Twitter fined 150mil for selling your data 🤬

So Twitter have just been fined $150 million for selling user data, and frankly, this pisses me off. One of the things that people are so angry with social media platforms about is the misuse, the misappropriation of our data. Now look, maybe we as users were naive 10, 15 years ago when Twitter and Facebook and Instagram said, come to daddy, have a free account, connect with the planet, it'll all be free, just give us all your data. Maybe we were a bit naive and stupid, but that doesn't legislate for the fact that they can break data rules and sell on our data or use or give away our data illegally to run ads back on us. This pisses me off. This is why I've been a fan that Elon Musk is about to maybe buy Twitter. Now, look, I accept the fact that if I can use Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and YouTube, etc., for free and get really good benefits of using it for free, you know, free always has a cost. You know, nothing in life is free. So I accept that, but it still pisses me off and things need to change. Sean Paul has said here Facebook and Amazon are doing it, ain't they? Look, I think most of the social channels have done it, and maybe we need to take responsibility. Maybe we've made it really easy for them by flooding them with our data and not questioning it. So let me give you the news, and then I'd love to know what you think. By the way, I'm also going to talk about this, um, potential purchase of Twitter by Elon Musk, which looks like it's stalled. So my question to you is, do you think Elon Musk is still going to buy Twitter. So in the US, Twitter must pay $150 million, um, a fine, um, enforced upon them because— and this is the quote— illegally using users' data to help sell targeted ads. Let me say that again: illegally using users' data to help sell targeted ads. The FTC and the Department of Justice say that Twitter violated an agreement it had with regulators. Twitter had vowed not to give personal information like phone numbers and email addresses to advertisers, but federal investigators have found that they broke those rules. Twitter was fined £400,000 in December 2020 for breaking EU GDPR. GDPR rules, and now they've been fined $150 million in the US. Now, Marcus said that's peanuts. This is a good point. If the fine is, you know, to Twitter, $150 million is probably not a lot of money. Like, how much would they have made in ad revenue? Hundreds of millions, maybe even billions. So let me know what you think in the comments, by the way. But yeah, who gets the money? Good Good comment there, David. I hope not the government. Um, so look, this pisses me off. Um, it pisses me off that our data is being used and manipulated against us, but we have to, um, take our responsibility in that, I believe. And we gave it away too freely without thinking of the downside consequences. You know, free has a cost. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Um, okay, now on to Elon Musk and the purchase of Twitter. Oh, and by the way, this is why I set up Rob.team. I'm going to talk to you about that in a moment. So Elon Musk looked like he was straight in going to buy Twitter, $44 billion. I was very pleased, you know, maybe a true free speech social media platform. Come on, let's have it! We need free speech, you know, we need a proper entrepreneur involved in disrupting social media. Because we've given too much power away to big tech firms. It's not decentralized enough. But now it looks like the deal is stalled. So I don't know if you, um, have any updates on that or if you think the deal is going to go ahead, but apparently the deal was based on there being only 5% bot accounts. And I think Elon Musk has, um, maybe he'd done a bit of digging and figured that maybe there's a lot more than that. Now look, I think there's no way that there's only 5% bot or fake accounts on Twitter. No way. It'd be way more than that. And some people were criticizing Elon Musk, oh, it's a negotiation tactic at the 11th hour to get the price down. But to be fair, if you've been given a statistic on how many real versus fake or bot users there are, you factor that into the price. So it is a bit frustrating that it slowed down and stalled. I personally think it would be a great thing if Elon Musk came in and bought Twitter and privatized it. He is a big outwardly spoken proponent and supporter of free speech. And it will be interesting to see if he delivers on that and if he puts his money and his actions where his mouth is once he owns one of the biggest social media platforms in the world. I think if Twitter can become more of a free speech platform— he's already said he'll have to bring back Donald Trump and other people who've been banned— and then maybe this would push other big tech and social media platforms to be a more free speech platform. I would love your thoughts on the Twitter deal and where we're at with social media and free speech. Hit me up in the comments. As you know, I come in and discuss and debate with you. I read your comments and I'm looking for us to share more information. Also, please hit the share button because it's really, really wrong that our data is being sold and misappropriated to advertisers to be used back against us. That really is wrong, but maybe we're implicit, so that's why I think you should share and maybe we should all speak up about this. And we should think in the future about where we share our data and with what companies and firms we do that. Now, um, social media is an evolving, um, entity, if you like, uh, its own, um— well, look, let me just say this. I had some shadow bans and I was upset