Guest article
Things have gone from bad to worse for Twitter Inc since Elon Musk’s voguish $44 Billion takeover.
Image Credits: British GQ
The past year has been muddled for both Twitter Inc and Elon Musk. Twitter is surrounded by controversies ranging from fake RIP trends and misinformation to leaked emails of Elon Musk. Even with growing monetary benefits, Twitter is being faded away from the popular social media culture.
How did it begin?
The downfall of Twitter can be traced back to November 2021 when Parag Agrawal was appointed as CEO of Twitter. Starting a dramatic sequence of events, Elon Musk offered a multi-billion bid for a 9% stake in Twitter, which would make him the largest partner of the micro-blogging site. He was offered to join the Board of Directors which he later declined. In April he proposed the acquisition of the company valued at $43 billion. But unpopularly, Twitter adopts a poison pill provision to prevent the Musk acquisition. A poison pill allows current stockholders to purchase additional shares at a discounted price, diluting the shares owned by Musk and making it more expensive for him to buy the company. Consequently, Musk backed off from the deal. This irked top executives of Twitter, who in turn filed a lawsuit against Musk on grounds of stock manipulation, forcing Musk to complete the deal.
Affairs after acquisition
"I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy," asserted Musk after the completion of the deal. (1) Being an advocator of free speech, he proposed an idea to unban former US President Donald Trump. He found a few discrepancies in the revenue model of the company, so he decided to transform the business model of Twitter entirely. And this was truly the beginning of the end.
In dire circumstances, Musk took a set of bold and unpopular decisions ranging from a hiring freeze to laying off employees en masse. This reversed investors' stance on Twitter’s potential growth. Aiming at the transformation of Twitter as a medium and promoter of free speech, Twitter laid off half of its 7,500-strong workforce in early November. 95% of Twitter India employees were fired in this process. An enthusiastic Elon Musk was seen in Twitter headquarters addressing his top executives over the new subscription policy. Previously, the company verified celebrities, politicians, journalists, and prominent figures on a case-by-case basis to prevent impersonation. Now, Twitter has simplified the verification (grey tick) process making it open for all users at a monthly payment of $8. But this innovation backfired on Twitter as numerous parody accounts of key figures and corporations were created. There was no clear distinctive feature between the original account and the parody account. A major Pharma company ‘Eli Lilly & Co’ lost 5% of its valuation due to a tweet from an account impersonating the official company handle. This has led to hampering the public perception of the micro-blogging site. Other features such as increasing character limit and permanent suspension of impersonation were introduced.
Hiccups for ‘new twitter’
On 17th November, RIP Jimmy Falon was #1 trending on Twitter. Jimmy tweeted in response to this trend and assured that he is alive. This incident points out loopholes in the new subscription strategy. There has been an increase in the number of fake accounts impersonating public figures and brands on Twitter. Impostor accounts posed as a slew of well-known people and companies, including football star Cristiano Ronaldo, gaming company XBOX, and even Tesla. Impersonation has always been a significant problem for Twitter, but with the advent of the ‘grey-tick formula’, this situation has aggravated to an unfamiliar extent. Eli Lilly & Co, a US-based drug manufacturing firm lost 5% of its value after a fake Twitter account tweeted that Insulin is free. This has forced Twitter to reinstate the second layer of ‘official’ tags. This subscription-verification policy ought to do further damage to individuals, corporations, and Twitter itself.
There has been a change in public perception of Twitter, Elon Musk, and even corporations associated with him like SpaceX and Tesla. Hundreds of Twitter employees have resigned ahead of the ‘extremely hardcore’ cultural reset of the company. The number of Twitter resignations is likely over 1,200, though unclear. Some crucial teams, such as the Database team that manages Twitter’s core system are completely gone. Elon Musk was scrambling to try and get top engineers to stay, meanwhile, the remaining employees expect the platform to start breaking soon. The uncritical nature of activities recently related to Twitter raises questions about the new ownership and management.
