The fate of Twitter is in the hands of a business tycoon. Will it work out?

Written by : Ushna Habib 

Elon Musk finalized the acquisition of Twitter on October 27, 2022 through a series of dramatic and rather impulsive decisions. He started out by buying shares in the company, eventually getting an invitation to join the board, an offer he initially accepted before declining. Afterwards, on April 14, 2022, he went on to make an unsolicited offer to buy the entire company. The whole process was widely discussed on Twitter itself, becoming a form of entertainment for many, but a concern for most; a concern of what this deal could mean for the platform and the millions of people who use it.

Why buy Twitter?

Musk has been criticizing Twitter for its lack of adherence to true freedom of speech and unruly content moderation for a long time. He has voiced this concern on the platform itself and has raised suspicions about spam/scam accounts multiple times as well. This concern served as a basis for his decision to buy the platform and give way to reforms.

But what good did buying Twitter really do? Both to the platform and the users.

Musk said that he acquired Twitter because he believes it’s important for the “future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner”. He wanted to make it more available and transparent for people of all social standings and decrease advertisement and spam accounts to make the platform more comfortable, however this did not go as planned. Despite his efforts, Musk is a businessman and so he tried to run a social media platform with that same mindset. He showed no interest in using the platform as a space for advertisement, leading many to discontinue using the platform for advertising. The result was a massive decrease in revenue generation as 90% of the revenue came from advertising. Similarly, it devolved into what campaigners described as a cesspit of falsehoods and hate speech. Within 24 hours, racist comments, hate speech and other objectionable content increased as users tested his claim to allow free speech. Musk removed the feature of “blue tick verification” and decided to replace it with a “power to the people” verification system.

According to this system, companies will have a “gold” checkmark, government officials will have a “grey” one and “blue” will be dedicated to individuals, apart from just celebrities as well. Which means that the blue check mark will be used with legacy verified accounts and those who buy Twitter’s $8 per month subscription plan. Although the plan initially failed due to multiple cases of impersonation, Musk paused the program earlier this month and said that it will roll out again this week.

The Twitter Blue program, which refers to the process of giving Blue Tick Verification to individuals will also be revamped once “there is a high level of stopping impersonation.” Meaning a greater workforce, because Musk claimed that the process of authentication will be done manually.

The lack of workforce came from Musk firing engineers and all sorts of employees within the first week of acquiring the platform. Right afterwards, he presented a new ultimatum to Twitter employees that demanded to either pledge to “hardcore” work or resign with severance pay, resulting in most of the employees choosing the latter. This mass resignation combined with Musk’s direct suspension of employees resulted in over 3700 vacancies which amounts to half of the entire staff of 7500. Following these events, Musk himself has stated that bankruptcy of the platform is possible.

Where does it go from here?

It is safe to say that Twitter is important, people of all sorts use the platform to communicate efficiently and quickly. While most argue that Twitter is “just another tool in the shed” and can be replaced, others are concerned for how they’re going to communicate openly if the platform dies. The communities worried the most are political entities as through Twitter, they are able to communicate directly with their audience without any selection or evaluation processes.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

At the end of the day, the outcome of such a massive change depends on the response and reactivity of people, as unpredictable as that is. Perhaps losing Twitter will do great damage to communication, or communities will be able to move to another platform with ease. However, the latter may be unlikely as older generations also used the platform; people who are only accustomed to the mechanics of Twitter will find it difficult to switch to another platform. Similarly, it will take time for a community as massive as Twitter’s to accumulate on another platform. Messages and information could be scattered and delayed in the process.

One other possibility is that Elon Musk manages to save the dying platform from such a dire situation and save everyone the headache, to begin with. His purpose in buying Twitter is to rejuvenate the platform and fix the many problems that were rising day by day. Perhaps the current turbulence is only a matter of time and will be fixed eventually, or a newer platform will take the opportunity and rise to replace Twitter. The outcome remains to be seen.

Bio:

Hi, I’m Ushna Habib. A student of Mass Communication at NUST, aiming to get a glimpse of what life is like in the corporate sector and doing it through what I do best; Writing and Designing. I’m an Artist who likes to tell stories, and so I do just that in the form of all sorts of articles, illustrations, and graphics. Wherever there’s a story, I find it necessary to dig deeper because there’s always more than meets the eye. Finding that “more” is what drives me to work hard.