalent on WhatsApp and is a classic method of duping people into clicking on malicious links over text or email.

Often, the link posted as part of the message will track very closely to a legitimate website name, but will have some telltale signs, such as an accented character, like the scam text impersonating UK supermarket ASDA (Image Credit: DG Cars) or a subtle spelling error somewhere in the URL.

How do I Protect Myself? The old mantra “if it’s too good to be true, it probably is” is an excellent principle to live by on the internet. If you really want to check if you genuinely did win something, contact the customer service department of the company or business.

“My Phone has Broken” WhatsApp Scam

Reports of a WhatsApp scam have been circulating as recently as October 2022. It involves threat actors impersonating a family member or friend of a target in a WhatsApp message, and texting them from a “new” number claiming their “phone has broken”. Sometimes, threat actors will say the new number belongs to a friend in an effort to convey trust.

The threat actor will subsequently ask targets to urgently transfer the money to a bank account to pay a bill, a fine, or a similar sort of payment. This is sometimes called “push payment fraud”.

How Do I Protect Myself? If you’re using WhatsApp and you receive a message from a number you don’t recognize claiming to be someone you know, ask for proof of identity, and certainly do not part with any money or personal information.

WhatsApp Scams on Other Platforms

Unfortunately, WhatsApp scams aren’t confined to the WhatsApp app itself. WhatsApp is a bit of a household name, so it’s perfect for conveying legitimacy for email phishing campaigns, which usually focus on famous brands like Geek Squad and PayPal.

Tech.co reported on a WhatsApp email scam that was making the headlines back in April, which redirected unsuspecting users to a malicious webpage.

Users that clicked the “Allow” button on this page – which the site claimed would confirm they aren’t a robot – had malware downloaded onto their device (Image Credit: Amorblox)

How do I Protect Myself? If you receive an email from a big brand that includes spelling mistakes, is formatted in an odd way, or comes from an email address that looks strange, don’t open it, and certainly don’t click on it. Like with banks and other companies, you can always contact the company through a distinct, official channel to confirm that the email whether the email is legitimate.

Also, a lot of contemporary antivirus software comes with phishing protection and filtering, so it’s worth checking out some providers.

Tips for Avoiding Scams and Staying Safe Online

The simple rule for avoiding WhatsApp scams is this: Never answer WhatsApp messages or calls from numbers you don’t recognize, and never click on links included in WhatsApp messages from unknown numbers.

If the person messaging you claims to be a family member or friend, you can contact them through a different means (such as a social media account, or their actual number) to verify whether it’s legitimate or not.

As you can probably tell from some of the scams discussed in this article, the internet can be a dangerous place – and with 2.7 billion people using WhastApp worldwide, it’s going to be one of the most targeted platforms. However, there are lots of cyber threats to look out for – not all of them are confined to WhatsApp. When it comes to suspicious messages you receive – regardless of the platform – follow these rules:

• Don’t Click On Links: One click is all it takes to load malware onto your device. If you’re at all suspicious, don’t click.
• Check With Customer Service: If you want to confirm the legitimacy of an email, contact the company directly.
• Educate Yourself: Keep up to date with the latest scams, so you can spot and avoid them.

These are all well and good, but there are other things we’d advise doing to keep yourself safe. One thing that will instantly improve your security – especially in terms of your social media accounts – is using a password manager.

Password managers will help you ensure all of your passwords are sufficiently long and completely unique to every account you own. This means that even if one of your accounts is compromised, criminals won’t have an easy way into all the rest of the websites you hold one with.

So, whatever app you’re using, be sure to keep your ears to the ground and your eyes open – or you too could end up falling victim to one of these scams.

As concerns over cyber-espionage mount, Texas has become the latest state to ban agencies from using TikTok on government-issued devices, making it the fifth state to impose legislation of this kind.

According to Greg Abbott, the Texas governor who made the announcement, the Bejing-born social media app offers a trove of “sensitive information to the Chinese government” and should be considered a threat to our national security. 

From coming under attack from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over its handling of US data to almost being banned outright by the Trump administration, TikTok has a track record of shaking off controversies. But could these state-wide prohibitions set the precedent for wider regulations being placed around its use?

