Elon Musk is now the official owner of Twitter. Musk promises to make changes to the platform to improve its usefulness and functionality as a business model, but will his ideas hold up? This is what I think.
Financial decisions
At its current state, Twitter is not profitable. According to the New York Times, the platform receives 90% of its revenue from advertising. However, there are not enough advertisers to make large profits. In fact, Twitter was actually losing money and failed to make a profit from 2006 until 2018, according to Nasdaq.
To make the platform more profitable, Musk plans to cut reliance on advertising and implement another way of making revenue through subscription fees. With this new plan, advertising revenue is expected to fall to 45% of total profit by 2028, according to the New York Times.
This subscription fee would be a monthly fee to be a verified account. Previously, users would just have to apply and were approved without a fee if they were politicians, journalists, companies, celebrities, or other public individuals. Now users will have to pay for the blue checkmark by their display names.
Musk rumored this verified user fee to be about $20 a month, but he received mass amounts of criticism. In a response tweet from Nov. 1, he confirmed he will be going forward with the subscription service, but it would be reduced to $8 a month.
I think that companies and government figures will pay this monthly fee. It draws attention to their accounts as well as validates their authenticity. I am sure that companies that may be concerned about public approval would not want to risk being perceived as fraudulent. However, I do not think smaller celebrities and journalists will be as willing to pay.
Although I believe this is an effective method to increase Twitter’s revenue, I do not think it is a step in the right direction if the platform is worried about fraudulent accounts or misinformation. It is currently unclear what process users will have to go through to become verified.
Potentially, users may be able to purchase verification and pose as another public individual. Also, unverified public figures may be falsely accused of being fraudulent if they refuse to pay the fee.
Freedom of speech
Musk identifies as a “free speech absolutist” and plans to implement these values onto Twitter. According to NPR, he has outspokenly criticized policies that monitor hate speech, disinformation, and online abuse.
The new speech guidelines have yet to be made. Musk announced plans to develop a “content moderation council” to review online posts. However, it is safe to assume these guidelines will be less restrictive than they were previously.
He also plans to allow accounts that were permanently suspended back on the app. This means accounts that were banned for seriously offensive speech or misinformation will be allowed to post again.
This has potential to cause serious harm. In a mere 12-hour period after Musk’s purchase, the use of the n-word increased nearly 500% from the previous average on Twitter, according to the Network Contagion Research Institute. This type of language can be hurtful and offensive to users.
Additionally, laxed regulations on misinformation can have serious consequences. According to a KFF survey, nearly eight in ten believe or are unsure about at least one common falsehood about COVID-19. We have seen through the pandemic that undermining or believing false information about the virus has led to serious harm and death, so regulating this information may save lives.
However, there is something lost when speech is overregulated. We need to have the opportunity to be exposed to less regulated content and more controversial views to have the ability to understand others and develop our own opinions. It allows for the marketplace of ideas.
It will be interesting to see how these two major changes along with other smaller changes—including minimizing the number of bots—will change the platform. For now, we are left to wait and see.