Alongside the promotion of free speech, curbing misinformation was among the central agendas of the incumbent board. But incidences of misinformation have been upward since the arrival of the new management. Many accounts have been permanently suspended in October than in the whole year so far. It was a response to curb impersonation and misinformation. Surprisingly, Twitter recorded profits in two successive quarters despite complications happening in the organization. After hitting an all-time low of $32 per share in mid-July, the valuation of the company has surged back recording 180% growth till mid-November. There have been instances of lack of consensus among the Directors, resulting in further hampering the progress of new initiatives of Twitter Inc. Intentionally leaked emails of Elon Musk addressing Twitter employees have recently surfaced on the internet which didn’t provide any comforting signals for Twitter Operations in near future. In a hysterical manner, there have been multiple incidents of Elon Musk (CEO, of Twitter) laying off Twitter employees on Twitter itself. Employees who were vocally critical of Elon Musk and contradicted his ideas on the platform were fired only through a tweet.
Regaining old glory
Twitter is achieving new monetary accolades each coming day, however, these profits are recorded due to the popularity of its CEO Elon Musk and a fragile ‘paid grey-tick feature’. It is very unlikely that high profits will sustain for a considerably long period of time, creating an urgent need for the organization to ideate a novel revenue structure. Organizational modification is a necessity for Twitter Inc if they wish to tackle forthcoming challenges arising due to amending Data Protection Laws across the globe. In a recent turn of events, Twitter has suspended the paid-grey tick (subscription) feature for iOS users as its misuse caused problems for major public figures and corporations. As of now, reverting back to the old verification procedure which verified only corporations and key public figures is the most feasible option. Adopting the earlier mechanism will stabilize the sinking ship by rectifying the problem of impersonation and will further curb the spread of misinformation. It will preserve the exclusivity of the ‘grey tick’ while refining the standards and content quality of the micro-blogging platform. The subscription policy shall be halted or it shall provide other exclusive features like stories and high-quality Twitter spaces. Instead of grey-tick, subscription benefits can provide other exclusive features subjected to the device OS. Payment of a monthly subscription fee shall be made mandatory for all verified key figures and corporations. Increased subscription charges will help in filtering out unnecessary verified accounts and ameliorate the content quality of Twitter. Users who wish to get verified shall pay a one-time fee and a monthly fee thereafter. Twitter had a few superior features in the past which it discontinued due to poor development and integration into the core Twitter system. Features such as Fleets ought to be reintroduced for the amelioration of the app. The existing live audio chatting feature ‘Space’ needs to be revamped by providing options for downloading chat rooms. Among the first measures under Musk was increasing the character limit for tweets from 280 characters per tweet to 460 characters per tweet. This will facilitate users by enabling them to read or write longer tweets than they previously did.
Image Credits: Twitter.com
It is famously said that “Twitter is run by the streets”, implying the dominance of general users. The initiative shall be taken to make Twitter popular amongst its users as it once was. Revoking the ban on former US President Donald Trump and American Hip-Hop artist 50 Cent has the potential to popularise Twitter among the common folks. The facet of an adroit Public Relations (PR) team is often neglected by social media giants. The damage has already been done to the serious public perception of Twitter, so it is in the best interest of Twitter Inc and Musk to break off the ongoing ‘comedy of errors. Internal affairs of the company shall not be made public by any means.
What does Musk intend?
Elon Musk is being made the centre of denunciation in popular culture hinting at the unprofessional handling of the ongoing situation. He has backed off his words on multiple occasions in the Twitter saga. Championing free speech during the takeover, Musk is being criticised for adopting a contradictory approach. Accounts condemning Musk’s recent actions are being permanently suspended indicating Musk’s hoax. However, there is still a prospect to reclaim the dominance that Twitter once enjoyed among its peers. Hardcore cultural reset and transforming the revenue structure might come as a shock to the senior employees, but this bitter pill needs to be swallowed.
The change in Twitter’s management raises a few grave questions before us. Is it too facile to manipulate the masses? Are social media giants too big to fail? Why is the spread of misinformation being casualized? And how can these platforms be put under control? What the future hold for Twitter Inc and Elon Musk will be clear in the upcoming months?
By Rakshit Sinha (Guest Writer)
The writer is pursuing B.A.(Hons) Political Science at Hindu College, University of Delhi.
Email: imraksinha011@gmail.com
Contact: 7666456800
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