Texas Has Banned TikTok on State-Issued Devices

Texas governor, Greg Abbott, has just banned all state agencies from using TikTok on government devices, making Texas the fifth state to roll out a policy of this kind, after Maryland, South Dakota, South Carolina, and Nebraska.

In a recent letter explaining the ban, the governor chastised the popular social media app for harvesting “vast amounts of data from its users’ devices” that could then possibly land in the hands of the Chinese government. 

He cited China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law, which states that businesses in the country must share data with the state upon request, and referred to TikTok’s politically-influenced algorithms, which have previously included censoring sensitive topics, such as the Tiananmen Square protests. 

Abbott followed the announcement up with a Tweet that outlined his thoughts in no uncertain terms, stating “the threat posed by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party)… is serious and must be stopped.”

I've banned TikTok on state issued devices.

I'm also calling for legislation to make the ban permanent and to broaden the ban.

As I detail in my letter and press release, the threat posed by the CCP through TikTok is serious and must be stopped.https://t.co/X4kkFfCDq3

— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) December 7, 2022

The TikTok ban will be effective immediately and will prohibit the popular social media app from being downloaded on any state-issued device, including cell phones, laptops, tablets and desktops computers, or any device that is connected to the internet.

Five States Agree TikTok Is Dangerous

Texas isn’t the first state to take a stab at the addictive video app. Several other Republican lawmakers have made very similar regulations in previous weeks.

Most recently, Maryland banned a number of China and Russia-based apps, including TikTok, WeChat, and Kaspersky, from being downloaded on government devices, as part of an emergency cybersecurity directive.

Speaking on this decision, the state’s governor, Larry Hogan warned that these apps could pose a great “threat to our personal safety” due to their possible involvement in cyber-espionage, government surveillance, and inappropriate collection of sensitive personal information.

Some states have even gone one step further, with Indiana suing the social media app for misleading its users — particularly its younger demographic — about inappropriate content on the app and the security of their consumer data.

Are TikTok’s Days In the US Numbered?

This certainly isn’t TikTok’s first run-in with the law. The US’s fastest-growing social media platform has consistently been under fire since it was introduced to the country in 2016. Most notably, former President Trump unsuccessfully tried to ban TikTok from app stores in 2020, as relations between the US and China became increasingly hostile.

More recently, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr petitioned to ban the app once more in June, over allegations of inappropriate data harvesting and cooperative relationships with Beijing authorities.

TikTok has made a number of actions to quell the concerns of US lawmakers, including getting its head of global security, Roland Cloutier, to step down, and renewing its vow to move all US data to Oracle servers based on home soil.

However, with a number of politicians sharpening their attack against their platform, and only 24% of TikTok users claiming to trust the app to keep their data secure — down from 41% in 2020 — it may only be a matter of time before these bans are extended to the wider population.

Multi-tasking just got a lot easier with Microsoft Teams, as the popular collaboration tool will be adding picture-in-picture functionality for tablets and smartphones, a highly sought-after feature for the majority of professionals.

With millions of employees working from home, tools like Microsoft Teams have become integral to everyday life. This means that when they don’t do exactly what you want them to do, like provide an easy way to multitasking on a smartphone or tablet, it can be a real problem.

Fortunately, Microsoft Teams is so regularly updated based on customer feedback, the problems don’t last long, and one upcoming update could fix an annoying problem that users have been plagued with.

Picture-in-Picture Functionality Coming Soon to Microsoft Teams

According to the Microsoft 365 roadmap, which tracks all the upcoming changes to the platform, Microsoft Teams could soon be getting picture-in-picture functionality on iPhones and iPads. This long-awaited feature will allow users to access other apps on your device while staying connected to your call.

“The new Picture in Picture mode lets you see your meeting in an adjustable window while using other apps on your mobile device.” – Microsoft 365 roadmap entry

As with all Microsoft 365 roadmap entries, this is far from a guarantee that the feature will go live. However, most do, and the availability date of December 2022 means that it will happen sooner rather than later.

