The Chaser Report - Twitter Verified as Dead

Episode Date: November 11, 2022

On this Remembrance Day we remember... Twitter. For better, or for better, Twitter is dying a verifiably glorious death, so let Dom and Charles bring you the best final Tweets from their favourite 'verified' accounts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report. It's Charles Firth and Dom Knight. Hello, Charles. Hello. Now, have you been on Twitter lately? Oh my God, this is the most enjoyable destruction in real time of a $44 billion enterprise.

I mean, I love Twitter so much that I'm sad. But on another level, the... The degree to which Elon Musk is auto-piliting his new purchase into the wall is very, very entertaining. We'll talk about that. We'll also talk about one of the worst publicity moments in the history of fast food with KFC. Let's just say they did a topical promotion that was somewhat poorly charged. We'll get into that shortly. The Chaser Report, news you can't trust.

You can avoid those ads at chaser.com.com.com. You can subscribe, by the way, that you can subscribe if you so choose. Now, Dom, we're recording this sort of midday on Friday. Yes, the 11th of November. So, but by the time you listen to this, it may be out of date because Twitter might no longer exist, right? This is true. So a couple of hours ago, Elon Musk actually admitted publicly that the company may actually go bankrupt, right? So, which is not, it's not, you know, you don't do that with companies that are trying to attract,

sort of brands back to the platform and everything like that. But it has made a whole lot of people on Twitter point out that, you know how when he first took over Twitter about 10 days ago? Yeah. A hundred years in, it feels like. He carried a sink with him. Let that sink in. And he said that that sink in.

Everyone thought it was a pun. No, he's trying to sink the company. He's sinking the company. It's becoming true. Wow. It's going to be the greatest photo of 2022. too. It's the greatest self-owned in the history of, oh.

And also the best thing he brought to Twitter. I thought, what a terrible joke. But actually, that was the most positive contribution he's made to Twitter so far. That one joke. It's all been downhill from there. Now, I did actually try and do a bit of journalism for this segment. All right. Because there's so much to get through.

And I did actually reach out to Twitter's comms department, right. But it turns out they don't have a comms department anymore. to reach out too. So there's no way to sort of get a comment from Twitter or get a response or get any sort of defense of what is going on on Twitter. Yeah, well, didn't they sack pretty much all their Australian employees? Because I think last year or a year or two ago, they actually closed the office and said, oh, you can all work from home.

Now Elon doesn't want anyone to work from home. They're all going to work at the office. Unless he personally gives them an exemption. What kind of micromanaging idiot is he? So that's, yeah, so that happened about six hours ago. He had an all-hands meeting, and he sent it an email just before that saying, you've got to turn up and do a 40-hour work week in the office. About an hour after that went ahead.

On the company's internal slack, the head of legal affairs at Twitter, had a long post saying, by the way, just a reminder to all the employees, apropos of nothing, our employment contracts are all based on a work-from-home. basis. And so it may not be legal for anyone in this company, not sure who we're talking about, to request you to come in and to force you to come in. Like, that may actually just not be possible. But I presume that person's now been sacked. Yeah, probably. But this person then went on to say, and also I would remind everyone that we have unlimited paid time off at Twitter as a part of employment conditions. So maybe, maybe, did you say unlimited

Paid time off? Yes. How is that a thing? I think it's a thing because actually in America, it actually is a way of making people work even harder. Oh, because it's two weeks, because they only get two weeks, right? Because instead of here, employers actually sort of try and get you to take holidays so they don't build up liabilities there.

If you have just unlimited, it doesn't get counted as a liability. Oh. So you never take a holiday? You just never get approved for a holiday. Like, you never take one. because you just sort of... It's unlimited. Yeah.

Anyway, the point is, the head of legal, on their company slack said, maybe today is a good day to sort of have a bit of a relax and refresh. Can you imagine how stressed they've all been? I mean, the whole thing of... You'll get an email. If it goes to your work email, congratulations, you still have a work email. Or it'll go to your personal email.

