If you think Twitter was doing badly, think again!
Elon Musk just revealed that the platform’s growth numbers are at an all-time high, and his content moderation attempts were largely successful…as far as the numbers can show.
In his deck, which doubles as a roadmap, he also shared his vision for Twitter 2.0, an “everything app” that capitalizes on video content, frames advertising as entertainment, fleshes out the service with long-form tweets and encrypted DMs, introduces a paid model, and relaunches the verified blue check mark.
He also revealed that he’s hiring, after firing 65% of his employees.
The tweet attracted mixed reactions, with people swinging wildly between loving his ideas or hating them. Some users also commented on the ‘empty’ payment slide, using this as an opportunity to pitch their own payment solutions. Others, however, just made fun.
Some users also drew attention to the fact that the slide had a typo, but it is unclear if that implies the numbers were dated or someone forgot to update the slide from an older template. Either way, as a user puts it, Elon should cut his employees some slack.
A number of users also questioned Elon’s rather vague ‘Toxicity Score’ of 0.91 or higher, which is stated in the hate speech slide, noting that it lacks context and clarity into what constitutes toxicity.
Elon was also getting a lot of attention from the Web3 community, of whom a lot were ‘bullish’ on his ideas, while others spent their time pointing out the obvious: the many failing features of Twitter that are recently just starting to take place.
Yesterday, many users also reported that the block feature was failing, with many blocked followers being able to hold conversations and message each other after they were supposedly blocked.
It is unclear what the status of these features is on Elon’s development priorities, since he has not acknowledged them on Twitter just yet.
Story Update [December 1st, 2022]: Twitter published a blog post renewing the company’s dedication to public conversation.
In it, they assure their users that while none of their policies have changed, they are changing their “approach to experimentation”, opting for public testing instead.
They explain: “We believe that this open and transparent approach to innovation is healthy, as it enables us to move faster and gather user feedback in real-time. We believe that a service of this importance will benefit from feedback at scale, and that there is value in being open about our experiments and what we are learning.”
To this effect, they promised they will continue to fight hate speech, even as bad actors develop “new methods of disruption”.
The blog post reads: “We remain committed to providing a safe, inclusive, entertaining, and informative experience for everyone. We will continue to be transparent as we move through this transition period. And we will listen to you, the people who make Twitter what it is: the town square of the internet.”
This is a developing story.
If you see something out of place or would like to contribute to this story, check out our Ethics and Policy section.