It’s worth noting that this feature will only be available for Apple devices like iPhones and iPads, although functionality on Surface tablets has had picture-in-picture for quite some time, as they are more functional laptop-replacements.

Is Microsoft Teams Good for Business?

We’ll be the first to admit that we’ve researched and covered Microsoft Teams quite thoroughly in recent years and for good reason. The collaboration/communication tool has become integral for many businesses looking to establish hybrid work policies, as it’s foundational to staying in touch with those working from home.

As a result, Microsoft Teams is a very solid option for businesses looking to get started. The interface can be a bit difficult to use compared to competitors like Zoom, but overall, you could do a lot worse, particularly if your business is already set up with the rest of the Microsoft 365 system.

And honestly, the best part of Microsoft Teams is that it’s so frequently updated. We’ve covered a wide range of helping additions to the platform, from basic speed boosts to the addition of games to spice up icebreakers.

Suffice it to say, your business would be greatly improved by the use of Microsoft Teams, particularly now that you can multitask on iPads and iPhones a little easier now.

The passwordless revolution continues, as open-source password manager Bitwarden is launching new features that will let you log in to your account with your complicated credentials.

Let’s be honest, unless you’re using a good password manager, there’s a good chance you aren’t following best practices for password security. After all, the average user has 100 accounts online and coming up with a long, unique password for each one is borderline impossible.

Luckily, the tech world has begun instituting passwordless features that will enable users to ditch the passwords and start utilizing easier, more secure means of keeping their data safe.

Bitwarden Adds Passwordless Features

Announced in a press release earlier this week, Bitwarden — the open-source password manager — is launching passwordless features designed at bolstering security and improving ease of use across the platform.

“Innovations around biometrics, security keys, and integrations with enterprise SSO all enable Bitwarden to offer passwordless authentication options, helping customers reduce password entry and streamlining user experience.” – Bitwarden press release

If you’re at all familiar with passwordless login, you’ll recognize how Bitwarden plans on implementing it. Instead of inputting a master password or elaborate security key, you’ll simply be sent a mobile notification to your authorized device. Then, all you have to do is click login, and you’ll be on your way to a easier, more secure password process.

Is the Future Passwordless?

Passwords remain an outdated, unsecured method of security for the majority of users. Yes, they can be an excellent first defense if employed correctly, but study after study has shown that even the largest businesses with the most to lose from lax password security don’t take it seriously.

81% of users use the same password for multiple accounts, the most common password around the world remains “password,” and a large percentage of business owners doesn’t even see the point of password managers. All these stats mean that implementing passwordless options for employees could make a huge difference in the security of your business.

And you wouldn’t be alone either. The passwordless movement has plenty of revolutionaries on its side, from Microsoft to Apple. Even other password managers like LastPass have begun offering passwordless features to improve security for everyday users.

So, should your business be looking into passwordless features? Absolutely, if only to take the burden of remembering 50 different login credentials off of your employees’ shoulders. And if you’re worried about how this change will be received by your team, you’re in luck, as plenty of people are comfortable going passwordless, so the transition shouldn’t be too troubling for your business.

“Goblin Mode” has been crowned the Oxford English Dictionary’s word of the year, marking the first time the decision has ever gone to a public vote with an emphatic rejection of societal expectations. 

The term – which has found its way into all sorts of social media content during the past 12 months – claimed victory in the wake of competition from “Metaverse” and “#IStandWith”, which were the other two terms shortlisted for voting by the Oxford University Press.

It must be said, however, that it wasn’t really a close-run race – a total of 318,956 English speakers voted for Goblin Mode, which accounted for 93% of the combined votes for all three phrases.

What is “Goblin Mode”, and Why Is it the Word of the Year?

Goblin Mode refers to “a type of behavior which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations”. 

“Goblin Mode” is an admittance that maintaining an overly sanitized, “perfect” pictures of yourself to present to the rest of the world on social media is unrealistic and unnecessary. 

The implication that we all have the capacity to enter “Goblin Mode” challenges the belief you should drive to be the “best version of yourself” every single day, a mantra often trotted out by influencers and celebrities on social media sites.