about it. I actually got shadow banned. My, my YouTube account, um, for months now has been really affected because one of my guests said that has been hard for small business. That's all he said. And then we got a ban on YouTube. We still have a YouTube account, but it's been really hard to build it back up. You know, I've had many independent fact checks and other such judgments bestowed upon me by the gods of social media, which seem wrong and unfair, and it's really frustrated me. And hey, you could argue that I'm quite lucky because other people have been completely banned and completely deplatformed, like Donald Trump, etc. And so because of this, I built my own independent platform. It's called Rob.team. Now, I cannot say the C-word on here without the bots and algorithms picking it up, and that can affect my reach or even get me a shadow ban, or some of my content could be restricted. And that seems really wrong, and it's very frustrating. So I set up my own independent platform. It's called Rob.team, where you can speak freely and I can speak freely, um, and we don't have to worry about being deplatformed or shadow banned. I've also launched a brand new How to Invest series live. I think it went live yesterday on my Rob.team, completely independent platform. Um, and you can say what you want on this platform, and I can say what I want on this platform, and no one will ban us, and no one will delete us, and no one will shadow ban us, and no one will censor and no one will try and bring us down. So if you open a new window right now, just open— do it with me— open a new window and type in rob.team. Rob.team. Open a new window. Rob.team. Go do it now. You can join for just the cost of a large coffee per month. People have been saying this should be £30, £50, even £100 a month. Someone made £65,000 in business from Rob.team. Someone else said he spent six figures on courses and masterminds, and the information is in, in Rob.team, uh, is, is better and more specific if you want to start a business, scale a business, get better financial education and knowledge, not just survive but thrive in this cost of living crisis. So go and join my independent platform, Rob no shadow banning, no deplatforming, no canceling. Um, you know, if the narrative isn't correct, doesn't matter. You can say and have your piece. And also you can get, um, information that isn't manipulated by advertisers, information that is direct and honest and without ulterior motive. The ulterior motive for the content in Rob.team is to help you start a business, scale a business, get better financial education and knowledge, create multiple streams of recurring income and digital income, and learn about how to not just survive but thrive in these disruptive cost of living crisis times that we're in right now that we all know is here and is real, and we have to get real about it. So open a new window, type in Rob team. It's really easy to join. It's just a large coffee, that's it. You can cancel anytime. It definitely should be a lot more money, but the reason it's just a large coffee is I want it to be virtually free. I want there to be no barrier to entry for anyone to join the 9-part, 10-hour How to Invest series. How to not just survive but thrive in this cost of living crisis is now live in the platform. And you can gain immediate access to all the videos. I interviewed one of the top, um, entrepreneur investors in the UK, and it's now live. Now, that would be a £1,000-odd, um, course in its own right. By the way, I don't sell it. Um, it's only available for you, um, once you join rob.team. So open a new window, type in rob.team, Adam has said it's worth its weight in gold. Thank you, Adam. And joining, you can cancel anytime, um, and you've got content going back 3 years, hundreds of hours of content. Remember, do you want to start a business? Do you want to scale a business? Do you want to create extra income streams, recurring income? Do you want to build up online information income, monetize personal brands, social media, side hustle, part-time income? Get those earnings up, those commissions up, those sales up. If you want to do any of that, then go and join rob.team right now. It's easy to join. Open a page, a browser, or just Google rob.team. I'll see you there. Here's the thing: social media have been selling your data for many years. They've been using it to feed you ads and control content that goes to you and even control political events. Um, and you know, we should push back on that. Twitter have just been fined $150 million in the US for selling users' data to help sell targeted ads. And this is wrong. And we need to speak up about it. And we need to get rid of this cancel culture, deplatform culture, shadow ban culture, and create a more open, inclusive, unbiased narrative and access online. I hope that when Elon Musk buys Twitter, this is what happens. This is what he said will happen. And you can join my completely independent platform called rob.team, get the brand new 9-part, 10-hour How to Invest series, and learn how to create income streams, um, and take the opportunity in this cost of living crisis to make more money, to scale up, to not just survive but thrive, to invest, to protect your cash, the quickest and best business models of 2022. It's all there. There's an amazing community of thousands of members. In fact, tomorrow I've got a brand new 5.5-hour social media monetization masterclass only for Rob.team members. So go join right now. Just open a page browser and just type in Rob.team. I'll see you there. Thanks for following my work, and remember this: if you don't risk anything, you risk everything.