And then he had to backtrack and then go, oh, we didn't mean to sack about a thousand of you because you realized there were lots of engineers that were even needed to operate the thing. I mean, this is chaos. Imagine if you were working for Tesla, which is actually trying to build this vast number of cars, and your CEO is just off stuffing around,

and I don't know if he's technically the CEO, but he runs a show. And then SpaceX is trying to launch rockets, and this guy's dicking around with destroying Twitter. What would you be thinking? Yes, you'd be thinking... Unlimited time off. Thank God that dickhead who's been micromanaging us

has found something else to micromanage. Is this the Kevin Rudd of the dot-com era? Look, I think he's the Kevin Rudder of the dot-com era, but I've just realized a really good play is probably by Tesla stock because Musk is no longer paying attention to it. Oh, yes, what a great idea. Like, it actually, that's the smart move. Buy SpaceX and stuff of that because it's now going to be much better run because Musk is not going to be around because he's, well, maybe for another week or two before Twitter collapses. But no, but so anyway, so we're talking in the distant past because all this stuff has happened three hours ago. By the time you hear this, it'll be old news.

About two hours ago, the head of sales, which is the guy who's in charge of bringing in advertising, he resigned. So, and he's apparently taken a lot of his team with him. So essentially Twitter, which, you know, seven hours ago was apparently could become bankrupt because of their, you know, brand, because most of their ads are actually brand ads, right? And so it's all about reputation. Now, they don't have anyone who can actually close those deals and raise that money. Anyway, that's not, look, that's sort of a side-jured. That's the sort of, that's the internal chaos of Twitter. What is far funnier and

such a wonderful thing to see is the level of creativity that people have brought to this whole you can buy verification for $8. Yes, but you're not allowed to parody anyone. Because you get a lifetime I'm banned. Charles, you can imagine my, my delight yesterday, my, my, um, my happiness, my joy. I thought I'd finally made it on Twitter. Yes. When Carl Stefanovic followed me. Oh, no. I think it was Kay Stephanovic underscore.

That might have been a hint. And then I noticed a lot of other people were following this Carl Stephanovic, a lot of celebrities were following. And I thought, wow, Carlos, you've gotten on board my Twitter account. Thanks, mate. Nah. It was just an impersonator. I don't have to even have been rumble yet.

Has he tried to sell you crypto? Carl impersonated is very good at selling you crypto. The American version of Carl Stefanovic, I think we'd all agree, is George W. Bush. Oh, yeah. And so somebody set up at George W. Bush S. And just tweeted out, I miss killing Iraqis and a sad face emoji. And then somebody set up at MP Tony Blair and replied to, George W. Bush's, I miss killing Iraqis,

with the words, same, to be honest. Same TBH. Yeah. Right. And then they had a whole love in where they were sort of going, how much they miss killing Iraqis. But then George W. Bush tweeted out, you're all missing the point about the $8, right?

It's a small price to pay to make this app completely unusable. And I'm assuming he's quickly going to learn we can get refunds from the credit cards if we used if he suspends us prior to a month. Oh, which is true, like, right? Really? Because you're not getting the service that you've paid for, right? And then, and then clearly, having dropped out of character, George W. Bush, then tweets, is what I would say if I was someone other than the greatest president, America, has ever known.

So it's, but he sacked all the people who, like, check accounts and show integrity. So is Elon himself just running, going, going, no, don't have fun. No, you're at Trump. Like, I kind of love that this is wasting his time. Yeah, well, this is the thing. And there's too many great gags out there. So about three or four hours ago, somebody set up an Eli Lilly account, which is the pharmaceutical company that sells insulin for $325 of vial

and owns the patent in America. And they tweeted out, insulin is now free to all customers in America. I mean, that would be so sad if you actually needed insulin. And then everyone was pointing out that clearly that was clearly, fake because no far amputical company would ever, you know. This is so crazy. Ed, my favourite one, I don't know if you've seen the saga

of LeBron James. Oh, yeah, that's a good one. So LeBron James on Twitter is at King James with an S. Someone registered at King James with a Z and tweeted this. I'm officially requesting a trade. Thank you, Lakers Nation, for all the support through the years. On to bigger and

better things. Ashtag, I'm coming home. And so all the Lakers fans lost their shit that the best buyer in game was leaving, and everyone believed it because it had a blue tick as someone who paid $8. That's a lot of entertainment for $8. But this is the hilarious thing about it, is it the only people who want a blue tick, the only people who would possibly pay $8 a month for a blue tick are people wanting to

make a joke. And they're the exact people that Elon Musk wants to ban. So who's going to pay for it? And also, like, internet fame for $8 to get that blue tick. Like, that is totally worth it. It's totally worth it even if you get banned after four hours. Like, you're still going to go viral. It's still going to...

