2023-10-30 12:12:57
A year following billionaire businessman Elon Musk bought the Twitter social networking platform, the application, now called “X,” has witnessed many changes and transformations.
Musk, who heads the electric car company Tesla and the space exploration technology company SpaceX, completed the deal to buy Twitter for $44 billion on October 27, 2022, bringing the platform into a new era, marked by controversy.
In addition to changing the name “Twitter” to “X”, Musk made a series of changes in the distinctive features of the platform, which made many users feel that they do not use “Twitter.”
Documentation for money
Anyone can now purchase the blue verification badge, which until Musk came along indicated that the account was verified, as part of the “XBlue” subscription starting at $8 per month, without providing proof of identity.
Musk also introduced a gray badge system for government organizations, in addition to a gold check mark for subscribers from verified organizations, which costs regarding a thousand dollars per month, in addition to $50 for each affiliated account.
8,000 employees fired
It was clear from the beginning that Musk was serious regarding work when he fired regarding half of Twitter’s 8,000 workers, shortly following he took over the platform.
In addition to the IT department, the teams involved in reducing hate speech and fake news on the platform were the most affected by the job cuts.
Musk says that the previous Twitter administration was practicing censorship in the name of what he described as the “woke mind virus.”
Musk described the Democratic Party, to which US President Joe Biden belongs, as “the party of division and hatred,” and accused well-known media organizations of discriminating in favor of white people, while he seems certain that Europe faces the threat of civil war due to immigration, and these are just a few examples of Opinions of the famous businessman.
Disinformation chaos
To solve the problem of misinformation on the X Network, Musk is a strong believer in what he calls “citizen journalism” and a feature called “Community Notes” that users use to point out misleading or false information.
Sometimes it takes a very long time to publish such comments.
The European Commission recently sent an official request to “X” to obtain information in accordance with the European Union Digital Services Law, regarding the content circulating on the platform regarding the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation.
EU Commissioner Thierry Breton cited reports of altered images and audio recordings from broadcast video games as real.
It is noteworthy that violating the Digital Services Law might lead to the imposition of penalties.
For specific companies, financial penalties can reach 6% of total global turnover.
Musk, who describes himself as “a person who is uncompromising in defending freedom of expression,” insists that hate speech has not spread since he took over Twitter, taking action once morest those who say otherwise.
The “X” platform and researchers from the Center for Countering Digital Hate filed a lawsuit in court, following they concluded, following conducting tests, that hate speech remains on the platform if its publishers are subscribers.
Reluctance of advertisers and users
On the other hand, the “X” platform is suffering from financial problems, as Musk confirmed several times that revenues on the platform represent half of what Twitter was earning.
Musk’s strategy is focused on subscription revenue, so limits have been placed on the number of posts that non-paying users can view daily.
In New Zealand and the Philippines, new users can publish posts and share others’ posts for a dollar annually. If they don’t pay, they will only be able to read posts, watch videos, and follow other users.
It seems that the matter is not limited to advertisers, but many users have turned their backs on “X” – although it is difficult to know the number – as the platform itself no longer publishes numbers regarding the number of users.
However, the Aptopia intelligence platform estimates that the number of daily users has declined from 140 million to 121 million since Musk’s acquisition, according to a report by the Big Technology blog.
The Israeli information gathering company “Similer Web” indicated that traffic on the “X” version on the Internet declined by regarding 15%. However, visits to Musk’s personal page more than doubled last September compared to the same month last year.
In light of the major changes, a viable alternative to the platform has not yet emerged.
The Threads application, which was launched by Meta, the company that owns Facebook, last July, got off to a strong start, but user activity quickly declined once more.
The Blue Sky app, whose design is similar to what Twitter used to be, attracted only one million users last September.
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