CNBC, Bloomberg run headlines of Twitter layoffs based on fake workers

CNBC and Bloomberg ran headlines Friday saying that laid-off Twitter employees were leaving the building carrying boxes based on photos of people carrying boxes that were not company workers, reports Alex Heath of The Verge.

Heath writes, “In videos circulating on Twitter Friday morning, two men carrying boxes are seen standing near the entrance to Twitter’s San Francisco building, claiming to have been laid off by Elon Musk, who officially took over the company Thursday evening.

“There are plenty of problems with what these two men say to reporters. The most glaring is that one man identifies himself as a software engineer named ‘Rahul Ligma.’ The Verge has confirmed that name does not exist in Twitter’s Slack or email system. There is also no evidence that the employee exists on LinkedIn.

“‘Ligma’ is, of course, also an internet hoax designed to elicit the response ‘lick my balls’ from people who are in on the joke.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.