It's genius. You've got your story. President Biden just tweeted, I'm over here stroking my dick. I got lotion on my dick right now. I mean... That's the official verified account. I'm not sure I believe that that wasn't the real Biden. OJ Simpson, uh, whose handle is the real OJ.

Yeah, of course. A blue chick. It's a blue chick. It's a real guy. Yeah. I'm not going to lie, I did that shit. Dave Chappelle, and his account is called Real Chappelle D. Trans women are women, no longer team Nerfuel.

Oh, right, okay. That's good to see him growing and progressing. I mean, Rudy Giuliani just tried to pick up Nancy Pelosi, Blue Tick. I mean, it just goes on, Elon Musk. Oh, no way. Elon underscore Mars, Blue Tick, tweeted out, starting today, we'll be offering Twitter gold, a free subscription that lets you get yearly family vaccinations and nightly dinners with me.

If your name is Grimes, please come back. I love you. That's fantastic. And then we've discussed the Nintendo one, haven't we? We've discussed the Nintendo one. Oh, no, have we not discussed. I love the Nintendo one. Yeah, so the Nintendo one, which I think was the first one, wasn't it?

That took me a moment, actually. Yeah, yeah, where they had a beautiful photo of Mario. Like, it looks like a proper camera. Yeah. Yeah. Of just giving the middle finger. I mean, Mario's sassy. I wouldn't put it past him.

Yeah. And then somebody actually said, oh, you've lost a customer. Mario would never do that. It was Nintendo of US, which is not entirely implausible. Yeah. And then the official, quote, unquote, the verified account tweeted back going, well, he just did, didn't you know? The Chaser Report

Less news Less often You know the weird thing about this Is that I was one of the idiots Who paid for Twitter Blue initially Like I was paying five Australian dollars a month Because I liked, you know Being able to read the articles ad

Free, the threading and the undo All the little features And I got this message saying We're canceling your thing You can pay twice as much to get a blue tick And I'm like, I already got a tick Like this is not sensible who is this site for?

Like, honestly, who are the people who will pay other than impersonators? It's for people who want to watch the world burn. This is the most enjoyable. Elon Musk has tweeted out that the usage has gone up massively in the last week. I mean, of course it has. And you're going, of course it is. And somebody said, you know, like, no one's going to leave, you know, just before the Hindenburg launches.

You're going to stick around to watch it all explode. Pope Francis now has an official verified account. Of course he does. Which is actually just trying to sell indulgences for $8 a month, which is quite a nice little thing. And you know that Tumblr has actually started selling blue ticks over at its site. So you know how Tumblr was a social media site? Yeah, with photos and stuff.

Yeah. And people have been going over to them since Twitter started collapsing. But they started their own blue check. account, and for $7.99 a month, and they actually crashed their website. Like, Tumblr crashed because so many people were buying Tumblr Blue Ticks in the last... Oh, then, sorry, and we've got other official accounts just coming in now. Can we set up a blue tick program for the Chaser where people give us $10 for nothing? Yes. I don't know.

No, $8.8. We'll email them a picture of a blue tick with that. Like literally a little blood sample. sucking thing that goes on your body. Yeah, but I kind of feel knowing how our Chaser Shop sort of works that somehow we would work out a way

to lose money on it. It comes to the free inflatable avocado. The inflatable avocado pool toy is still available for what I understand at Chaser Shop. That's what I'll do. I'll sell the avocado for $8 more with a blue check. You should. The blue tick. That's it.

