The big changes coming to Elon Musk’s Twitter
Left-wing Twitter users like Stephen King and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez lash Elon Musk’s proposals, like charging users to keep their ‘blue ticks’.
Newly minted ‘Chief Twit’ Elon Musk has finally taken the reins at Twitter, leading to a surge in user sign-ups, an exodus of company executives and sweeping changes for its millions of users.
The first confirmed change under Mr Musk is to the coveted ‘blue tick’ used to verify high-profile users including journalists, celebrities and public figures.
In plans reported over the weekend, Twitter would charge verified users $US20 ($31) to keep their ‘blue ticks’, a process that was previously free of charge, but after widespread backlash from users and a poll by Mr Musk confidante Jason Calacanis – in which 82 per cent of users said they wouldn’t pay anything for verification – the plans have seemingly changed.
We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers. How about $8?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 1, 2022
Your feedback is appreciated, now pay $8
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 2, 2022
Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bullshit.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 1, 2022
Power to the people! Blue for $8/month.
Mr Musk this week tweeted a thread detailing plans to charge users $US8 ($12.6) per month for Twitter’s premium service, which would include the blue tick along with the ability to post longer audio and video clips, and gain priority position in replies, mentions and search results.
Twitter Blue premium users would also have half as many ads in their feeds, and would be able to bypass news paywalls from publishers ‘willing to work’ with Twitter.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 2, 2022
Such a move has raised concerns that scammers and spammers could buy Twitter Blue memberships in order to be ‘verified’ and have their tweets amplified, but Mr Musk said in a follow-up tweet that “if a paid Blue account engages in spam/scam, that account will be suspended”.
The changes to Twitter Blue will be reportedly ready as early as next week.
Mr Musk, whose Twitter bio is now ‘Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator’, is planning other sweeping changes.
On Friday, Twitter engineers were reportedly asked to print out their recent code contributions from the past two months, so they could be reviewed by Mr Musk and Tesla engineers, pointing to significant lay-offs to come.
Mr Musk has already fired the Twitter board of directors including chairman Bret Taylor and made himself the sole director, according to a company filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Other changes are coming to Twitter’s free speech and content moderation policies, though those plans are still murky.
Mr Calacanis said Twitter’s trust and safety team already “has a very comprehensive plan to reduce the number of (and visibility of) bots, spammers, & bad actors on the platform”, while Mr Musk has promised no changes would be made to content moderation – including reinstating banned accounts – until a “content moderation council” with diverse viewpoints is put in place. He later added that “anyone suspended for minor & dubious reasons will be freed from Twitter jail”.
“Twitter’s content moderation council will include representatives with widely divergent views, which will certainly include the civil rights community and groups who face hate-fuelled violence,” he said.
Mr Musk is under pressure to drive up revenues given the sheer size of his $US44bn purchase. Meanwhile, two large unnamed advertising companies recommended that their clients temporarily hold off on advertising on Twitter because of concerns about the company’s ability to monitor its content, according to The Wall Street Journal.
More than 200,000 users quit Twitter the weekend after Mr Musk took over the website, but more than four times as many landed on the pages for creating a new account, according to estimates from web analytics company Similarweb provided to The Australian.
One of the alternative platforms getting the most attention as a new home for those leaving – or at least considering leaving – Twitter is Mastodon, which says 70,000 new users signed up in the immediate aftermath of Mr Musk’s takeover.
Another service, Tribal, is more explicitly appealing to liberals seeking an alternative to Twitter, and is being promoted by groups like Occupy Democrats. Its traffic was up 37 per cent on Mr Musk takeover day, according to Similarweb data.
“Presumably, some of those people deactivating their accounts are those who believe Mr Musk’s stated intent to scale back content moderation in favour of his philosophy as a ‘free speech absolutist’ and to support the return of banned accounts, including the account of former President Donald Trump, while some of those joining or rejoining the service may welcome those moves,” Similarweb senior insights manager David F Carr said.
“However, the most successful Twitter alternatives to date are those that appeal to right-leaning and Trump-friendly users, such as Gettr, Gab, Parler, and Trump’s own Truth Social.”
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