All in all, it’s an acceptance that conforming to social norms all day, every day, just isn’t possible – and we shouldn’t live our lives pretending it is. Unsurprisingly, this message resonated with many people living in the post-pandemic world. 

“It’s a relief to acknowledge that we’re not always the idealized, curated selves that we’re encouraged to present on our Instagram and TikTok feeds,” Casper Grathwohl, President of Oxford Languages, told the Guardian.

“This has been demonstrated by the dramatic rise of platforms like BeReal where users share images of their unedited selves, often capturing self-indulgent moments in goblin mode,” he added.

When Was Goblin Mode First Used?

While the use of the term “Goblin Mode” rapidly increased during the first half of 2022, ultimately sealing its place as word of the year, the term was first used well over a decade ago.

The first recorded usage of the term dates back 13 years to a 2009 tweet, while it initially appeared on the crowdsourced online slang dictionary Urban Dictionary in 2020. 

But it was last year that it began its meteoric rise to prominence after a satirical fake news article was produced claiming Julia Fox had said Kanye West didn’t enjoy her going “full goblin mode” during their relationship. 

Quiet Quitting, Ghost Work and More Office Slang Explained

Metaverse: Missing the Mark

Although the term “metaverse” appeared more frequently this year than it has ever been previously, it was perhaps apt that the word finished in second place. 

“The Metaverse” has made headlines all year, with Mark Zuckerberg and Co. continuing to make outlandish predictions about the number of people who’ll be spending in digital spaces in the near future and attempting to sell new VR headsets. 

However, it’s received widespread criticism for being seriously overhyped, with many of the most popular Metaverse companies seeing a steep decline in active user bases. 

So, in oddly poetic fashion, while those with a stake in the Metaverse tried tirelessly to dress it up to look more impressive than it actually is at present, Goblin Mode’s brutally honest statement on humanity’s inability to be permanently perfect evidently resonated with more people.

A report published this week has suggested Amazon plans to lay off 20,000 employees, double the figure originally reported by a number of major news outlets in mid-November.

If the rumors prove to be true, it’ll be the biggest mass layoff of staff in the ecommerce behemoth’s 28-year history. The figure is much larger than the number of staff the company laid off in the wake of the dot-com bubble bursting in the early 2000s and the 2008 financial crash combined.

Tragically, however, Amazon is not alone, with swathes of companies in the tech sector making significant cuts to their payroll during 2022.

Amazon Layoffs: Bigger Than First Thought?

According to Computer World, company managers have been told that they should “identify work performance problems among employees” so that Amazon can make a total of 20,000 layoffs.

The 20,000 employees would represent 6% of corporate staff and 1.3% of the company’s total workforce, which amounts to around 1.5 million employees.

“There is no specific department or location mentioned for the cuts; it is across the business,” a source reportedly told Computer World.

“We were told this is as a result of over-hiring during the pandemic and the need for cost-cutting as the company’s financials have been on a declining trend,” they added.

Amazon Scale Back After Pandemic Boom

Unlike some rival tech companies, Amazon’s stocks soared during the pandemic, with demand for deliveries skyrocketing.

This state of play, CEO Andy Jassy says, “forced [Amazon] to make decisions at that time to spend a lot more money and to go much faster in building infrastructure than we ever imagined we would”.

Now, after posting its slowest growth figures in two decades this July and “overbuilding”, Amazon is looking to scale back its operations, with more layoffs likely to come next year if previously circulated internal memos are to be believed.

Tech Layoffs: A Sector-Wide Issue

Amazon, of course, is not the only multi-national tech company trying to cut staff numbers as a result of the dire economic forecasts for next year and a looming recession.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in early November that he’d “decided to reduce the size of [Meta’s] team by about 13% and let more than 11,000 of our talented employees go.”

Apple, conversely, said last month that it was being “very deliberate” when it came to hiring, with Tim Cook adding that the iPad manufacturer wasn’t hiring “everywhere in the company”.

Just before this, in mid-October, Microsoft also announced layoffs “across multiple divisions” but confirmed soon after that less than one thousand staff members would be affected.

