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In this work, the level of influence of the posts published by famous people on social networks on the formation of the cryptocurrency exchange rate is investigated. Celebrities who are familiar with the financial industry, especially with the cryptocurrency market, or are somehow connected to a certain cryptocurrency, such as Elon Musk with Dogecoin, are chosen as experts whose influence through social media posts on cryptocurrency rates is examined. This research is conducted based on statistical analysis. Real cryptocurrency exchange rate forecasts for the selected time period and predicted ones for the same period, obtained using three algorithms, are utilized as a dataset. This paper uses methods such as statistical hypotheses regarding the significance of Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient and Pearson’s correlation. It is confirmed that the posts by famous people on social networks significantly affect the exchange rates of cryptocurrencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the publication strategies of legacy news outlets on Twitter following the company's acquisition by Elon Musk. We used SCImago Media Rankings to identify the news organizations with the highest online audiences, namely The Guardian, The New York Times, USA Today, The Independent, and The Washington Post. Data was acquired through the Twitter Academic API v2 and the SEMrush platform at the beginning of 2023 and covers all of 2022. The database includes website audits that monitor the web traffic of a domain, with the aggregate data subsequently processed using R packages and Atlas.ti. Our analyses show that a higher presence on Twitter leads to a substantive increase in social traffic, as seen with The Independent. This is in sharp contrast to the other news outlets. These differences remain irrespective of their topical news coverage, broadly focused on the Russo-Ukrainian war, or compositional feature in their messages, which largely lack typical Twitter features like hashtags and @-mentions. We conclude our analysis by discussing the communication strategies of news organizations on Twitter following the company's acquisition by Elon Musk in 2022. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The migration of Twitter users to Mastodon following Elon Musk's acquisition presents a unique opportunity to study collective behavior and gain insights into the drivers of coordinated behavior in online media. We analyzed the social network and the public conversations of about 75,000 migrated users and observed that the temporal trace of their migrations is compatible with a phenomenon of social influence, as described by a compartmental epidemic model of information diffusion. Drawing from prior research on behavioral change, we delved into the factors that account for variations of the effectiveness of the influence process across different Twitter communities. Communities in which the influence process unfolded more rapidly exhibit lower density of social connections, higher levels of signaled commitment to migrating, and more emphasis on shared identity and exchange of factual knowledge in the community discussion. These factors account collectively for 57% of the variance in the observed data. Our results highlight the joint importance of network structure, commitment, and psycho-linguistic aspects of social interactions in characterizing grassroots collective action, and contribute to deepen our understanding of the mechanisms that drive processes of behavior change of online groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employing a critical approach typical of humanities-based research, this article investigates the changing nature of toxic leadership in our digital world. Drawing on the perspective of media ecology, which asserts that the prevailing communication technologies at a given moment create the social conditions that, in turn, condition us, the authors illustrate how the digital logics of publicity, intransigence, impertinence, and impulsivity remake the contours of leadership. Based on a critical case study of Elon Musk's public management of Twitter, which has subsequently been rebranded as "X", it is argued that the four digital logics transform toxic leadership into digital authoritarianism, an unabashed form of authoritarian rule. A concluding section of the essay explores the implications of this evolution for traditional categories of leadership; the importance of attending to communication technologies in leadership research; and the individual, institutional, and social harms of digital authoritarianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a recent medical breakthrough, Elon Musk's startup company Neuralink implanted the first brain chip in a human patient, purportedly for aiding paralysis. While certainly representing a significant medical milestone for many patients afflicted with debilitating brain and spinal cord injuries, as well as devastating neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, it must be noted that this very same technology can also be manipulated for human memory or cognitive enhancement. What happens if a brain chip were to be developed that can significantly improve either IQ (intelligence quotient) or memory, and these were then implanted in people to enhance their performance in highly competitive national examinations for college entrance or gaining employment in civil service positions? This article therefore discusses the ethical implications of this nascent technology platform, and whether its use in competitive national examinations should be banned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to discuss the complexities and foresight of Mars colonization. There are many pioneers competing in a space race to Mars, for example, Elon Musk – SpaceX, Jeff Bezos – Blue Origin and Richard Branson – Virgin Orbit. The analyses are focused on the aerospace industry – the process of space adventures to Mars. Design/methodology/approach: This study offers new methodological approaches – the development of a complexity metric and system innovation mode – to analyze how the complexities relate to the systemic nature of innovation. The complexity metric and system innovation model can be applied in various industries. These analysis tools can help gain insights into the strategies for achieving the diffusion of commercial space. Findings: The analyses of findings have shown that, despite various attempts among the pioneers in a space race to colonize Mars (Elon Musk – SpaceX, Jeff Bezos – Blue Origin and Richard Branson – Virgin Orbit, among others), the aerospace industry has not yet reached a stage of commercialization. The commercial space to Mars is of low systemic nature at present. Many companies compete in a space race to develop technologies on a proprietary basis. However, the highest complexity level suggests a multinational and intergovernmental collaboration to achieve economies of scale and economies of scope as well as accelerate the process of technology diffusion – successful commercial space for the interplanetary settlement. Originality/value: The main contribution that shows originality and value of this paper is the development of a complexity metric and system innovation model which can be used to explore how the complexities relate to the systemic nature of innovation and how they relate to the strategies in managing technological innovations. The new methodological approaches can be used and applied to various industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An editorial is presented on acquisition by Elon Musk in 2022. Topics include Twitter continues to be a digital home to some, but like many homes, it is not free of conflict, power relations, and harm; and aiding the international reach of Black media in Britain (Sobande, 2020) and both the creation and accessibility of archives.

