A Musk-Read Twitter Update

The world’s richest man strikes again with purchasing Twitter for $44 billion. As you all may know, Elon Musk is the new CEO of Twitter, and changes are coming in hot. Twitter became an emerging platform in March of 2006 when former CEO and co-founder, Jack Dorsey, had an idea of how friends could keep up with each other (MacArthur, 2020). The app was originally created for the purpose of SMS and microblogging, but it also had an influence on the framing of 21st century politics and culture (Britannica, 2022). Although some people use the app for the sole purpose of entertainment or to go on tangents, others have found it beneficial for business promotions, sports updates and political campaigns.

So, what exactly will the new CEO do with Twitter? First, he laid off about half of the employees, including members that play a crucial role in working on the U.S election and the content moderation associated with it (Stolton et al., 2022). These specific layoffs might make it difficult for political leaders to reach their global audience and run specific campaigns leading up to this year's election. Though Musk has not directly addressed the layoffs, he tweeted that, “unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/Day” (Twitter, 2022).

(Source Twitter, 2022)

This mass layoff has caused several large companies to pause their advertising on the platform, which might be exactly what Musk wants (Stolton et al., 2022). Before Musk took over, Twitter was making most of its revenue from advertising, but Musk plans to change that. On Monday, November 7th, Musk tweeted a link to the new Twitter rules.

(Source Twitter, 2022)

One of the rules states, “You may not submit, post, or display any video content on or through our services that includes third-party advertising, such as pre-roll video ads or sponsorship graphics, without our prior consent” (Twitter, 2022). Instead, Musk plans to make revenue by charging users monthly subscription and verification fees, adding paid direct messages, and making users pay to watch certain videos, which he is calling “paywalled” videos (Isaac and Mac, 2022). In order to make this platform profitable again, he is making an attempt to boost its revenue while also cutting costs.

Although these changes have upset or infuriated a lot of people, on the other hand, it is creating opportunities for artists, entertainers and content creators to streamline access to their private content. Instead of having to use a third-party app, such as Patreon, these entertainers can now upload their content directly to Twitter using the “paywalled” videos feature.

I think that Musk’s changes and strategies might hurt the platform immediately but has created opportunity to be beneficial in the long run.

References:

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica (2022) Twitter, Encyclopaedia Britannica [online], available:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Twitter [accessed: 8th November 2022].

Isaac, M. and Mac, R. (2022) Elon Musk, under financial pressure, pushes to make money from Twitter,

The New York Times [online], available: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/03/technology/elon-

musk-twitter-money-finances.html [accessed: 8th November 2022].

MacArthur, A. (2020) The real history of Twitter, in brief, Lifewire [online], available:

https://www.lifewire.com/history-of-twitter-3288854 [accessed: 8th November 2022].

Stolton, S. et al. (2022) Elon Musk triggers twitter chaos with mass firings worldwide, POLITICO [online],

available: https://www.politico.eu/article/twitter-fires-employs-worldwide/ [accessed: 8th

November 2022].

Twitter (2022) The twitter rules: Safety, privacy, authenticity, and more, Twitter [online], available:

https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-rules [accessed: 8th November 2022].