Of course, Elon Musk’s recent acquisition of Twitter also resulted in mass staff layoffs, although it’s hard to parse how much of this was financially rather than ideologically motivated.

With supply chain issues, a lack of consumer buying power, and other rising costs directly related to global issues like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine all expected to hurt tech companies’ ability to grow heading into 2023, it’s likely more layoffs in the tech sector will follow.

A recent study has revealed that the vast majority of US adults feel “overwhelmed” by their email inboxes, while a third have admitted defeat and abandoned or deleted them altogether. 

The continuous adoption of business communications platforms like Microsoft Teams, the proliferation of collaboration tools such as project management software, and the threat of phishing attacks together create a strong case that email may not be fit for contemporary workplace communication purposes. 

But, considering the billions of emails sent every year, it’s unlikely we’ll be kicking the habit any time soon – however good the alternatives may be. 

Email Overload: Every Employee’s Nightmare

According to data compiled by email management software provider Gated, which surveyed 560 working US adults and complemented it with responses from 1,500 Gated users, 62% of people agree that it is hard to focus because of digital distractions, while 67% of people feel “overwhelmed by their inbox”. 

More worryingly, 82% of survey respondents reported missing important emails because their inbox is too full, while 73% said they received too many “unsolicited” emails. 

33% of those surveyed said they were spending more than one hour a day dealing with their email inboxes, while almost three-quarters said they felt “guilt or stress” over emails they have not read and replied to.

30% of US adults surveyed have gone one step further and “declared email bankruptcy” – either “entirely deleting” or “abandoning” their inbox due to email overload.

This drastic action is made more understandable, however, by the fact that Gated found 28% of work emails were “not of immediate value” to the recipient.

Email Is No Longer the Best Way to Communicate at Work

While email inboxes have become increasingly overcrowded in the past decade, better ways to communicate with work colleagues, such as Slack and Microsoft Teams, have gradually emerged.

Communicating through these apps, which arguably share more similarities with social networking platforms like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger than they do with email, removes the vast majority of use cases for internal, colleague-to-colleague email correspondence.

Meanwhile, project management software and other business tools such as CRM systems have continued to expand their suites of collaboration tools in an effort to centralize communications around singular apps and promote efficiency. Team instant messengers and project message boards, for example, are now commonplace. 

Although email is certainly still the best way to contact someone that works for another business, 22% of US adults say email is no longer their primary source of external communication, according to the survey. Contacting clients, customers, and other companies via Twitter and sites like LinkedIn is much more prevalent than ever before.

Is Email Dead? Not Quite

Yet, despite significant developments in the world of business communications, according to Gated, 82% of US adults still use email as their primary source of internal communication at work. 

The first email was sent over half a century ago, all the way back in 1971. A modest take on the relevant technological developments that have taken place since then would be that we’ve positively diversified our lines of workplace communication – but many would say we’ve created significantly more efficient avenues to talk to one another.

Couple these advancements with one of the major disadvantages of email – that it’s a hotspot for phishing campaigns and scammers attempting to exploit unsuspecting victims, as well as endless spam and junk mail – and you wouldn’t be a fool for thinking the communication method is on the way out. 

But we are, after all, creatures of habit. With over 319 billion emails sent in the year 2021 – a number which is predicted to rise, not fall, in 2023 – it’s unlikely we’ll be giving it up any time soon, whatever cutting-edge communication tool might be just around the corner.

Amazon quietly announced its third exit from India this week, shutting down its entire wholesale distribution center for Bengaluru, Mysore, and Hubli.

The announcement, which will affect one of the largest neighborhoods in southern India, comes just weeks after Twitter cut 90% of its workforce in the same region, causing local businesses to question big tech’s commitment in South Asia.

Other businesses impacted by the colossal 10,000 Amazon layoffs include Amazon’s India food delivery service and Amazon Academy — the Indian e-learning platform.

While the company continues to make cloud investments in the country, it’s clear that mass tech layoffs so far have had a huge impact on the South Asian market.

Amazon Shuts Down Third Business in India

Despite having one of the largest growth markets in the world, Amazon has failed to crack India, resulting in its third business closure in the past few weeks, following the announcement of company layoffs.

