Elon Musk has proven the sceptics wrong and actually finalised his plan to take over Twitter. This event is arguably the most important change in the realm of social media. Whether you support it or not, it will have long term consequences on the way Twitter operates and its role in today’s world.
Before the takeover, Twitter wasn’t the biggest among the social networks. The number of users is much smaller than with Facebook, Instagram or TikTok. It is even less so important in terms of finances. Twitter failed to bring profit and its importance lied mostly in the clout of people that have used it, making it attractive as mainly future source of revenue.
Power of such clout was best embodied in Donald J. Trump, whose unexpected success in 2016 White House run has often explained with his ability to connect with public sentiment via simple but effective tweets. After his ban in early 2021, power of Twitter was best seen in carefully orchestrated PR campaigns through professional troll farms or seemingly spontaneous mobs with ability to destroy people and organisations over things said long time ago or suddenly out of line with new standards of acceptable speech.
The latter, especially with arcane and incomprehensible mechanisms of content moderations, made Twitter the most powerful of all social networks. It could steer public discourse and mobilise public support in ways Facebook and TikTok could not. Many careers have been destroyed, and even some property and lives because of something started or maintained on Twitter. Some may argue this might include even certain wars that could, if taken to its extreme conclusion, end humanity.
Elon Musk’s main motive for taking over Twitter is arguably less about vanity or power, and more about common sense conclusion that his business empire would become worthless in case most of potential customers suddenly turn into radioactive corpses and survivors have to live under medieval or Neolithic conditions. Musk, like any good businessman, is trying his best to prevent such apocalyptic scenario from happening. Taking the reins of Twitter and trying to stop bellicose, jingoistic and increasingly irrational discourse affecting global policy is sensible and, under present circumstances, commendable source of action.
Much such discourse is being promoted by verified Twitter accounts or the (in)famous “blue checkmarks” which give opinions which the rest of the world is supposed to follow in the same way loyal members of Soviet Communist Party used to read articles in Pravda. Musk’s new Twitter regime is apparently trying to break the “blue checkmark” monopoly as the arbiters of truth and “correct” opinions.
Apart from ideologically diversifying “blue checkmarks” by introducing new algorithms and new, more transparent and less biased, criteria for account verification, Musk is going to make “blue checkmark” exclusively only to users willing to pay for the privileges. In other words, anyone who demands the clout that comes with verified profile will have extra resources. While this is unlikely to stop abuse, trolling and increasingly annoying terror of spam bots (something that specifically targetted Crypto Twitter), it will make the work of bad actors more expensive and complicated. And, in the end of the day, Twitter will improve its abysmal finances, even if disappoints users that have spent more than a decade enjoying its service for free.
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