Ted Cruz has literally just well no it was an hour ago he tweeted out oh no actually I can't read that out that's way too horrible I presume that's actually the real Ted Cruz then anyway yes anyway it keeps getting better and better you know what I would actually now pay to access Twitter I mean Elon's big

he wants to put the whole thing behind a paywall that's his next big big plan genius of marketing that he is is destroy the site and then charge for it not unlike what we've done with the description version of this podcast, which we will fix, I promise. But anyway, no, I would actually pay to see all these people making fun of his stupid system.

The problem is, so somebody did the modelling and worked out that, because he said, I want 50% of our revenue to come from this subscription service now. Somebody did the math and said he would have to get 150 million people to pay $8 a month to do that. For the blue tick. Yeah, which is more than, I think, even Disney Plus has at the moment.

That's extraordinary. To be clear, to pay for a blue tick that no longer means anything. Yes, yes. The blue tick was all about scarcity. The reason why it was valued was because you couldn't get it, right? And because it was reassuring to know you're actually dealing with the real whoever. And so now what he's done is gone, it's a bit like crypto. He's minted a trillion blue ticks and said the market price is $8 and it's just sunk because supply and demand is if anyone can get it, then it's not very. If only he'd listen to Fundamental Basic Economics before spending $44 billion on this. So, Charles, that's a pretty massive mistake. Yes. But I'd like to think that this effort by KFC in Germany tops it.

Right, yeah. Now, as you know, this isn't through Twitter, right? So this is the actual KFC Germany using their own KFC app. Oh, yeah. And they put out a special offer. Oh, yeah. It was a little push notification. on November the 9th.

Yeah. And it said, a commemoration of the special day, treat yourself to more soft cheese and crispy chicken now at KF cheese. See, KFC, KF cheese. Yeah. Guess what date they chose for the commemoration

to get some more crispy cheese and chicken. Is this 9-11? Because it was the 9th of November. Was it a reference to 9-11? it actually, well, that's the date the other way around. No, but 9-11's the 11th. No, but in Europe, it's 9-11. You're absolutely right.

It was the 9th of November. But how did they get that wrong? What the fuck? No, no, no. But what you're not remembering from your modern history is that the 9th of November, 1938, was a little thing called Kristallnacht. The beginning of the Jewish pogrom when Nazi mobs torched synagogues

uh in germany before world war two so the message was commemoration of crystal nutt treat yourself to more soft cheese and crispy chicken it was not kf cheese it was honestly not true it's absolutely true and the message a few minutes later said we're so sorry it's a terrible mistake that we've made damn straight it was makes me think did is Elon Musk buying kFC that's the only explanation well colonel sanders was in the kKK so you know maybe maybe that is a date they hold special. I wouldn't put anything past them.

That is an extraordinary mistake. So apparently how it happened was, the message says, we're very sorry, we'll check our internal processes immediately, so this doesn't happen again. Please excuse this error. And what they're saying is that it was an automated push notification that was linked to calendars that have national observances, right? So every time there was like Christmas or whatever, it tweets out this thing.

It was said and forget. And Crystal Nucked is in the calendar because everyone should take a moment to reflect on the horrors of the past and vow never to repeat them. Yes. But if they do repeat them, crispy chicken and soft cheese. It would be like the way,

you know, how we commemorate January the 26th to remember that was the start of the genocide of indigenous Australians. It would be almost like there was some automatic response created that meant that we celebrated that horrific day. Can you imagine if we did that in Australia?

It would be so horrible and insensitive. Yes, it would just be terrible. Or as much as I do like crispy chicken and soft cheese. Yeah, that's true. So which is the worst marketing plunder, KFC or Elon's entire immolation? Oh, my God. Like, I didn't think that you could top the Twitter thing, but that is just horrific. The one thing I know, Charles, is what I'm going to be eating while I watch Twitter burn.

Now, gear is from Road with part of the Acast, Creator Network. We'll see you next week and just take a moment now, if you've made it all the way to the end of the podcast, to just think about how awful Kristallnacht was, how awful Nazis are, and vowed every the wait KFC again, just because it's terrible.