Amazon, which pledged to invest $1 billion in small businesses in India in 2020, had made huge steps in the country, despite notorious protests questioning the company’s foreign business practice.

In 2020, Amazon launched an online food delivery service called Amazon Food in select parts of Bangalore, and in 2021, it launched an edtech online learning platform called Amazon Academy, both of which are set to close later this year.

Despite India having one of the largest online growth markets in the world, the country is still heavily reliant on independent neighborhood stores — which account for 90% of the country’s retail sales — despite its ecommerce market being worth an estimated $39 billion, according to the Guardian.

However, Amazon has struggled to compete with retail rivals like Flipkart, a retailer owned by the US giant Walmart, and ecommerce startups like Meesho and Tiger Global.

Is The Digital Market in India at Risk?

Despite Twitter and Amazon making significant cuts in the country, India is still one of the biggest growth drivers in the market. Ecommerce sales in India, according to Insider Intelligence, are still expected to soar, with projections of India hitting the $100 billion mark for the first time in 2023.

Amazon may be restructuring, but their investment in the region is still evident. Just last week, the company announced its second Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud unit in Hyderabad, pledging to invest more than $4.4 billion in the South Asian market by 2023.

Competition is fierce, with Google and Microsoft both operating cloud services in the region, however, this just proves that there is still a big drive to invest in other areas in the South Asian market.

If you’re looking for an alternative to remote or hybrid working, a four-day work week might just be the answer.

According to a six-month global study backed by researchers at Cambridge University, Boston College, and Oxford University, all participating companies reported a massive boost in their performance, productivity, revenue, and employee satisfaction across the board, after trialing a four-day work week.

The 32-hour week study, which monitored 969 people from 33 companies in the US, Australia, Ireland, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Canada also concluded that two-thirds (67%) of employees felt less burned-out with no significant increase in workload during the trial period, and 96.9% wanting to continue the experiment.

The results come at an interesting time, with businesses are under pressure to retain their top talent and improve their margins, but mass layoffs and changes to work from home policies have resulted in employees leaving in massive numbers. The new report suggests a four-day work could be a happy medium.

The 4-Day Work Week Study Global Findings

In 2022, 4 Day Week Global, a not-for-profit organization based in New Zealand, coordinated “the world’s first global, independent research into the impacts of a 4-day week,” recruiting 33 organizations with 969 employees in the US, Australia, Ireland, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Canada.

The study, which took place over a six-month period, monitored company revenue, performance, productivity, wellness, and other metrics during the 4-day, 32-hour work week with no reduction in pay. The results, released this week, were overwhelmingly positive.

“Companies are extremely pleased with their performance, productivity and overall experience, with almost all of them already committing or planning to continue with the 4-day week schedule…Revenue has risen over the course of the trial. Sick days and absenteeism are down. Companies are hiring. Resignations fell slightly, a striking finding during the ‘Great Resignation.’ Employees are similarly enthusiastic. And climate impacts, while less well-measured, are also encouraging.”

The statistics put forward a strong case for businesses looking to find a balance by encouraging workers to return to the office, but also in retaining their top talent. Here’s how the stats breakdown.

Four-day work week impact on businesses

• Overall revenue rose 8.14% (weighted by company size) in the six-month period
• Revenue across the board was up 37.55% compared to same six-month period of previous
• 63% of businesses found it easier to attract and retain talent with a 4-day week.
• Companies saw a 12.16% increase in the number of employees over the course of the trial

Four-day work week impact on employees

• 67% of employees reportedly felt less burned-out
• Fatigue levels decreased from 66% to 57%
• Sleep problems reduced from 59% to 51%
• Anxiety and negative affect also both fell substantially
• Employees with 4-day weeks are happier (78%) and less stressed (96.7%)

With remote work policies changing, and businesses forcing employees to return to the office, the four-day work week could be an alternative for those still in search of a better work-life balance. Most companies, however, may need more convincing.

Big Business Is Buckling Under Mounting Pressure

During the pandemic, companies saw a big surge in online spend, with more people streaming content, shopping, and spending time on social media, with companies hiring specifically to accommodate the increase in demand. When the world came out of lockdown, the boom inevitably subsided, with companies who had previously benefitted now facing a major economic downturn.