Since the announcement of the purchase of Twitter by Elon Musk, the risks for the future of the social network suggest the advent of a "Frankenstein 2.0" – a notion that refers to large technology companies whose control escapes their creators. Behind this event, the question of technological drifts and their impact on society arises. This is an opportunity for governments, and in particular the Canadian government, which promotes open data and technology policies, to redefine the game rules. In this sense, some recommendations are proposed, especially to consolidate the normative framework of technologies in Canada. The Artificial Intelligence and Data Act (AIDA), currently in discussion at the Parliament, should go further in terms of the automated systems transparency and strengthen its requirements for the "algorithmic" data governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Se presenta un editorial que discute sobre la evolución en el ámbito empresarial, como el cambio de nombre de Facebook a Meta y la adquisición de Twitter por Elon Musk. También se destaca el papel creciente de la inteligencia artificial, incluyendo el uso de GPT-4 y la discusión en torno a su regulación. Se examina cómo la inteligencia artificial se utiliza en la investigación científica y se enfatiza la necesidad de transparencia y ética en su uso. El artículo concluye con un análisis de diversos artículos académicos en el ámbito de la comunicación y el audiovisual.

Twitter, one of the most important social media platforms, has been in the headlines regularly since its acquisition by Elon Musk in October 2022. This acquisition has had a strong impact on the employees, functionality, and discourse on Twitter. So far, however, there has been no analysis that examines the perception of the acquisition by the users on the platform itself. For this purpose, in this paper, we use georeferenced Tweets from the US and classify them using a polarity-based sentiment analysis. We find that the number of Tweets about Twitter and Elon Musk has increased significantly, as have negative sentiments on the subject. Using a spatial hot spot analysis, we find distinct centres of discourse, but no clear evidence of their significant change over time. On the West Coast, however, we suspect the first signs of polarisation, which could be an important indication for the future development of discourse on Twitter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most prominent intellectual attempts to grapple with human extinction in recent decades is existential risk studies. For its proponents, like Nick Bostrom and Toby Ord, there is a one-in-six chance that humanity will go extinct in the next century, whether from an asteroid hit, nuclear Armageddon or misaligned artificial intelligence. The field has powerful supporters, with Silicon Valley billionaires like Elon Musk and Jaan Tallinn donating large sums to institutions researching existential risk. In this article, I consider the ideological function of the imaginaries of catastrophe proposed by existential risk studies. To this end, the article begins by examining the distinctive mode of politics, termed extinctiopolitics, elaborated by Bostrom and Ord. Via a critical comparison with the concept of biopolitics, I suggest that extinctiopolitics aims to optimise the future life of humanity through the prediction and prevention of risks that threaten its annihilation. Borrowing the Freudian notion of screen memory, I then argue that extinctiopolitics both acknowledges and represses the ecocidal tendencies of contemporary capitalism. The image of the collective death of the species evokes a range of disastrous events in the present, especially the climate crisis, but in such a way that their social conditions are obscured. By way of conclusion, I briefly reflect on how science fiction texts use the image of human extinction to unpick the ideological manoeuvres of extinctiopolitics and restage the real contradictions of capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the early 2020s fostering an array of intensified climate-driven catastrophes, a key question is how humanity will respond to its impending transgressions of climatic and ecosystemic tipping points. In this light, this article explores how some of the world's richest entrepreneurs and companies resort to desperate science fiction, that is, to increasingly drastic techno-optimistic ventures. More precisely, the article zooms in on plans put forward and financially supported by Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Google in order to show how these ventures manifest as (1) fanciful plans of leaving Earth and settling on other planets, (2) major geoengineering schemes in which the Earth System becomes the object of terraforming and (3) attempts to manipulate human behaviour via big data. Furthermore, the article argues that these three forms of desperate science fiction are deeply problematic, because they siphon attention away from important democratic conversations about which degrowth-models societies across the planet should pursue and seek to develop. To change this, the article argues, we need to see the three forms of desperate science fiction advanced by Musk, Bezos, Gates and Google for what they are: deceptive attempts to preserve a deeply unjust and destructive economic system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current state of capitalist digital telepathies, or what I will call telepathy 3.0, presents a serious threat to the prospects of human freedom (Žižek 2020). Notably, the capitalist race to develop telepathics by Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook/Meta, Elon Musk's Neuralink and others represents an intensification of surveillance capitalism (Zuboff 2019: 206). Through an examination of tech-sector marketing literature and industry critics this article examines contemporary development of Brain Computer Interfaces (BCIs), Neural Interfaces (NIs) and intensified social networks, revealing the expansion of surveillance capitalism and its shift into neurocapitalist telepathics. Is there an alternative to the corporate dystopia promised by telepathy 3.0? This article argues for a more soulful and speculative form of telepathics in fields including art, philosophy, design, architecture, engineering, cybernetics and even psychology. This tradition of prophetic art and human compassion must be nurtured in the face of massive corporate-led investments in predictive technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the development of Starship spacecraft by private rocket company SpaceX. Topics discussed include the plan of U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Ames Research Center planetary scientist Jennifer Heldmann to use Starship to probe lunar ice, the failure of NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite mission, and the objectives of SpaceX chief executive officer Elon Musk in developing Starship.