Productivity paranoia saw an increase in employer demands, with companies like Meta and Google demanding employees raise the bar on both product excellence and productivity, and employers redacting their work from home polices, demanding employees return to in office work.

Employees, however, aren’t happy. Mass resignations this year were recorded across the board, with top execs, like Apple’s Director of Machine Learning, quitting in opposition of the Apple’s work from home policy changes, demanding more flexibility within his team, showcasing just how high up the need for flexibility goes. Companies, however, are under pressure.

Soaring inflation has caused digital advertisers in the US to cut back on spend, impacting tech companies in particular, who rely heavily on the revenue. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve continues to increase inflation rates, with the central bank announcing its fourth straight increase of 0.75% just earlier this month, causing many companies to make cuts, leading to mass layoffs.

“We’ve seen a surge in layoffs in recent weeks because it’s becoming obvious that the [Federal Reserve] will need to keep increasing interest rates for longer than originally expected,” – Roger Lee, founder of Layoffs.fyi, told TIME.

Is The Four-Day Work Week the Answer?

While the four-day week experiment was a success in all the companies who participated, companies under pressure to meet targets during economic uncertainty may be hesitant to reduce working hours. The study, however, suggests that the impact of a four-day week may have the opposite effect.

Since companies redacted their work from home policies and demanded a return to in-office work, studies show that productivity in the US has actually hit an all-time historic low, suggesting that businesses do in fact need a change. Could a four-day week be the answer?

With quiet quitting on the rise, and companies struggling to retain their top talent, flexibility may have more of a positive impact on businesses than leaders may think.

While the five-day work week is still very much in place in the US, some companies have started testing out shorter weeks. With reports of a huge surge in applications on job openings despite the longer advertised hours. Unions are in favor too. The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) previously endorsed the “32-Hour Workweek Act,” first introduced by California Rep. Mark Takano last year, stating:

“It is past time that we put people and communities over corporations and their profits — finally prioritizing the health, wellbeing, and basic human dignity of the working class rather than their employers’ bottom line.” – CPC Chair Pramila Jayapal.

Maybe the four-day work week is the happy medium businesses and employees need.

The United States might not be as prepared for a cyber-attack as we think: A large majority of US defense contractors don’t meet basic cybersecurity requirements.

Specifically, a full 87% don’t meet core regulation standards, as a survey of 300 contractors has recently found.

It’s a sign that the country’s protective services aren’t quite up to snuff, and that’s concerning for the health and safety of our infrastructure and private data. But what are the exact standards that our bevy of contractors failed at?

Just 13% Contractors Scored 70 or Higher

The security standard is called the Supplier Risk Performance System (SPRS) score, and it’s a requirement under the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS). The US passed that supplement back in 2017.

Contractors are supposed to reach a score of 110 for full compliance. However, they only have to hit a score of 70 to reach the bare minimum. And yet just 13% of them reached 70 or higher, while the rest failed to reach that mark, research commissioned by CyberSheath has found.

Some additional takeaways about the survey’s findings:

• 80% lack a vulnerability management solution
• 79% lack a comprehensive multi-factor authentication (MFA) system
• 73% lack an endpoint detection and response (EDR) solution
• 70% have not deployed security information and event management (SIEM)

Worse, the same survey found most contractors didn’t meet another standard, the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC), which is a framework that the Department of Defense released in 2020 and must be pass by any company bidding for contracts.

A “Clear and Present Danger”

CyberShealth hasn’t held back about these findings, calling them “shocking” and a threat to national security.

“The report’s findings show a clear and present danger to our national security. We often hear about the dangers of supply chains that are susceptible to cyberattacks. The DIB is the Pentagon’s supply chain, and we see how woefully unprepared contractors are despite being in threat actors’ crosshairs.” – Eric Noonan, CEO of CyberSheath

We covered the government’s commitments to closing the cybersecurity skills gap back in July, but these new results don’t look promising. And these days, cybersecurity is more important than ever.

Ransomware attacks and security breaches are up in recent years, and even the best pros have neared their breaking points recently, with one report from June of this year finding that 45% of cybersecurity professionals have considered quitting their jobs over rampant ransomware attacks.

Staying Cyber-Secure

The good news is that we are seeing some positive change on the horizon in 2023, with spending on cybersecurity set to rise in the next year by 10% to 15%.

Better software solutions like password managers, VPNs, and remote access software can help businesses small and large tackle the problem.

For the government and its defense contractors, though, we’ll need more than just a VPN. The wheels of change turn slowly in government, sure, but this appears to be a case in which they could be turning a lot faster.

As Musk continues to make sweeping changes to Twitter, including reinstating banned users, ditching moderation plans, and decimating teams designed to protect users, the company’s former Head of Trust & Safety thinks safety on the app can no longer be guaranteed.

And it’s not just former staffers that hold these concerns. As Musk continues to remove the platform’s checks and balances, advertisers are dropping like flies — with 50 of the top 100 agencies fleeing the app within the past week.

As recent events have shown, the safety and security of Twitter users have never been Musk’s top priority. But could this freefall in ad revenue be enough to change the billionaire’s tact?

Musk Continues to Cut Crucial Teams

Twitter is a less secure place to be following Musk’s takeover, according to Yoel Roth, the company’s former head of content moderation who quit the app over a month ago.

Speaking in a recent onstage interview, Roth explained that amid his many concerns, there aren’t enough workers remaining at the company that comprehend trust and safety to effectively control the platform.

The former official is referring to the widespread cuts that have recently taken place within the company, which appear to have particularly impacted teams designed to handle audience measurement and brand safety issues. These include sweeping layoffs that have taken place within the company’s analytics, insights, and consumer research team.

More shocking still, a recent report by Bloomberg has revealed that Musk has significantly reduced the size of the team responsible for tackling child sexual exploitation on the platform. The team, which was already being pushed to its limits before Musk’s takeover, has been cut in half, leaving ten people left to tend to all cases of child exploitation on the app.

To pour salt in the wound, this decision to leave behind a skeleton crew came just days after the billionaire Tweeted that stopping child exploitation was his top priority.

Removing child exploitation is priority #1. Please reply in comments if you see anything that Twitter needs to address.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 24, 2022

But unfortunately for remaining Twitter users, firing important safeguarders isn’t the only action Musk is taking to spark safety concerns.

Musk Welcomes Back Banned Users

In addition to the widespread layoffs, another one of Roth’s gripes with Musk’s handling of Twitter is his reinstatement of formerly banned accounts.

This follows Musk’s recent decision to welcome back banned users, including notoriously controversial figures Donald Trump and Kayne West. Blocked users will now automatically regain access to the site, despite the CEO formally proposing that each case would have to be reviewed by a moderation committee.

And Musk’s decision to drop the moderation committee has already prompted real-world consequences. According to a study by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, homophobic and racist rhetoric on the app has spiked since his takeover of the platform.

Its actions like these that have led Yoel Roth, and thousands of former Twitter users that have ditched the app in favor of alternatives like Cohost and Mastodon, to turn their back on the platform. But unfortunately for Musk, Twitter users aren’t the only demographic fleeing the app.

Advertisers Are Ditching Twitter Amid Safety Turns

As fears around the platform’s safety mount, advertisers are leaving en mass.

According to Media Matters, 50 of the top 100 advertisers, which accounted for almost $2 billion in spending on Twitter since 2020, have stopped working with the app since Musk’s takeover. These include notable brands like VW, General Motors, Coca-Cola, Heineken, and Mars.

“Some of the things he is posting, including memes, are horrendous. The challenge for Musk and Twitter is that he will need to prove that this is an environment that is safe for advertisers, and so far we have not seen that.” – Annonymous agency leader

But while Musk assures remaining advertisers that Twitter aspires to be the “most respected advertising platform in the world”, he’s also doubling down on actions that jeopardize the safety of his users.

With no clear strategy change in site, and the platform’s ad revenue tanking, the future of Elon’s Twitter looks as unpredictable as ever.